How to Beat the Applicant Tracking System in 2024

You’ve applied to 60 jobs and heard back from three. Your resume looks great, your experience is solid, and yet nothing seems to land. The problem usually isn’t your qualifications — it’s that an applicant tracking system never let a human see your resume in the first place.

Roughly 75% of large companies use ATS software to filter candidates before a recruiter ever opens a resume. This guide breaks down exactly how these systems work and what you need to do to get past them, step by step.

Understand What an ATS Actually Does

An applicant tracking system isn’t some mysterious robot rejecting you on a whim. It’s a database that parses your resume into fields — name, job titles, dates, skills, education — and then either ranks or filters candidates based on keyword matches to the job description.

Some systems (like Workday or Taleo) are stricter parsers that can mangle creative formatting. Others (like Greenhouse or Lever) are more forgiving but still rely on keyword matching for recruiter searches. Either way, if your resume’s content or structure doesn’t match what the system expects, you can get buried even when you’re the best candidate in the pile.

Example: A marketing manager applies for a “Digital Marketing Manager” role but her resume only says “Marketing Lead.” The ATS searches for “Digital Marketing Manager” and related terms, doesn’t find a strong match, and ranks her below less-qualified applicants who used the exact title.

Mirror the Job Description’s Language

This is the single highest-leverage thing you can do. ATS software and recruiters both search for specific terms pulled directly from the job posting. If the posting says “cross-functional collaboration” and your resume says “worked with other departments,” you’re losing a match point for no good reason.

• Copy the job description into a document and highlight repeated skills, tools, and phrases.
• Check both the “requirements” and “responsibilities” sections — keywords often hide in both.
• Use the exact phrasing where it’s honest to do so. If they say “project management,” don’t write “managed projects” and hope the system connects the dots.

Example: A job posting lists “Salesforce,” “CRM management,” and “pipeline forecasting.” If your resume says “managed customer database and sales tracking,” rewrite it to “Managed Salesforce CRM, including pipeline forecasting and lead tracking” — same truth, far better keyword alignment.

Use a Clean, ATS-Friendly Format

Fancy templates with columns, text boxes, graphics, and tables might look impressive to a human, but many ATS parsers read them incorrectly or skip them entirely. If your work history is sitting in a sidebar text box, some systems literally cannot find it.

• Stick to a single-column layout.
• Use standard section headers: “Work Experience,” “Education,” “Skills” — not creative alternatives like “My Journey” or “Where I’ve Been.”
• Save as a .docx or a text-based PDF (not a scanned image or a PDF exported from a design tool with embedded graphics).
• Avoid headers/footers for critical info like contact details — some parsers skip these entirely.

Example: A candidate used a two-column resume template with skills in the left sidebar. When parsed, the ATS jumbled the skills section into the middle of his job descriptions, making his experience read as nonsensical. Switching to a single-column format fixed it instantly and he started getting callbacks within two weeks.

Put Skills and Keywords Where the System Expects Them

Beyond mirroring the job description, include a dedicated “Skills” or “Core Competencies” section near the top of your resume. This gives both the ATS and the recruiter a fast, scannable list of your relevant hard skills — software, certifications, technical abilities, methodologies.

• List 8-12 relevant skills, not a generic laundry list of everything you’ve ever touched.
• Include both the acronym and the spelled-out version of technical terms (e.g., “Search Engine Optimization (SEO)”) since you don’t know which version the ATS is scanning for.
• Update this section for each application rather than using one static list for every job.

Example: A data analyst applying to a role requiring “SQL” only had “Structured Query Language” written out in her resume. Adding both versions ensured she’d match regardless of which term the system searched.

Get Your Job Titles and Dates Right

ATS software is picky about structure, especially around work history. Inconsistent date formats, missing employment dates, or unconventional titles can cause parsing errors that make your resume look incomplete or confusing, even if the content is strong.

• Use a consistent date format throughout (e.g., “03/2021 – 06/2023”), not a mix of “March 2021” and “6/23.”
• Include both your actual job title and, in parentheses, a more standard equivalent if your internal title was unusual — e.g., “Growth Ninja (Marketing Manager).”
• List employment in reverse chronological order; most ATS platforms and recruiters both expect this and it’s the format they’re built to parse correctly.

If you’re a career changer, resist the urge to hide dates or get overly creative with a functional resume format. ATS systems and recruiters both find these harder to parse and often more suspicious than a straightforward chronological layout with a strong summary at the top.

Common Mistakes That Sink an ATS-Friendly Resume

Even candidates who know the basics often trip up on details that quietly tank their match rate. Watch out for these:

• Keyword stuffing: Pasting in every keyword from the job description in a hidden white-text block or a giant list at the bottom. Modern ATS software and recruiters can both spot this, and it looks dishonest rather than optimized.
• Uploading the wrong file type: Some older systems still choke on certain PDF exports. If a job posting requests .docx specifically, don’t override it with a PDF because you think it looks better.
• Using images for text: Logos, icons, or text embedded in graphics (like a skills bar chart) are invisible to most parsers. That “visually impressive” skills chart could be costing you matches.
• Generic, one-size-fits-all resumes: Sending the identical resume to every job posting without adjusting keywords for each specific role. Even small tweaks — swapping “team leadership” for “cross-functional leadership” to match a posting — can meaningfully change your match score.
• Ignoring the job title mismatch: Not including the target job title anywhere on your resume. Many systems weight the title field heavily, so if you’re a “Sales Rep” applying to a role titled “Account Executive,” find a natural way to include that phrase.

Test Before You Submit

You don’t have to guess whether your resume will actually parse correctly — you can check before you hit submit. Run your resume through a free ATS scan tool, like the one CareerLift offers, to see how it parses your content, flag missing keywords against a specific job description, and catch formatting issues before a real application is on the line.

It’s also worth doing a manual gut-check: copy your resume text into a plain text editor. If the content comes out jumbled, out of order, or missing sections, that’s roughly what many ATS parsers are going to see too.

Keep the Human Reader in Mind Too

It’s worth remembering that beating the ATS is only step one — a real person still has to be convinced to call you in. Don’t sacrifice clarity and impact for keyword density. A resume that’s technically ATS-optimized but reads like a robotic list of buzzwords will lose the recruiter’s interest the moment it lands on their desk.

The best resumes thread the needle: relevant keywords woven naturally into strong, specific accomplishment statements (with numbers where possible), clean formatting that both a parser and a human can read easily, and a clear narrative about what you’d bring to the role.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a good resume still get rejected by an ATS?

Yes. Even strong candidates get filtered out if their resume uses different terminology than the job posting, has formatting the parser can’t read, or is missing a dedicated skills section. This is why tailoring your resume for each application matters more than having one polished “master” version.

Do I need different resumes for every single job application?

Not from scratch, but you should tweak your master resume for each role — adjusting keywords, the summary, and skills section to match that specific job description. Spending 10-15 minutes per application on this usually pays off far more than mass-applying with one static resume.

Are PDF resumes bad for ATS systems?

Not necessarily. Most modern ATS platforms handle text-based PDFs fine. The problem is PDFs created from heavily designed templates with columns, graphics, or text boxes, which can confuse parsers. If a job posting requests a specific file type, always follow that instruction.

How do I know if my resume is actually ATS-friendly?

Check that it uses a single-column layout, standard section headers, and no images or text boxes for key content. Then test it with a free ATS scan tool to see how the system parses your information and whether your keywords match the target job description.