How to Get Your Application Past the ATS

You apply for a role that fits you well, and then nothing happens. No rejection, no reply. The usual suspect is the applicant tracking system, or ATS: the software most companies use to receive and sort applications. It gets blamed for a lot, and some of that blame is deserved, but most of what happens inside it is decided by people. Once you know how it works, you can stop guessing and change the things that matter.

What an ATS actually does

An ATS is a database with a workflow on top. Every application for a role lands in one list. Recruiters and hiring managers open that list, filter it, move candidates between stages and leave notes. Popular systems include Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, Ashby and SmartRecruiters, and they all do roughly the same job.

Three parts of that job decide whether your application gets seen:

• Parsing. The system reads your CV and turns it into fields: name, titles, companies, dates, skills. If it can’t read the file well, the recruiter sees a messy or empty profile.
• Knockout questions. The form may ask about work authorization, location, notice period or salary expectations. The company decides which answers remove an application automatically.
• Search and sorting. Recruiters often search the list for skills or titles, and many sort by date. An application that doesn’t contain the words they search for, or arrives late, can be technically present and practically invisible.

Make your CV easy to read for software and people

Parsing problems are the most avoidable reason to be overlooked. A CV that looks great as a design file can come out of the parser as a jumble of broken lines.

• Use a single column. Tables, text boxes and two-column layouts are where parsers mix things up most often.
• Save as PDF exported from a text editor, or as DOCX. Avoid a scanned image or a PDF made from a design tool with text turned into shapes.
• Use standard section names: Experience, Skills, Education. Creative headings are harder to recognise.
• Put each role on its own lines as title, company and dates, in the same format every time.
• Keep contact details in the body of the document, not only in the header or footer.

A quick test: copy all the text from your PDF and paste it into a plain text file. If it reads in the right order, a parser will most likely read it correctly too.

Use the language of the posting, honestly

When a recruiter searches for “React” or “product analytics”, your profile needs to contain those words if they describe your experience. This isn’t about stuffing keywords. It’s about naming your skills the way the company names them.

• Read the posting and list the tools, methods and responsibilities it repeats.
• Where you have that experience, use the same wording in your bullet points. If they say “TypeScript” and your CV says “typed JavaScript”, change it.
• Show the skill in context: one line about what you built or improved with it beats a long list of skills with nothing behind them.
• Match the title where it’s fair. If your role was “Software Engineer II” and the work was frontend, “Frontend Engineer (Software Engineer II)” helps both the search and the reader.

Answer knockout questions carefully

Knockout questions are the most common automatic rejection, and the easiest to get wrong in a hurry. Read each one slowly.

• Work authorization and location. Answer truthfully, but read the exact wording. “Are you authorized to work in the UK?” and “Will you now or in the future require sponsorship?” are different questions.
• Years of experience. Count relevant experience the way the role would, including freelance or open source work where it’s genuinely comparable.
• Salary expectations. If a number is required, give a range you’re comfortable with, based on what similar roles in that location pay.

Apply early

Timing is one of the few things that works in your favour without any extra effort. Recruiters review applications in batches, and many start with the ones that arrived first. Once they have a good shortlist, later applications get less attention, even when they’re strong. Our guide on how soon to apply after a job is posted covers what counts as early and what to do when you found a role late.

That’s why we mark roles we found before they spread to the big job boards. Early Window vacancies stay marked for 48 hours after we find them, which is exactly when an application has the best chance of being read.

Go around the queue: reach a person

The most reliable way past an ATS is not to depend on it alone. A short, specific message to the hiring manager or a referral from someone on the team puts your name in front of a person who can pull your application up and read it.

You still apply through the official form, because most companies need the application in their system. The message is what makes someone open it. We wrote a separate guide on how to message a hiring manager, with templates, and one on asking for a referral.

A checklist before you press Apply

1. The CV is a single column and its text copies out in the right order.
2. The skills and titles in the posting appear in your CV wherever they are true.
3. Every knockout question is read twice and answered precisely.
4. The application goes in while the role is fresh.
5. You know who the hiring manager is, and you have a short message ready.