Prepare your resume PDF for ATS
Get your resume PDF past Applicant Tracking Systems. Convert from Word cleanly, compress to fit upload caps, keep text selectable.
Most companies use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) — Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, Taleo, etc. — that parse your resume PDF before a human ever sees it. ATS parsers are notoriously fussy about PDF formatting. Common failures: text rendered as images (the parser sees nothing), fancy fonts that don't subset properly (text becomes garbled), tables and columns that confuse the layout reader (sections get jumbled), and oversized files that get rejected at upload.
PDFOnly's resume prep workflow: convert your Word resume to PDF cleanly (Word's native export sometimes adds bloat that can confuse parsers), compress to under 1-2 MB (most ATS reject files over 2 MB and many over 1 MB), verify text is selectable (key test: open the PDF and try to copy a paragraph; if the text comes out as readable characters, the ATS will see them too). Use this combination of tools to pass through ATS reliably.
Frequently asked questions
What file size do most ATS systems accept?
Most cap at 5 MB; many cap at 2 MB. A 1-page resume in standard fonts should be under 200 KB. If yours is larger than 1 MB, something's wrong — usually an embedded photo or unsubsetted decorative font. Compress with our tool to fix.
Should I submit Word or PDF?
PDF is safer. Word documents can render differently across versions of Word (your Calibri 11pt may show as Arial 12pt in the recruiter's older Word), shifting line breaks and breaking page count. PDF locks the formatting.
How do I check if my resume's text is ATS-readable?
Open the PDF, try to select and copy a paragraph. Paste into a text editor. If the text appears correctly, ATS will read it. If it's garbled or empty, your fonts aren't subset properly or the text is rendered as images — re-export from Word with default settings, or convert via PDFOnly which handles font embedding correctly.