What ATS Systems Actually Look for in 2023

The ATS landscape in 2023 looks significantly different from even two years ago. Platforms like Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, and iCIMS have upgraded their parsing capabilities, and the old advice — stuff keywords, use standard headers — is now only part of the picture. Here's what these systems are actually evaluating.

Parsing Quality: The Foundation of ATS Success

Before any scoring happens, an ATS must successfully parse your resume — extract your name, contact information, work history, education, and skills into structured data fields. Parsing failures are invisible: your resume may appear to submit successfully while the ATS has extracted only fragments of your content.

Parsing success depends primarily on file cleanliness. Single-column layouts, standard fonts, conventional section headers, and no tables or text boxes give parsers the cleanest possible input. The moment you introduce design complexity, you introduce parsing risk.

What Gets Scored After Parsing

Keyword Relevance

Most ATS platforms score keyword relevance by comparing your resume against the job description. Modern systems use semantic matching — recognizing that "Python programming" and "Python development" are equivalent — but for critical role requirements, the exact phrase from the job posting is still the safest bet. Prioritize exact matches for required skills and use semantic variations for preferred skills.

Years of Experience

Many ATS platforms automatically calculate implied years of experience from your work history dates. If you have gaps or inconsistent date formatting, the system may undercount your experience. Use consistent MM/YYYY formatting throughout, and ensure your date fields are in a format the ATS can recognize as dates rather than plain text strings.

• Use standard section headers: Summary, Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications
• Format dates consistently as "Month Year – Month Year" throughout the document
• Place your most important keywords in the first third of the document
• Include both the spelled-out version and acronym for important terms (e.g., "Search Engine Optimization (SEO)")
• Avoid graphics, columns, and text boxes — these corrupt parsing in most systems
• Submit .docx for most corporate ATS portals unless PDF is specifically requested

After the ATS: Human Review

Clearing the ATS threshold is only the first gate. Human reviewers then typically spend six to thirty seconds on the first scan. The visual hierarchy of your resume — a clean header, bold section titles, scannable bullet points — determines whether that six-second scan turns into a deeper read. ATS optimization and human optimization must coexist in the same document.

ApplyGlide builds every resume with dual optimization in mind: ATS-clean structure on the technical side and compelling, readable content on the human side.