How to Convert Your Resume for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): The 3-Version Strategy That Actually Works
Applicant tracking systems (ATS) are awful.
You'll need three versions of your resume as you pursue your job search.
As much as AI and machine learning is changing the world, it still mucks up résumé content almost 100% of the time.
Its older cousin, dumb-tech ATS, isn't much better and hasn't been since the dawn of the internet.
If you've ever had to re-splice your résumé after you submitted it, this article is for you. It's also for you if you're a private client of mine. You may have received, or soon will receive (check your Library of Master Documents), the three résumé versions you'll need to make it through the ATS gauntlet, which include:
Résumé "for humans"
Résumé "for ATS"
Résumé "for text boxes"
Either way, I've prepared the below content as a companion to your job search.
Applicant tracking systems (ATS) are awful.
What's an ATS?
Oracle defines applicant tracking systems as "software for recruiters and employers to track candidates through the recruiting and hiring process". Job Scan calls the ATS "a human resources software that acts as a database for job applicants."
On the other side of all that tracking sits you and I.
From the job seekers on the other side of the ATS, we define applicant tracking systems as "the machines companies, recruiters, and other hiring entities use to parse, sort, and spit out our résumés to eventually be reviewed human reader."
Reaching a human reader has been the purpose of an ATS since the dawn of the internet. Alas, while most technology has since evolved, I can't say it has become any easier to make it through an ATS.
The article that follows is based on my bias after more than twenty years in this business, drawing on my perspective as a recruiter, a career coach, and a resume writer, and even as a job seeker in the early days.
The problem:
The first, lesser-known problem with an ATS is that nobody seems to know precisely how they work.
Amazingly, in my experience, many of the same recruiting, hiring, and technology development entities that create, use, and recommend ATS systems, don't understand ATS themselves.
I've worked privately with countless CHROs, heads of HR, and recruiters; four ATS developers (including one in AI/ML); and one Big 4 consultant who spent 10 years of his career advising Fortune companies which ATS' they should use for off-shoring, and to a head they said, "So, Jared. How do I get my resume through an applicant tracking system?"
To which I always reply, "If you're asking that, how can the rest of us know?!"
The solution I present later in this post "strikes an educated center" and works for most of my clients, but it isn't foolproof. I recently helped a higher ed client enter her materials online and it felt very much like we were spelunking through a mess built by well-intentioned undergrads. Simplistic assumptions and biases were hard-coded into the experience.
The second, slightly more glaring problem with applicant tracking systems is called out by this CNBC article, claiming that "75% of resumes are never read by a human". The same article asserts that "95% of Fortune 500 companies use an ATS to streamline the recruiting process and keep up with the thousands of applications" they receive weekly.
Keep in mind that every article you read about applicant tracking systems is either written by a company or a brand with a specific agenda (e.g., readers' eyeballs, ATS sales). Or it's written based on interviews with people just like me who contribute the best practices we've learned from the field, from industry associations, or on our own. Because none of us have a crystal ball into every ATS, our words of experience hold a lot of truth, but again, they're incomplete.
Why it should matter to you, right now:
There are limited perfect-for-you jobs at any given time.
You've got limited time to pursue them.
Do everything you can to make every submission count.
Yes, it feels great to upload a resume (at least in the early days), but how frustrating to realize that a significant segment of your careful submissions aren't even reaching a human reader?!
"But," you say, "I'm dutifully spending my time networking! I don't have to worry about applicant tracking systems!"
Good! Let me applaud you! Loudly! That's precisely where my private clients should spend 85% to 95% of their active and stealth job search time!
Even networkers aren't immune to ATS submissions. Indeed, you may encounter a time when the intermediary holder of the next step says, "Great, glad to get your resume! Now, here's a link, can you upload it for me?" I even had a COO years ago come back (when I experimented for half-a-second with not providing ATS conversion) and the recruiter was asking for an ATS-friendly version.
What you should know:
There's hope, and there's a method, but first there's a bit of detail that you might like to know as you allocate precious time searching for a job.
Clearly, getting your résumé through a company's ATS is critical, and this entire post is about giving you the best chance at making sure your résumé, when submitted through an applicant tracking system, reaches a human being.
Let's start with a bit more detail around what you're dealing with. And let's set the right expectations while we're at it.
There are many ATS systems and developers in any given year.
I've always anecdotally heard that there are roughly 100 ATS around the world in any given year. A google result at time of this publishing, however, gave a different figure. Search results said things like this: "Before we introduce you to the 60 prevalent applicant tracking systems (ATSs)" and "Best 91 free applicant tracking systems" (yikes, 91 free? how many paid?).
There is apparently no standard for properly designing an ATS.
Which means there's no bullet proof resume format to be sure your resume is perfectly ingested by every ATS. (If you know otherwise, please point me to the solution. I'm awaiting that splendid day.)
I can attest to this because I occasionally help clients when they first start a job search. Worst case, you upload your resume and it goes into a black hole with a simple, "Thanks for submitting your resume!" Best case, you get a preview page to review and make corrections inside of tiny text boxes.
Even LinkedIn's "use LinkedIn to apply" contains inherent problems.
At least LinkedIn is abundantly clear about which sections, forms, and fields you can use, but the metrics by which a senior leader will be evaluated aren't fodder for the entire world. This is a hill I die on every day. A leader's resume should be closely held and shared for the purposes of specific leadership roles, not broadcast for scrutiny by anyone with an internet connection. I go to considerable length discussing this throughout this website and in my work with private clients.
What We Did: Converting Your Resume from Human to Machine
Now let me walk you through exactly what we did during our session—the technical details that will help you understand why each version exists and how to use it strategically.
Step 1: We Removed All Borders and Visual Elements
The first thing we did was remove all of the borders in your resume. Borders look like lines to us—decorative elements that organize information visually. But machines don't ingest borders well. By the way, if you had columns or graphics in here as well, the machine would not ingest those either.
We typically don't have those in executive resumes anyway, but it's worth noting.
What we removed:
Horizontal lines separating sections
Text boxes
Multi-column layouts
Decorative graphics or icons
Special symbols (unless they're standard bullets)
Step 2: We Added Clear Section Headers
I removed the word—well, the border around "Experience," I should say. The word "Experience" is important because it's orienting to the machine. The ATS is often looking for that particular word.
And I put a colon after it because we no longer have that border there anymore to create visual separation.
What replaced decorative elements:
Clean section headers followed by colons (like "Professional Experience:")
Single-column layout
Standard bullet points
Straightforward text formatting
Step 3: We Restructured Each Job Entry in a Specific "Stacked" Format
The next thing we did is ensure all of the experience in the experience section—the company name, the city/state, the job title or titles, and then the dates—are stacked in a very specific order.
The Standard Order:
textCompany Name | City, State Job Title(s) | Start Date – End Date • Achievement bullet • Achievement bullet
This stacked format helps the ATS correctly parse:
Where you worked
What your title(s) were
When you worked there
A lot of applicant tracking systems want just one job title per entry. And there are a lot of reasons for that. A lot of applicant tracking systems aren't thinking about what it's like to be at the same company for a long time.
One of my clients was at the same company for 15 years and had 13 job titles. We're not going to have a resume that has 13 job titles and a story for each of those. So we collapsed it—not unlike we did for your roles.
Step 4: We Handled Multiple Job Titles at One Company
If you held multiple positions at one company, we have two options:
Option A: Single Entry with Semicolon Separator
We list them in a single row, separated by semicolons:
textDirector of Program Management; Contract Consultant | 2018 – 2024 • Achievement bullet covering both roles • Achievement bullet covering both roles
This tells the ATS: "This person held multiple roles at this company during this timeframe," without confusing the system with fragmented employment records. So far, this seems to work well.
Option B: Separate Entries for Detailed Storytelling
If we wanted to tell a more detailed story (which we keep for the human version), we could create separate entries in the ATS version:
textCompany Name | City, State Director of Program Management | 2020 – 2024 • Achievement bullet specific to this role • Achievement bullet specific to this role Company Name | City, State Contract Consultant | 2018 – 2020 • Achievement bullet specific to this role • Achievement bullet specific to this role
This mirrors how LinkedIn handles multiple positions at the same employer.
Step 5: We Addressed Your Sabbatical Strategically
Now for a sabbatical, you don't have a job title right now. And so for the ATS version, what I'm going to do is suggest that we put the headline "Operational Transformation and Efficiency Leader" in that place—because you are that regardless, right, whether you're on a break or not.
The alternative to this would be you could put "Director of Program Management," but that's not true because you are not a director. This headline is who you are functionally, even if it's not your official title.
Why this matters:
A blank job title field creates ambiguity for both the machine and any human who reviews it later. "Operational Transformation and Efficiency Leader" communicates your value and expertise clearly.
Step 6: We Optimized Titles for Context and Keyword Parsing
This title is a little longer than some. So it's still not too long to be ingested by most ATS in my experience. But what we're trying to do here is get this through a machine and make sure that the machine understands context.
Here's something critical: Modern ATS systems need context to understand your qualifications. A vague title like "Consultant" or "Analyst" doesn't tell the machine anything useful—you could be a consultant in finance, you could be a consultant in healthcare, whatever.
Weak: "Consultant | 2022 – 2024"
Strong: "Healthcare IT Transformation Consultant | 2022 – 2024"
I changed from "space pipe space" to "comma space" to bring the descriptor closer to the title. When you provide context—even within the title itself—you increase the likelihood that the ATS will match you to relevant roles.
Step 7: We Acknowledged the Generative AI Problem
There was a time—just as a historical note—when machines couldn't read text if the descender on a "g" hung down into an underline. We would remove those underlines. That is not a problem anymore that I've seen.
But here's a NEW problem:
The Generative AI Issue:
AI has been embedded into applicant tracking systems for a long time. Just not generative AI. And one of the problems traditional AI had is if you mention another company inside of the body of your resume—for instance, down here where it says "Royal Bank of Canada"—traditional AI used to just leave it in place.
Generative AI is now saying, "Oh, this person worked for Royal Bank of Canada." And it's going to create a brand new entry and try to cobble in some sort of malarkey.
Our Solution:
This is completely an industry standard example and I'm not backing down from including important context like this. What it means is in those instances when generative AI agents make that mistake, you just have to correct it in the text box verification step.
Another Example:
Let's say, for instance, that you're the head ethicist at a big technology company and you are partnering with the CTO or CPO. And you say, "Partner with the Chief Product Officer to—" well, sometimes the ATS will say, "Oh, you ARE the Chief Product Officer" and create another entry.
My hope is that they get those fixed. But those are important signals and important things we need to include in this story. So I'm not giving them up.
The Three Versions: When and How to Use Each
There was a training I took through the National Resume Writers Association some years back, and it gave this scaffolding for the preparation of applicant tracking systems. And it has worked in most cases for my clients.
I have wondered sometimes, why doesn't this work in every case? And I've now worked with six applicant tracking system developers, and also a client at one of the big consulting firms that sold applicant tracking systems to CHROs.
Every one of those people, including the ATS developers, said to me: "Hey, Jared, so how do I get my resume through an applicant tracking system?"
And if that isn't just telling of the whole thing.
The ATS developers are trying to develop something that is unique. They're trying to build a better mousetrap so you'll buy their applicant tracking system. But that necessarily involves creating things that are slightly different.
Another example: A client was applying to a well-known university. She said, "Can you help me with this? I can't get it in." And I struggled with it as well. I thought, you know what? I have seen moments when the university says to some undergrads, "Hey, develop this applicant tracking system"—because they don't see the importance of what you and I know. And so you have undergrads developing something that's going to then be used by everybody.
Those are two examples of why we have a lot of problems with applicant tracking systems.
I've seen Workday—if you ever have a chance to evaluate it on its ATS capabilities, Workday is excellent. It's really, really excellent at ingesting properly formatted resumes.
For My Private Clients: You'll Get Three Versions When We Finish
Here's what each version is for and when to use it:
Version 1: Résumé for Humans (the prettiest one)
Resumes are a beautiful thing. To me at least. Most of my clients come to that conclusion slowly as we work together. Some never stop seeing it as a necessary evil.
No matter how one looks at their resume, the fact remains: the pretty one your design isn't the same one you should use (at least not as of this writing) when responding to an online job ad. More on that below under the two "For Machines" categories.
But this section is about the pretty version.
When to use the "for humans" version:
When sending your résumé to, or through, people you know
To others in your broader network
If a human being will see it first, this is the version you will want to send
Email directly to a recruiter or hiring manager
Networking situations where you're handing it to someone
When a human explicitly asks for your resume
LinkedIn connections or personal introductions
Version 2: Résumé for ATS (for machines)
This version is less pretty than your "for humans" version because it cannot—ATS cannot read graphics, lines, colors, page numbers, and similar design choices. In fact, the last time a (Fortune 10) client checked using her company's ATS system (Taleo), it wouldn't even read the resume until we removed the lines from it!
Here's when to use your ATS version:
Use the "for ATS" version of your resume if a website has an "upload here" button, or an similarly named function. Unfortunately, these versions aren't as beautiful. They should contain zero columns, text boxes, or headers, because of the 100+ ATS systems in the world today, most can't read past the left border or a column or text boxes, and even fewer can read into a header.
Also, the company name, city/state, job title, and dates on each job entry need to be stacked on separate lines. This is how a majority of applicant tracking systems (ATS) parse data (including use of the word "Experience" before your current or most recent job.)
Unfortunately, there are roughly 100 ATS developers worldwide and they have yet to agree on a standard. Happily, most of today's applicant tracking systems (ATS) let you review and make corrections before finalizing a submission.
When to use it:
Any online job application portal
Career pages with upload fields
LinkedIn job applications
Any situation where you see "Attach your resume here" or "Upload your resume"
Important distinction about "attach": I have to be careful about the word "attach" because if you attach it to an email, you can include the human version. If you're attaching it to like a LinkedIn post, that would usually be called an upload—you would upload it.
So: if you know it's going to be seen by a human being, use the human version. If you're networking and you send it to somebody, they send it to somebody else, that person gets in touch with you and they're like, "Could you upload this to our ATS for us?"—that resume has been in play in the human version and it's done its job. But then they're saying, "Hey, stick this in our system for us." Because by the way, on their end, it's a pain to do it, and so they're just putting that on you.
Version 3: Résumé for text boxes (also for machines)
This is the ugliest version you will ever see; however, it's an approximate "close" to what a recruiter or hiring manager on the receiving side of your resume will see.
While it looks like you typed it on a manual typewriter in 1984, this design contains a deceptively simply-to-executive feature that will make your resume as palatable as possible if you have to copy-paste the whole thing over into a tiny text box.
Contained in Notepad, it doesn't (or shouldn't) have a right margin.
This single feature allows blocks of text to wrap properly within their destination, wherever or whatever that destination will be. With a highly formatted Word document (and you should be using Word or PDFs or your Pages or Google Docs versions, never mind, just stick with Microsoft Word), a simple copy paste of your resume will turn into a jagged mangle of broken paragraph returns.
So...
The "for text boxes" version is used in the rare case that you need to copy paste your résumé into an online text box. It looks like it was typed in 1985, but if you were to copy-paste the Word or PDF version of your document, the result would be a visual disaster. This text-only (aka, ASCII) version has a variety of important attributes for text-box pasting, including no right margin, which means your content will wrap naturally into the destination box.
When to use it:
After uploading to a portal that asks you to verify information in text fields
When text appears broken or wrapped incorrectly in form fields
As a reference when copying and pasting into text boxes
Never shared with anyone—it's your internal reference only
Why This Version Exists:
So what we're doing first is we are removing all of the borders. Now, for someone like you who's technically savvy, you could bypass this all together. And this may be beneficial because remember, when you make one edit in the human version, you need to make the same edits across the other two.
But if you are like, "Okay, I'm going to copy this and then I'm going to go into the text box and paste special"—that bypasses the whole thing. Which is, by the way, what I would do if I were doing that myself. Paste special text with no format.
Word Wrap Settings:
By the way, there's actually a setting right at the top in the View menu where you can turn off word wrap—but you DO want it enabled because you want it to wrap to whatever the size is of the destination box.
The version for text box corrections is not going to be seen by humans or anyone but you. It's going to be your tool to do this work. So I solely use it when I can see the output of uploading the file and it's misformatted, and I need to clean it up.
The Human-on-the-Hook Strategy
So we're recording now what we're doing—we're converting the resume from master version for humans into a master version for applicant tracking systems, and then we're later going to switch into master version for text box corrections.
The purpose we're recording this is so that I can have AI write a blog post clients can reference.
Here's the real power of having multiple versions:
Your goal: Get your resume through the ATS machine.
Your REAL goal: Get a human to look at it.
Once a human is "on the hook"—meaning a recruiter has reached out, a hiring manager is reviewing your profile, or you've been invited to interview—that's when you send the human version.
The sequence looks like this:
You apply: Upload the ATS version to the job portal
System processes it: The ATS scans, parses, and ranks your qualifications
Human reaches out: A recruiter or hiring manager contacts you
You respond: Now you can share the polished human version in email, LinkedIn, or however they request it
Once a human is engaged, formatting ceases to matter. They want to see your story told beautifully, not how the machine interpreted it.
You have a human on the hook. That's when you send the human version. You have the upload applicant tracking system version for when you're submitting through portals.
How to Manage Your Three Versions
Version Management Best Practices
Before starting to apply to a job opening, try to determine which version of your resume will be needed (likely the ATS version, with the ATS version on standby in case you need to repopulate text boxes after the ATS ingests your resume and asks you to verify or finish filling in text boxes.
If you find that the online system asks to upload your resume to the system, odds are high that your resume will be ingested and parsed by an ATS.
The problem is that it might not populate the correct fields.
While AI is getting better, sometimes machines will read company names written into the body copy of an entry (e.g., vendor companies) will trigger a brand-new entry, assuming that you worked for the vendor company. This is just part of the mess.
MY VERSION MANAGEMENT SOLUTION:
Create a folder with the name of the opportunity so you can easily reference it later.
Copy and paste your three resumes into your new folder.
If you update your resume, be sure the other versions are also updated.
Pro Tips for Version Control
Here's something important to know: Once you have three versions, you need to maintain consistency across all of them.
If you update an achievement bullet point in one version, you'll need to make that same update in the other two. This is why some technically savvy clients prefer to maintain just the ATS version and use Paste Special to handle text box issues—it reduces the version control burden.
The trade-off? It requires a bit more technical know-how during the application process.
Your Action Plan
How can I tell if I'm about to submit my resume to an ATS?
If a job ad is posted online and you see, "Upload your resume here," you can assume it will be parsed by an ATS before it ever reaches a human reader.
For Every Application:
See "Upload Resume" field? → Use your ATS version
Emailing a recruiter directly? → Use your human version
Networking conversation? → Use your human version
System asks to verify fields in text boxes? → Reference your Text Box Corrections version, using Paste Special
Text appears broken in a form field? → Use your Text Box Corrections version to paste clean text
Maintenance:
Keep the human version as your primary document
When you make updates, update the human version first
Then update the ATS version (removing formatting, simplifying structure)
Update the Text Box Corrections version only if you plan to use it actively
When in Doubt:
Email a human recruiter your human version. They'll tell you if they need anything else. Once a human is engaged, you've won the important battle—the ATS has done its job.
Headline: Use Your “For Humans” Resume Whenever You Have a Chance
It's time to fall apoplectic because I'm about to dish some inside baseball.
If your resume is ingested and spat out for a human being to read, it will be ugly.
Use your "for humans" resume whenever you have a chance. Even if you've previously sent the ATS and/or text-only versions, take a printed version of the "for humans" resume with you when meeting people for meetings and interviews.
No right margin so it wraps to its destination. Be sure your Notepad (or the equivalent program your computer uses to open the file) has "Word Wrap" checked in the "Format" menu bar.
The Bottom Line
Your resume isn't one document. It's a strategic toolkit designed to succeed at every stage of the modern job application process.
The human version tells your career story. The ATS version gets your story past the machine. The Text Box Corrections version ensures clean formatting when the system asks for verification.
Understand each version's purpose, use them strategically, and you've given yourself the best possible chance of reaching the human beings who can actually hire you.
About Jared
Jared Redick is a San Francisco-based executive coach, communications strategist, and brand development consultant with more than 25 years of experience helping companies and high-level professionals position themselves for growth and change. Get career coaching here, or co-develop your professional identity here.