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ðŸ"" The ATS Resume Checklist
20 proven checks to get your resume past robot screeners âEUR" and into human hands
☠Check each box. Miss 3+ and your resume gets auto-rejected by most ATS.
âš¡ Format & File Type
☠.docx or PDF âEUR" ATS-friendly. Never .png/.jpg (zero parsability).
☠Standard fonts âEUR" Arial, Calibri, Roboto. Fancy fonts = unreadable scan artifacts.
☠No columns or tables âEUR" ATS reads leftâ*'right, topâ*'bottom. Multi-column = scrambled.
☠No headers/footers âEUR" Text in them is invisible to 90% of ATS engines. Put contact info in body.
☠Single-column layout âEUR" One continuous vertical flow. Sidebars get ignored.
🎯 Keywords & Content
☠Job description keywords âEUR" Mirror the JD's top 10 skills & tools verbatim.
☠Standard section headers âEUR" "Experience", "Education", "Skills". No "My Journey" âEUR" ATS won't find it.
☠Action verbs âEUR" Led, Built, Optimized, Designed, Negotiated. (not: "Was responsible for")
☠Quantified results âEUR" "Increased sales 34%", not "Increased sales". Numbers boost ranking.
☠Industry acronyms âEUR" Include full + acronym: "Search Engine Optimization (SEO)". Both get matched.
🧹 Clean Up
☠No graphics/logos âEUR" Icons, progress bars, headshots confuse parsers â*' auto-reject.
☠10âEUR"15 pt font âEUR" Smaller = unreadable scan. Larger = artifacting.
☠No text boxes or WordArt âEUR" ATS can't extract text from embedded objects.
☠Consistent date format âEUR" "Jan 2020 âEUR" Mar 2023" throughout. Mixed formats confuse parsers.
☠Contact info in body âEUR" No header/footer. Name, phone, email, LinkedIn, location âEUR" top of page.
âœ... Final Sanity Checks
☠1 page (or 2 max) âEUR" 10+ years exp = 2 pages. No more. ATS truncates past ~2.5.
☠Run through Jobscan / Skillroads âEUR" Match rate should be ≥80%. If not, rework.
☠Plain-text test âEUR" Paste your resume into Notepad. Anything garbled? Fix it in the original.
☠No personal photos âEUR" Bias liability. Most ATS auto-strip them; some reject.
â'" EXTRA CRITICAL: Save as "FirstName_LastName_Resume.pdf" âEUR" never "Resume_FINAL_v3(2).pdf".
ðŸ'¡ Pro Tip: Submit your resume as plain .docx (~20% higher ATS passthrough than PDF). But if the JD says "PDF only" âEUR" always follow the instruction.
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