Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Resume Templates: The Complete Guide + Free Templates

You can create an ATS-friendly resume yourself if you follow specific design criteria and choose the right keywords. The ultimate goal is to create a simple and efficiently organized resume that will be read easily by both an ATS and a recruiter.

Follow these steps to write your own ATS-friendly resume:

The job ad will give you a clue as to which keywords you should include in your resume. Take note of any repeated requirements and skills. If you possess them, include those keywords throughout your entire resume. Remember to use the exact wording. Some ATS won’t take into account synonyms. However, don’t simply copy-paste the job ad into your resume. Recruiters will notice this and consider it cheating.

Including the right keywords is not enough to craft a high-ranking ATS resume. The more of these keywords you have and the further atop the page these keywords sit, the higher the ATS systems will rank your resume.

Don’t fall for the old trick of hiding multiple keywords in white-color font on your resume. The ATS will flag these words, and when a recruiter sees this, they’ll know you tried to cheat the system. Instead, be strategic and populate your resume sections with keywords that reflect your top skills and achievements.

Always include the entire spelling and the abbreviation of a skill, role or certification when applicable. For example, if you’re an expert in search engine optimization, write this whole phrase and add the acronym “SEO” in parentheses at the end. Since you never know which form the ATS will favor, your safest bet is to include both.

Many people don’t know that the ATS also ranks your resume based on how long you executed your skills. For example, if you include customer service skills in a job you had for 36 months, the ATS will give you a higher score than if you only worked for 12 months at the job.

Always include the exact start and end date (month and year) of all previous jobs. If you include the year without the month, the ATS will award only one year of experience to the skills, even if you worked longer.

The ATS will ignore anything that is not text, so the system will disregard any valuable information you include in the form of an image. Tables and columns confuse applicant tracking systems too. They can’t understand the lines or text boxes that divide your information. Instead, the ATS reads the entire text from left to right, resulting in tangled sentences that don’t make sense.

Keep the titles of each resume section standard. This isn’t the place to get creative writing your resume. Atypical titles like “Where I Made an Impact” will confuse applicant tracking systems. ATS are programmed to identify traditional titles like Work History, Skills and Education to determine sections.

Bullet points are an excellent resource for organizing your information. ATS can read them perfectly as long as you use the traditional circle or square bullets; arrows or weird characters will throw off the ATS.

Applicant tracking systems favor the .doc file format. However, some ATS can read .pdf as well. Make sure you follow the digital application’s instructions and submit your resume in the requested file formats. If the digital application specifies which file formats are acceptable, you’re good with those. If they don’t specify, go the safest route and submit it as a .doc.

An easy way to test if your resume is ATS-friendly is by converting your document into a plain text file. The plain text version will disregard most of your resume’s formatting. With only the text, you’ll have a good idea of how the ATS will read your resume. If converting your resume to plain text didn’t eliminate any information, you’re good to go. If some sentences changed order and it’s hard to make sense of them, go back and edit your resume until you get it right.