ATS

ATS-friendly resume — what it means and how to make one

An Applicant Tracking System filters your resume before any human reads it. Here is exactly what these systems check, and how to pass.

Over 90% of large Indian employers — and most startups above 200 employees — use an ATS to filter incoming resumes. The system scans your resume for keywords, parses it into structured fields (name, experience, skills), and scores it against the job posting. If your resume does not parse correctly, you are rejected before a recruiter ever sees your name.

How ATS parsing actually works

The ATS converts your PDF or Word file into plain text, then tries to identify sections: contact details, work history, education, skills. It looks for standard headings ("Work Experience", "Education") and date patterns ("Jan 2023 – Dec 2024"). Content it cannot categorise is either discarded or placed in a catch-all "other" field that recruiters rarely read.

After parsing, the system compares your content against the job posting. It counts keyword matches — exact matches first, then synonyms (if the system supports them). The resulting score determines whether your application is surfaced to the recruiter or buried at the bottom of a 500-applicant queue.

What to do

Use standard section headings: Summary, Work Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications

Use a single-column layout with no tables, text boxes, or floating elements

Save as PDF — it preserves formatting while remaining machine-readable

Put your name, phone, email, and city at the top of page one

Use bullet points for achievements, not paragraph blocks

Mirror keywords from the job posting in your skills and experience sections

Use reverse chronological order — most recent role first

Include month and year for each role (e.g., "Jun 2023 – Present")

What to avoid

Headers and footers — many ATS systems cannot read content placed there

Images, logos, icons, or photographs — invisible to parsers

Two-column or sidebar layouts — content gets jumbled when read linearly

Fancy fonts, coloured text, or background shading

Abbreviations without the full form (write "Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)" the first time)

Special characters like arrows, stars, or decorative bullets (use plain round bullets)

Infographic-style skill bars or percentage ratings — ATS cannot parse "Python ████░ 80%"

ATS systems used by Indian companies

Workday

Used by: TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, Accenture

The most common ATS in Indian IT. Parses single-column PDFs well; struggles with multi-column layouts.

Taleo (Oracle)

Used by: Deloitte, Cognizant, L&T, Reliance

Older system. Requires very clean formatting — avoid tables, images, and unusual section headings entirely.

SuccessFactors (SAP)

Used by: Siemens, Bosch, Mercedes-Benz India

Handles standard PDFs. Match your skills list to the job posting — SuccessFactors weights keyword matches heavily.

Greenhouse / Lever

Used by: Razorpay, Swiggy, CRED, Flipkart, startups

Modern parsers, more tolerant of formatting. Still, a clean single-column resume parses most reliably.

Test your resume right now

Upload your existing resume to the ATS Checker — it runs 15 checks and shows you exactly what to fix. Then paste the job posting into the JD Matcher to find missing keywords.

Check your ATS score Build an ATS-safe resume