How to format a resume so the software can read it

Formatting advice usually arrives as a list of rules with no reasons, which makes it impossible to judge. So here is the reason first, once, and then the rules follow from it.

A parser reads your file as a stream of text, roughly top to bottom and left to right. Everything below is a case of a layout that disagrees with that.

The four things that cause real damage

1. Columns

A two column layout looks organised to you. To something reading left to right across the page, the right hand column is not a separate region, it is just more words on the same line. So the end of a job title can run into the start of a skill, and your reading order turns to soup.

Testing by resume tool vendors tends to show a clear gap between single and multi column parsing accuracy, with the skills section suffering worst. Those numbers come from companies selling a fix, so take the exact figures lightly. The mechanism is not in doubt, and it is easy to see for yourself. There is more detail here.

What to do instead: one column, full width. If you want the page to feel less bare, use spacing and a little bold, not a sidebar.

2. Tables

Tables are the most common way people lay out dates against job titles, and they are the worst offender. Depending on the parser, the cells in a row may be concatenated into one string, assigned to the wrong field, or skipped altogether. Some well known systems are known to handle tables badly even when the table is simple.

What to do instead: write the line as a line. Job title, company, then dates, separated by a comma or a bullet character. It reads the same and it survives.

3. Text boxes

A text box is not part of the text flow. It is an object sitting on top of the page. Several parsers skip those objects entirely, so whatever you put in one can vanish without trace. People often use them for exactly the things they most want read, like a summary or a list of core skills.

What to do instead: put the words in the document body.

4. Headers and footers

Many parsers ignore the header and footer regions of a document. That is a small problem if your footer holds a page number, and a large one if your header holds your name, email and phone number, which is a very popular template choice.

What to do instead: contact details go in the first few lines of the body, as ordinary text.

Three smaller things worth getting right

• Use ordinary section headings. Experience, Education, Skills, Projects. The field matching leans on them. A heading called Where I Have Been is a guess the software will sometimes get wrong.
• Do not put meaning in icons or bars. A row of four filled circles next to Python means nothing to a parser, and honestly it means nothing to a reader either. Say what you did with it.
• Avoid image only files. If you exported a design as a picture, or scanned a printout, there is no text to extract at all. A good check is whether you can select the words with your cursor.

What does not matter as much as people say

A layout that works

This is not a style, it is a shape. Everything else is decoration you can add back once it parses.

1. 1.Name on its own line, then contact details on the next one or two. In the body, not a header.
2. 2.A two or three line summary, if you have something specific to say. Skip it if you do not.
3. 3.Experience, newest first. One line per role for the title, company and dates. Bullets underneath.
4. 4.Projects, if they carry more weight than your jobs do. For students they usually do, and a first resume has its own shape.
5. 5.Skills as a plain comma separated list under a heading called Skills.
6. 6.Education last, unless you graduated in the last year or two.

How to know it worked

Do not take anybody's word for this, including mine. Open your file, select all the text, copy it, and paste it into a plain text editor. What you get is close to what a parser gets. If your phone number is missing, if your job titles have merged into your dates, if whole blocks are out of order, you have found your problem.