What is an ATS?
ATS stands for Applicant Tracking System. It's software that companies and recruiters use to manage job applications. When you submit your resume through a job portal — Naukri, LinkedIn, Indeed, or a company's own careers page — your application usually enters an ATS first, before any human reads it.
The ATS does several things:
- Parses (reads and extracts) your resume's text, categorising information into fields: name, email, job titles, companies, dates, skills, education
- Scores your resume against the job description, looking for keyword matches
- Ranks your application relative to other applicants
- Allows recruiters to filter and search through hundreds of applications
If the ATS can't parse your resume correctly, or if your resume scores below the threshold for keyword matching, it gets filtered out. The recruiter never sees it.
How common is ATS filtering?
Very common. Any company receiving more than 20–30 applications for a role uses some form of ATS. For MNC roles in India — at companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Flipkart, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Deloitte — the ATS is standard. Naukri and LinkedIn both have their own screening tools built into the platform. Even smaller companies using platforms like Freshteam, Lever, or Recruitee are running ATS filtering.
The estimate that 75% of resumes are filtered before reaching a human is cited widely. Whatever the precise number, the practical implication is clear: a resume that isn't ATS-compatible is at serious risk of never being read.
What makes a resume ATS-incompatible?
The most common problems:
Complex formatting. Two-column layouts, tables, text boxes, graphic elements — ATS parsers are text extraction tools. They follow a linear reading path. Non-linear layouts confuse the parser, which may extract your information in the wrong order or miss sections entirely.
Images and icons. Circular profile photos, skill bars, company logos, graphical dividers — none of this is readable as text. It's ignored by the parser. If your contact information is in a designed header with icons, the parser may not extract your email and phone number correctly.
Non-standard fonts. Decorative or custom fonts can confuse text extraction. Stick to Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman, or Helvetica.
Missing keywords. Even a cleanly formatted resume can fail if it doesn't include the terms the ATS is looking for. The ATS matches your resume against the job description. If you describe your experience in different words than the job posting uses, you score lower.
Headers and footers. Contact information placed in Word headers/footers often doesn't parse into the ATS correctly. It may be categorised as header metadata rather than contact fields.
What an ATS resume looks like
An ATS-optimised resume is deliberately minimal. It prioritises machine readability over visual appeal:
- Single column, top to bottom
- Clean fonts, black text, white background
- Standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills — not creative names)
- Contact information as plain text at the top
- No tables, images, graphics, or text boxes
- No header or footer elements
This looks simple. It is simple. That's the point — simple formats parse correctly.
ATS vs human reader: a balancing act
Here's the tension: a resume optimised purely for ATS parsing looks bare and unappealing to human readers. A resume designed to impress a human — with clean layout, visual hierarchy, and design elements — often fails ATS parsing.
The solution is two documents:
- An ATS resume (plain, single-column, keyword-rich) for submitting through job portals
- A portfolio website (professionally designed, narrative) for sharing with recruiters directly and for when they Google you
This is exactly what notapdf generates. One source — your existing resume or LinkedIn profile — produces both: a portfolio website for human impressions and an ATS resume for portal submissions. Start at notapdf.com.