ATS resume advice hasn’t changed much in years: use a simple format, avoid tables, stick to standard fonts. Most of that still applies. But some things have shifted in 2026, and the old advice doesn’t cover what actually matters now.
What’s Changed in 2026
AI-Powered ATS Systems
Modern ATS platforms (Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, iCIMS) now use AI parsing that’s significantly better than the keyword-matching systems of 2020. They can:
- Parse multi-column layouts (but still imperfectly)
- Understand context, not just keywords
- Evaluate career progression and job relevance
- Score candidates against the specific job posting
This means formatting matters less than it used to — but content relevance matters more.
The Real Bottleneck
Most resumes that get “rejected by ATS” aren’t actually rejected by the software. They’re rejected by the recruiter who reviews the ATS-ranked list and picks the top 10-20 to read carefully.
Your format needs to work for both: clean enough for the machine to parse, and scannable enough for a human to evaluate in 6 seconds.
The Format That Works
File Type
- PDF for most applications (preserves formatting)
- DOCX when specifically requested (some older ATS systems prefer it)
- Never send image-based PDFs (scanned documents). The ATS can’t read them.
Layout
- Single column is safest. Multi-column works with modern ATS but can cause issues with older systems.
- Standard section headings: Work Experience, Education, Skills, Summary. Creative names confuse parsers.
- Reverse chronological order — most recent job first. Functional resumes are a red flag.
Typography
- Any standard font works: Arial, Calibri, Georgia, Helvetica, Times New Roman. The “use only these 3 fonts” advice is outdated.
- 10-12pt for body text, 14-16pt for section headings
- Bold for emphasis — italics and underlines parse fine but are less scannable for humans
What to Avoid
- Tables — Still the #1 parsing issue. Use plain text with bullet points.
- Headers and footers — Most ATS systems ignore them. Don’t put your contact info in a header.
- Graphics, icons, progress bars — Invisible to ATS. Replace skill bars with plain text (“Python — Advanced”).
- Text boxes — Content inside text boxes often gets missed entirely.
- Unusual characters — Stick to standard bullets (•), dashes (-), and pipes (|).
Content That Scores High
Format gets you parsed. Content gets you ranked. Modern ATS systems — and the recruiters using them — evaluate both. A tool like Resumes Coach measures this with a composite score: technical ATS compatibility and content quality, weighted equally. Here’s what drives the content side.
The Winning Bullet Formula
[Action Verb] + [What You Did] + [How/For Whom] + [Measurable Result]
Examples:
- “Led migration of 3 legacy services to microservices architecture, reducing deployment time by 60%”
- “Designed and shipped user onboarding flow serving 50K new users/month, improving activation rate from 23% to 41%“
Skills Section
List skills in a flat format, not in a table or grid:
Technical: Python, TypeScript, React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS (EC2, S3, Lambda)
Tools: Jira, Figma, Git, Docker, Kubernetes
Match the job description’s exact terminology. If they say “Amazon Web Services,” don’t just write “AWS” — include both.
Summary Section
Keep it to 2-3 sentences maximum. Use it to position yourself for the specific role:
Senior full-stack engineer with 7 years building B2B SaaS products. Focused on scalable backend systems and developer tooling. Most recently led a 5-person team at [Company] shipping billing infrastructure processing $4M/month.
Test Before You Send
Don’t guess whether your format works. Upload your resume and get your Resumes Coach Score — a breakdown of both ATS compatibility and content quality — in seconds. No signup required for a basic score. You’ll see exactly what the system can and can’t parse, which bullets need work, and the highest-impact fixes.