Resume and ATS Guide
Most of what circulates about applicant tracking systems is exaggerated or out of date. These pages cover only what can be verified: what the software does with your resume, and what that means for how you write it.
In the US and UK a photo can get your application set aside, while in much of Europe it is expected. Here is what drives that difference, and what a photo does to machine reading.
Read the guideWhat an ATS does with your file, which formatting choices break that process, and how to see what the machine extracted instead of guessing.
Read the guideBoth formats parse well when built properly, and both can fail. What decides the outcome is how the document was made, not its extension.
Read the guideWant to measure your own resume?
Upload a PDF or Word file and see what a parser reads from it. No signup, nothing stored.