Formatting Rules That Get You Past the ATS
Most ATS rejections come down to a handful of formatting choices. Fix these and your parse rate jumps. No magic keywords needed.
Use a single-column layout for experience
Two-column resumes look modern but older parsers read top-to-bottom, left-to-right, and end up interleaving your job titles with your skills sidebar. The cleanest fix is a single-column work-experience block. You can keep a header strip or a sidebar for contact info if you really want one, but never put bullets in it.
Stick to standard section headers
ATS systems look for "Experience," "Education," "Skills," "Certifications." Creative headers like "My Journey" or "Where I've Worked" sometimes cause the parser to drop the section entirely. Boring headers win.
Keep contact info out of the document header
If your name, email, and phone live in the Word header, many parsers don't see them. They read the body of the document only. Put contact info as plain text at the top of the body.
Export PDF from Word or Google Docs, not Canva
PDFs from design tools often store text as outlined shapes. The bytes look fine to a human reader. The ATS sees a blank page. If you must use a design tool, copy the rendered text into a Word document and export the PDF from there.
Do this, not that
Single-column layout, standard section headers, PDF exported from Word.
Two-column Canva design with text in a sidebar.
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