An ATS CV format that still works in Word

Word is not the problem

The damage comes from a downloaded template: a sidebar, a skill chart made of rectangles, a name sitting in the header, a photo inside a text box. Turn those off. Use a blank document. Set one column. Style the headings as real heading styles if you want an outline, or just type them in bold as normal paragraphs. Both are text. A text box is not.

Put the phone number and email as characters, not as icons from a symbol font. Dates as 2021–2024, not as a timeline graphic. If you need a second page, insert a page break. Do not draw a line with a shape and hope the parser treats it as a section. Save as DOCX while you edit. When you send, export PDF and confirm the text is still selectable. Some "print to PDF" paths rasterize the page. If you cannot copy a bullet after export, that path is the wrong one.

Then upload the PDF to JobHoot's free check. You are not testing Word. You are testing the file Word produced. Parse Rate will tell you if the header ate your name. Resume Score will tell you if the bullets are still empty duties. Neither number requires the Word file to be uploaded. The PDF is the object employers receive.

Make the text selectable

Put your name in the body of the document, not only in a colored header. Use one column. Headings a person would say out loud are enough: Experience, Education, Skills. Each role is a block with the employer, the title, and dates as text, then bullets. Do not build the layout from tables, text boxes, or a row of software logos. Word can do this. A poster app usually cannot.

Export a PDF and try to drag across one bullet. If the highlight skips, the words are still a picture. Upload that PDF to the free check at `/resume-score/`. Parse Rate is the share that came out as clean text. It is a JobHoot heuristic, not a reading from any employer's ATS. Resume Score on the same page is about the document, with no account and no job ad. If Parse Rate is low, fix the file and upload again before you think about keywords.

Then match one posting, if you have one

Job Match Score needs a sign-in and one vacancy. It lives at `/ats-checker/`, which is not in the sitemap. It asks whether this file uses that ad's words next to work you did. It does not average itself with Resume Score into a single ATS score. The marketing line can still say ATS score, because that is the search. The result page should not.

A token costs Rp 250 when an AI write succeeds. A new account gets 50 tokens once. The guest score does not spend them. The smallest purchase later is 100 tokens, Rp 25.000. Do not spend one to invent an employer, a degree, or a date. If the ad wants a license you do not hold, leave the gap.

What to send

Send the PDF whose text you could copy. Keep the designed poster for a human who asked for a visual, and even then keep a text version. Switching templates inside JobHoot does not delete the lines you typed, and the export stays text. A PNG downloaded from a gallery is not a template you can be searched through.

Settings that quietly rasterize the page

Check the header and footer by double-clicking the top margin. If your name and phone live only there, copy them into the first paragraph and delete the header copies, or leave a short header that repeats the name while the body still has it. In tables, if you used a two-cell table to fake columns, convert it to text. Word has a command for that. The reading order of a table is why a job title sticks to the wrong date.

When you export, open the PDF in a reader and use find for your most recent employer. If find fails, the export dropped the text layer. Try Word's own Save as PDF rather than a printer driver. Upload the file that find can see. The free check should agree with that find box. If the two disagree, trust the one that could not select the sentence, and export again.

After Save as PDF, use the find box on your last employer before you upload anywhere else. If find fails, the export is the bug, not your career.

Find your last employer in the exported PDF. If the box returns nothing, do not upload that file to a portal. Export again from Word's own Save as PDF until find succeeds, then run the free check.