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Will an applicant tracking system read your resume?

Most large employers run resumes through an ATS before a person sees them. Check yours in seconds: what it can read, what it misses, and what to fix. Free, and nothing is stored.

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Or paste its text instead

Your file is read once and deleted straight away: nothing is stored, and there are no accounts. By checking a resume you agree to the terms; check only your own resume, or one you have permission to check.

What it checks

  • Can the text be read at all (or is it a scanned picture)?
  • Layouts an ATS jumbles: columns, tables, text boxes, graphics
  • Contact details, and whether they're hidden in a header
  • Standard section headings: Experience, Education, Skills
  • Dates written one consistent way
  • Icons, emoji and characters that come out as boxes
  • Fonts, length, and the job posting's keywords

Your privacy

Your resume is read on our server, checked, and deleted when the page loads: it isn't saved, shared, or used to train anything. There are no accounts and no tracking. The only things kept are a short-lived count of checks per connection, to stop abuse, and anonymous daily totals (how many checks, the average score) with nothing about you.

A best-effort guide: every ATS is different, so no checker can promise how a particular one will read your resume. Privacy details · Why we check what we check.

Why we check this

No ATS maker publishes a full list of what its parser can't read, and they all differ. These checks follow what ATS makers say in their own help pages, what university career centres advise, and research on automated screening. Sources are numbered below; we review them twice a year.

Readable text
Greenhouse lists resumes "uploaded as an image, rather than a document" among those its parser can't read; a scanned page is an image. Santa Clara's career centre: make sure your PDF "is not image-based." [1][7]
Columns
Greenhouse names "resumes that have a columned layout" as a parsing problem; Ohio Northern advises a "single column, left-aligned format." [1][5]
Tables and text boxes
Greenhouse lists "complex resumes with tables, headers, and footers"; Ohio Northern says no tables, multiple columns or text boxes; Santa Clara: tables "might not be parsed correctly." [1][5][7]
Images and graphics
Greenhouse lists "graphics, photos, or word art" as a reason a parse fails; Santa Clara says to avoid complex graphics. [1][7]
Contact details in the header or footer
Greenhouse names "the name and contact information in the header, footer, or text box"; Ohio Northern: contact information "in the body of your resume, not in the header or footer." [1][5]
Email and phone
An ATS builds your candidate record from them: Greenhouse says a resume without enough information may not import. [2][1]
Section headings
Greenhouse lists "resumes without clear sections"; Ohio Northern recommends standard headings (Summary, Education, Experience, Skills); Santa Clara: custom headings "might not be parsed correctly." [1][5][7]
Dates written one way
Lever works out years of experience "based on parsed dates from the candidate's resume"; Santa Clara: "inconsistent date formats can lead to errors in parsing"; DePaul: keep key dates consistent. [4][7][6]
Icons, emoji and unusual characters
Greenhouse says a resume may not import if it has "characters that aren't recognized by our text parsing technology"; Ohio Northern and Santa Clara both say to avoid special characters. [2][5][7]
Fonts
Ohio Northern and Santa Clara both advise standard fonts. Joined letters and fonts not embedded in a PDF are our own check: they change the text a parser pulls out, which is what you see under "What an ATS sees". [5][7]
Keywords from the job posting
DePaul: most ATS sort resumes by keywords from the job description, "looking for exact matches"; Lever lets recruiters search the resume's text. Ohio Northern: never add skills you don't have. [6][4][5]
File type and size
Greenhouse accepts .doc, .docx, .pdf, .rtf and .txt, and can't parse a resume over 2.5 MB (this check takes up to 2 MB). [3][1]
Length and LinkedIn
Not ATS rules: Ohio Northern notes an ATS won't penalise length, but people read the resume next. These are flagged for that reader, only ever as "Improve", never "Fix". [5]
Why it matters
In the Harvard Business School and Accenture study, over 90% of employers using recruiting software used it for the first cut, and rigid filters screened out many qualified people. [8]

Sources

  1. Greenhouse Support: Unsuccessful resume parse
  2. Greenhouse Support: Why didn't the candidate's resume import correctly?
  3. Greenhouse Support: Supported formats for resumes, cover letters and other candidate uploads
  4. Lever Help Center: Using Advanced Search and Rediscovery
  5. Ohio Northern University, Polar Careers: A Guide to Adapting Your Resume for the Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
  6. DePaul University Career Center: Optimize Your Resume for ATS Software
  7. Santa Clara University Career Center: Common ATS Resume Formatting Mistakes
  8. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge (J. B. Fuller, Nov 2021): How to Tap the Talent Automated HR Platforms Miss: on the HBS and Accenture study "Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent"

Sources checked October 30, 2026. ResumeSanity isn't affiliated with or endorsed by any of them; names belong to their owners.