Contents7 sections
  1. What "parsing" means
  2. What breaks parsing
  3. About the "75% of CVs are rejected by robots" claim
  4. The five-minute test for your own CV
  5. A note for Germany and the EU
  6. Where CareerSide fits
  7. Common questions
CV basics

How an ATS reads your CV, and what makes it unreadable

An applicant tracking system does not look at your CV the way you do. It reads the text underneath, in order, and tries to guess which part is your job title, which is a date and which is a skill. A beautiful layout can come out the other side as a jumble. This guide shows what the software sees and how to check your own CV in five minutes.

CareerSide team Updated 6 min read
parsed fieldsnameemailjob_titleemployerskills
A designed CV being scanned by an ATS: the name and employer are stored, while the email in the page header and the skills table come out empty.

Key takeaways

  • An ATS turns your CV into data fields: name, contact, job titles, employers, dates, skills, education. Recruiters then search those fields.
  • Tables, text boxes, columns, icons and content in the page header are the usual causes of scrambled or missing fields.
  • Use a text-based PDF or a .docx, standard section headings, and one column. Keep design for a portfolio, if your field uses one.
  • The "75% of CVs are rejected by ATS" statistic has no reliable source. The actual risk is a CV the software cannot read, which then never turns up in a recruiter's search.

What "parsing" means

Parsing is the ATS extracting the text of your CV and sorting it into labelled fields, so recruiters can search and filter candidates.

When the parser works, a recruiter can search for "forklift licence" or "SAP" and find you. When it does not, your experience might be stored under the wrong label, or dropped. You never see the result, and nobody tells you.

What you designed
What the parser stored
NameAnna Beckerread correctly
Email(empty: it was in the page header)lost or garbled
Job titleShift Lead Logistics 2019lost or garbled
EmployerNordhafen Logistics GmbHread correctly
Skills(empty: they were in a table)lost or garbled
An illustrative example of a designed CV after parsing.

The example above is typical of what goes wrong: contact details placed in the page header are skipped, a two-column row is read straight across and merges the title with the date, and a skills table is ignored.

What breaks parsing

Anything that hides text from a straight top-to-bottom read: tables, text boxes, multiple columns, headers and footers, images of text, and icons in place of labels.

  • Tables and text boxes. Many parsers read them out of order or skip them. Skills grids are the most common casualty.
  • Two or three columns. Some parsers read across the page, merging a date from the left column into a sentence on the right.
  • Page headers and footers. Put your name and contact details in the body of the page, not in the Word header area.
  • Images and icons. A phone icon instead of the word "Phone", a skill-level bar chart, or a logo with text in it carries no readable text.
  • Scanned or "print to image" PDFs. If you cannot select the text in your PDF, neither can the ATS.
  • Creative section names. A parser may not recognise "Where I've made a difference" as a section. It will recognise "Work experience".

About the "75% of CVs are rejected by robots" claim

That figure has no trustworthy source. The risk worth worrying about is a CV that never shows up in a recruiter's search.

Myth

75% of CVs are rejected by the ATS before a human sees them.

What is actually true

This number is repeated everywhere. It is usually traced to a 2012 claim by Preptel, a company that sold CV-optimisation software, and no study behind it was ever published. Many ATSs do not automatically reject on a "score" at all. Rejections come from knockout questions and from people. An unreadable CV mostly loses visibility.

There is real evidence that automated screening can filter out qualified people. A 2021 Harvard Business School and Accenture study, "Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent", found that many employers believe their own systems screen out capable candidates over rigid criteria, such as gaps in employment. The worry is reasonable; the 75% figure is not evidence for it.

The five-minute test for your own CV

Copy all the text out of your CV into a plain-text note: if the result is complete and in a sensible order, a parser will very likely read it too.

  1. Select all, copyOpen your PDF, press Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on a Mac), and copy.
  2. Paste into plain textUse Notepad, TextEdit in plain-text mode, or an email draft set to plain text.
  3. Read it top to bottomIs your email there? Is each job title next to its employer and dates? Are your skills there as words?
  4. Fix what is missingMove header content into the page body, turn tables into simple lists, and flatten columns into one.
Try thisA parser-friendly CV

A note for Germany and the EU

In Germany a photo on the CV is still common but not required, and it does not help an ATS read anything; the Europass format is widely used but hard to tailor.

If you include a photo, keep it small and in the body, not as a background. The Europass CV is widely used in the EU, but its fixed structure makes tailoring harder and it tends to run long. A simple one-column CV with the same sections is easier to adapt for each job.

Where CareerSide fits

CareerSide builds its tailored CVs to clear ATS filters, so the formatting problem is handled before you apply.

Common questions

Should I send my CV as PDF or Word?
Either works with most modern ATSs, as long as the PDF is text-based (you can select the text). If the job ad asks for a specific format, use that one.
Can an ATS read a two-column CV?
Some can, many read it out of order. A single column is the safe choice. If you keep two columns, run the copy-paste test and check that dates and titles stay together.
Do ATS systems reject CVs with photos?
A photo does not usually cause a rejection, but it adds nothing the parser can read. In Germany photos are common but not required, and many international employers prefer CVs without them.
Is "ATS-friendly" the same as stuffing keywords?
No. ATS-friendly means readable: plain structure, standard headings and real text. Keywords matter for search, but stuffing unrelated terms, or hiding them in white text, is spotted by recruiters and can get you dismissed.

Sources

  1. Harvard Business School & Accenture, "Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent" (2021)
  2. Europass CV (European Commission)

Written by the CareerSide team. Published , last updated .

Put it into practice

Get a CV the parser can read

Upload your CV once. CareerSide scores every new vacancy against it and drafts a tailored version, built to clear ATS filters, for the ones you pick. Free starter pack, no card.

Check my matches free See how it works
Searches 20+ boards as often as every 4 hours
Scores every match and says why, skill by skill
Tailors your CV from what is already true
Never applies without you you approve every application

Free starter pack at signup · no card

Keep reading
CV basics Tailoring your CV for each job, without lying Tailoring means describing your real experience in the employer's words and leading with what matters to them. A method with before-and-after examples. 4 min readRead the guide Applications Why sending the same CV everywhere stops working A generic CV matches no recruiter search in particular. Why mass-applying goes quiet, and how to tailor applications without it taking all evening. 4 min readRead the guide Start here How hiring works now: a map for anyone who has been away Software reads your application first, one CV no longer fits every job, and many vacancies never reach the big boards. What changed and what to do. 5 min readRead the guide