Writing a CV That Gets Past Applicant Tracking Systems

You spent an evening on your CV. You chose a clean two-column layout, added a skills bar chart and saved it as a PDF with a nice font. Then you applied to twelve roles and heard nothing back. It is tempting to blame the market, and sometimes the market is the problem. But often the document never reached a human at all, or it reached them scrambled.

Most mid-size and large employers use an applicant tracking system, or ATS, to collect and sort applications. These systems are less mysterious and less ruthless than the internet suggests. They do not secretly reject 75% of candidates with a robot. What they do is parse your CV into fields, store it in a database and let recruiters search and filter. If the parsing fails, your experience is still there, just in a form nobody can find.

What an ATS actually does with your CV

When you upload a file, the system extracts the text and tries to map it to a structured profile: name, contact details, job titles, employers, dates, education and skills. Recruiters then search that profile. A search for “product analyst” with “SQL” in the last three years only finds you if the parser understood your job title, your dates and the word SQL.

The common systems differ in how forgiving they are, but they share the same weak spots. Tables, text boxes, headers, footers and images are the usual culprits. Text inside a graphic is invisible to the parser. Contact details in a page header are sometimes skipped entirely.

A quick test you can run tonight

Open your CV PDF, select all the text and paste it into a plain text editor. If the result comes out in the wrong order, with columns interleaved or your phone number missing, an ATS will probably have the same trouble.

Format: boring wins

A single-column layout with standard headings is the safest choice, and it is also easier for a tired recruiter to skim at 4:45 p.m. on a Friday.

Stick to the basics:

1. Use standard section headings
   • “Experience” or “Work experience”, not “Where I’ve made an impact”
   • “Education”, “Skills”, “Certifications”
2. Choose a common font at 10.5 to 12 points
   • Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, Georgia and Garamond all parse well
3. Save as .docx or a text-based PDF
   • Never a scanned image
   • Check the job posting, since some systems still prefer .docx
4. Keep dates in a consistent format
   • “March 2023 – June 2026” or “03/2023 – 06/2026”, but not both

Avoid skill rating bars, icons for phone and email, and logos of past employers. They look polished, but to a parser they are noise at best and missing data at worst.

Keywords without stuffing

Recruiters search using the language in their own job description. If the posting asks for “stakeholder management” and your CV says “worked with cross-functional partners”, a human will see the match and a keyword search might not. The fix is not to paste the job description in white text at the bottom of the page. Most systems flag that, and recruiters who notice it will discard the application.

Instead, read the posting and note the five to eight terms that appear more than once or in the requirements section. Use the exact phrasing where it honestly describes your work. For a data analyst role like this one, that might mean writing “SQL” and “Looker” explicitly rather than “query languages” and “BI tools”.

“I search our ATS by job title and two or three hard skills, nothing clever. The CVs that come up first are the ones that say plainly what the person did and with which tools. I have never rejected anyone for having a plain layout.”

Hannah Breitner, Senior Technical Recruiter at Norrland Payments

An ATS-friendly CV, line by line

Here is a plain-text version of a strong CV section. It parses cleanly in every system we tested, and it reads well to a person. Notice the consistent date format, the exact job titles and the numbers in each bullet.

JORDAN AVERY
Rotterdam, Netherlands | +31 6 1234 5678 | jordan.avery@example.com
linkedin.com/in/jordanavery

EXPERIENCE

Senior Product Analyst, Kestrel Mobility, Amsterdam
March 2023 – Present
- Built a churn model in Python and SQL that cut monthly churn from 4.1% to 3.2%
- Owned the weekly KPI dashboard in Looker, used by 60+ staff
- Ran 14 A/B tests on onboarding; best variant raised activation by 11.5%

Product Analyst, Fennel Foods, Rotterdam
September 2020 – February 2023
- Automated finance reporting, saving roughly 6 hours per week
- Partnered with marketing on a €250,000 paid acquisition budget

SKILLS
SQL, Python (pandas), Looker, dbt, A/B testing, stakeholder management

EDUCATION
MSc Econometrics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2020

How long should it be?

For most people with under ten years of experience, one page is enough. Two pages is fine for senior roles or careers with several distinct chapters. Beyond that, recruiters start skimming, and older roles add little. A reasonable rule is to give full bullets to the last 10 to 12 years and list anything older as a single line with title, employer and dates.

Regional differences worth knowing

Conventions vary more than people expect, and an ATS configured in one country may expect certain fields.

Market	Typical length	Photo expected?	Salary on CV?	Date format
United States	1 page (2 if senior)	No	No	06/2026
United Kingdom	2 pages	No	No	June 2026
Germany	2 pages	Often, but declining	Sometimes, e.g. €65,000 target	06.2026
Netherlands	1–2 pages	Optional	Rarely	06-2026
Australia	2–3 pages	No	Sometimes, e.g. A$120,000	June 2026

In the US, avoid including a photo, date of birth or marital status. Many employers will remove CVs with that information to avoid discrimination claims. In the UK, the government’s guidance on recruitment makes a similar point about personal details. In Germany, a photo is still common but no longer expected at most tech companies.

Tailoring without rewriting from scratch

Applying to 30 roles with 30 handcrafted CVs is not realistic. A better approach is to keep one master document with every achievement you might want to mention, then create a shorter version for each role family.

• Master CV: everything, three or four pages, never sent
• Role versions: one per type of job you apply for
  • Analytics roles lead with SQL, dashboards and experiments
  • Product roles lead with discovery, roadmaps and launches
• Final tweak: 10 minutes per application to swap two bullets and mirror the posting’s job title in your summary

This also helps when a posting closes quickly. Many listings on HireWise accept applications for only 14 to 21 days, and some close the moment they reach 200 applicants. If you see a role you like on a Sunday evening, you can send a tailored version by Monday at 09:00 CET instead of losing a week.

The cover letter question

Some systems have a separate field for a cover letter, and recruiters read it more often than people assume, especially for career changers. Keep it under 250 words. Say which role you are applying for, why this company in particular and one concrete example that matches the job’s main requirement. Paste it as plain text rather than attaching another file.

Keep your profiles consistent

Recruiters rarely stop at the CV. Before a first call, most will open your LinkedIn profile, and some will look at a portfolio or GitHub account as well. If your CV says “Senior Product Analyst, March 2023 – Present” and your profile says “Data Lead since 2022”, that mismatch raises a question you will have to answer. It does not have to be identical, but the titles, employers and dates should tell the same story. Set a reminder to update both whenever you change roles, and again before any serious job search.

Before you hit submit

Run through this short list for every application:

1. File name is clear, such as “Jordan-Avery-CV-2026.pdf”, not “final_v3_REAL.pdf”
2. Contact details are in the body, not the header
3. Job titles match what you actually held, with a clarifier if needed
4. Every bullet has a verb and, where possible, a number
5. The plain-text paste test still works

If you want more help, our help center article on account management explains how to update the CV attached to your HireWise account, and the job seeker FAQ covers file types and size limits. When you are ready, search open roles and try the new version on a posting that closes before 2026-08-15. You will find out quickly whether it is working.