Did you know that 80% of resumes never reach a human recruiter? If you’re applying to jobs and getting automated rejection emails, your resume may be failing the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) test before it even reaches a hiring manager.
In today’s competitive job market, understanding how Applicant Tracking Systems work is no longer optional- it is essential. In my previous blog, we covered the basics of ATS algorithms, including how they screen resumes and why readability matters.
In this blog, we’ll break down how ATS software reads, evaluates, and ranks your resume, and more importantly, how you can optimize your resume to improve your ATS resume score and increase your chances of landing an interview. Whether you’re looking for an ATS-friendly resume template for a Product Management, Customer Success, Sales, HR, Finance, Legal, or Healthcare role, or tips on incorporating industry-specific ATS keywords, this guide has you covered. By the end, you’ll have actionable strategies to ensure your resume gets past the ATS gatekeeper and lands in front of human eyes.
How Do Applicant Tracking Systems Actually Work?
An ATS works like a search engine for recruiters, scanning resumes for relevance before ranking them. The process can be divided into two phases:
- Phase 1 (Read): ATS extracts and organizes the text content of your resume
- Phase 2 (Evaluation): ATS evaluates how closely your resume aligns with the job description
Phase 1: The Read Phase
What Makes a Resume ATS-Friendly?
ATS-friendliness relates to the first phase of ATS screening, where the Applicant Tracking System attempts to extract and understand the text content from your resume file. Before an ATS can evaluate whether you’re qualified for a job, it must successfully “read” your resume.
This phase is more critical than most people realize. 75% of applications are rejected by Applicant Tracking Systems simply because of readability issues. If the ATS can’t parse your content properly, your qualifications become irrelevant because the system will never see them.
The following factors can impact ATS resume readability i.e. ATS-friendliness:
1. File format → Low Impact
Which File Format Should I Use for My Resume?
PDF, DOCX, or TXT are all acceptable formats. Most ATS can read these standard file types equally well, so there’s no significant advantage to one over another.
However, never submit your resume as an image file (PNG or JPEG) or a PDF generated from an image (for example exporting a resume designed on a platform like Figma). These formats make your text invisible to ATS systems.
2. Icons and Graphics → High Impact
Is It OK to Use Icons and Graphics in My Resume?
No, avoid graphics and icons entirely. Although these can make your resume visually appealing to humans, ATS software cannot read text embedded in images. For example, if you use a company logo instead of writing out the company name, an ATS will miss the company information and may disregard that entire work experience.
In the resume example shown above, the ATS would read the experience as follows:
Mar 2021 – Present
Senior Product Manager
Successfully rolled out the first shipment worth $100M of H100 GPU chips to Hyperscalers
Reduced power consumption of H100 GPU chips by 25% compared to the initial designs
It would completely miss the company (Nvidia) details.
3. Tables and Columns → High Impact
Can I Use Tables and Columns to Format My Resume?
No, avoid tables and columns. Most ATS programs read from left to right, top to bottom. If your resume is formatted in columns, the ATS may scramble the order of your content, making it unreadable.
In the resume example shown above, an ATS would read the resume as follows:
Nvidia Successfully rolled out the first shipment worth $100M of H100
Senior Product GPU chips to Hyperscalers
Manager Reduced power consumption of H100 GPU chips by 25%
Mar 2021 – Present compared to the initial designs
As you can see, the information would seem completely garbled to an ATS. And since it can’t identify the company, position and dates from the experience, it would most likely ignore the information.
4. Font Choice → Low Impact
Does Resume Font Impact ATS Friendliness?
Font choice has minimal impact on ATS readability. While fonts like Arial or Times New Roman in sizes 10-12 are professional standards, they don’t affect ATS parsing. You can use your judgment to demonstrate your style without worrying about ATS friendliness.
5. Sections and Headers → High Impact
How Should I Structure Resume Sections to Ensure ATS Readability?
Use standard section headers like “Experience”, “Education”, “Skills”, and “Professional Summary” with clear separation. ATS software categorizes your content into these sections, so using recognizable headers and proper visual separation between sections ensures key information isn’t overlooked.
Phase 2: The Evaluation Phase
How Do Applicant Tracking Systems Score and Rank Resumes?
Once the ATS has successfully read your resume, it scores it based on how well it matches the job description. This scoring mechanism creates hierarchical candidate listings that prioritize applications for human review.
Modern Applicant Tracking Systems use Natural Language Processing (NLP) which allows them to recognize semantic relationships between terms. But exact keyword matching remains the most critical component for most ATS. The following factors influence your resume’s ATS score:
1. Keyword Weight/ Importance
Do All Job Keywords Contribute Equally to My ATS Score?
No, not all keywords contribute equally to your ATS score. Simply having a keyword in your resume isn’t enough- an ATS determines keyword importance based on how frequently each term appears in the job description.
Example: If a job description contains the following keywords:
- Product Management (3% of all words)
- Analytics (2% of all words)
- JIRA (1% of all words)
Then the keyword ‘Product Management’ is 1.5x as important as the keyword ‘Analytics’ and 3x as important as the keyword ‘JIRA’.
Note: When identifying keywords, an ATS does not consider conjunctions like “because”, “and”,” since” etc. or prepositions like “under”, “above”,” in”, “at” etc. These are ignored as part of the Stop Words Removal step in the NLP workflow.
2. Relative Keyword Frequency
Is Listing a Keyword Just Once Enough for Passing ATS Screening?
Simply listing a keyword once may not be optimal. Applicant Tracking Systems score your resume based on relative keyword frequency i.e. how often each keyword appears in your resume compared to how frequently it appears in the job description.
For the above example, let’s assume that the frequencies of the aforementioned keywords in your resume are as follows:
- Product Management: 4%
- Analytics: 0%
- JIRA: 0.5%
The relative frequency for each keyword i.e. the keyword score would be as follows:
- Product Management: 100 (since this meets or exceeds the 3% frequency in the job description)
- Analytics: 0 (since it’s not present in the resume)
- JIRA: 50 (since it is only 50% as frequent in your resume as the job description)
3. Keyword Context
Can I Simply List Keywords in My ‘Skills’ Section? Or Do I Need to Use Them in Sentences?
You can’t just list keywords in your Skills section and expect optimal results. Context matters significantly for ATS scoring. Keywords used within sentences or bullet points (for example, in your Experience or Professional Summary section) score much higher than standalone keywords listed in the Skills section.
Using the aforementioned keywords for example, let’s consider two candidates who list the same set of keywords but in different contexts.
Candidate 1
Senior Product Manager @ Expedia (Jul 2022 – Nov 2024)
- Led a cross-functional team in product management, leveraging analytics tools like Mixpanel and JIRA for workflow optimization.
Candidate 2
Skills
- Product Management
- Analytics
- JIRA
Candidate 1 will score higher than candidate 2 since they have used the keywords more contextually i.e. in proper sentences.
Overall ATS Score
How Is the Overall ATS Score Calculated?
The overall ATS score is the weighted average of the product of the keyword score and keyword context weight. For example, if there are 2 keywords, the score would be:
[ Importance (Keyword 1) x Score (Keyword 1) x Context Weight (Keyword 1) + Importance (Keyword 2) x Score (Keyword 2) x Context Weight (Keyword 2) ] / [ Importance (Keyword 1) + Importance (Keyword 2) ]
For the above examples, let’s assume that an ATS has a context weight of 0.5 for a standalone keyword and 1.0 for a keyword that is used in a sentence. The ATS scores for the 2 candidates would be as follows:
Candidate 1
[3x100x1 + 2x0x1+ 1x50x1] / [3 + 2 +1]
= [300 + 0 + 50] / 6
= 350/ 6
= 58
Candidate 2
[3x100x0.5 + 2x0x0.5+ 1x50x0.5] / [3 + 2 +1]
= [150 + 0 + 25] / 6
= 175/ 6
= 29
This example illustrates why an ATS would recommend candidate 1 over candidate 2 based on how each candidate has incorporated job specific keywords into their resume.
Takeaways: How to Improve Your ATS Resume Score
- Use ATS-friendly formats: Stick to .docx or PDF (not image-based)
- Avoid problematic elements: No graphics, tables, or columns
- Structure properly: Use clear, standard section headers with proper spacing between sections
- Include relevant keywords: Use industry-specific terms from job descriptions
- Write contextually: Incorporate keywords naturally in full sentences rather than standalone lists
Final thoughts: Automate ATS Optimization with Upplai
Optimizing your resume for ATS screening can feel overwhelming, but Upplai makes it easy. Our AI-powered platform:
- Analyzes your resume readability score and flags issues.
- Identifies the most important ATS keywords for your job title.
- Offers instant ATS scoring feedback so you can refine your resume in real time.
Don’t let an ATS stand between you and your dream job. Try Upplai today and take control of your job search!