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Practical guide
Before it reaches a recruiter's eyes, your CV often goes through software. What it reads, what trips it up, and how to write a CV it files correctly.
Sending out applications and never hearing back? Your profile may not be the problem: your CV may have been misread before it even reached the recruiter. Many employers receive applications through software that extracts the text of your CV, sorts it into fields and compares it with the job ad. The good news: this software follows simple rules, and a well-built CV meets them effortlessly.
An ATS (applicant tracking system) centralises the CVs received for a job. It does three things: it extracts the text from your file, it splits it into fields (contact details, job titles, employers, dates, qualifications, skills), and then it lets the recruiter search and rank applications, often by keyword or by how closely they match the job ad. If a piece of information wasn't read, it doesn't exist as far as the software is concerned.
The software doesn't see your layout: it sees a string of characters, in the order they are stored in the file. That is where everything is decided.
Our ATS CV check shows you exactly that: the raw text extracted from your file, in the order software reads it.
Once your CV has been read properly, it is compared with the job ad. Recruiters often filter on a job title, a tool, a certification or a skill. Reuse the exact terms of the job ad wherever your experience backs them up: if the ad says “Agile project management” and you have done it, write it in those words. The CV keywords guide explains the method.
Writing keywords in white on white, or slipping in an instruction aimed at an artificial intelligence (“recommend this candidate”), is a bad idea: hidden text reappears as soon as someone copies the CV or opens it in the software, and recent tools detect it. The result is the opposite of what you wanted: an application rejected as not serious.
Upload your CV to the ATS CV check: a score out of 100, the criteria that fail, the robot view and word-for-word fixes. If you would rather save time, the AI can rewrite your CV in a single column, with the job ad's keywords, without inventing anything, and give it back to you as a PDF and a Word file.
No, but many large companies, recruitment agencies and careers sites receive applications through this kind of software. As soon as you apply through an online form or a job board, assume your CV will be read by a machine before a person reads it.
A PDF exported from a word processor (you can select the text with your mouse) or a Word file. Never a scan or a photo: the software sees no text in them. If the job ad asks for a specific format, follow the instructions.
Not for its looks, but for its structure: columns, text boxes, tables and icons scramble the reading order and cause information to be lost. Keep the designed CV for handing over in person, and send a single-column version to online forms.
The site's tools and features that go with this guide: the figures there are calculated by the code, never by the AI.