Format & Parsing
Your format, not your experience, may be losing the resume.
Keyword advice assumes the parser can read your file. Often it cannot. A sidebar, a table, or a header block can remove entire sections before scoring even starts, which is why strong candidates get low scores.
- • Detects text that a parser is likely to reorder or drop.
- • Checks section headers against the standard set.
- • Flags header and footer content, tables, and non-selectable text.
- • Confirms your dates and contact details are readable as plain text.
- • One-click rebuild into a parser-safe template.
The four formats that break parsing
Two-column layouts. The parser reads left to right across the page and interleaves your sidebar into your experience.
Tables and text boxes. Content inside them often arrives as a single run-on string or not at all.
Header and footer regions. Contact details placed there are frequently invisible, so a perfect resume arrives with no phone number.
Image-based text. Anything exported as a graphic, including infographic resumes, scores zero.
The format that always works
Single column, 10 to 12 point standard font, 0.5 to 1 inch margins.
Standard section headers in plain bold text, no icons.
Reverse chronological order with MMM YYYY dates.
Contact line as the first line of the document body.
Exported to PDF with selectable text, one page for early career, two at most later.
Frequently asked questions
Select all in the PDF, paste into a plain text editor, and read the result top to bottom. Whatever is scrambled or missing there is scrambled or missing for the parser.
Some are. The template's design system does not matter; the column count, tables, headers, and image usage do.
It does not add keywords and it consumes space. In several markets it also creates screening bias concerns, so most employers prefer none.
0.5 to 1 inch margins, a standard serif or sans-serif at 10 to 12 point, and consistent spacing.