How to make a resume that passes an ATS

Start from the file you already send

Open the PDF you attached last week. Do not download a new "ATS resume" poster first. The job is to see whether this file has a text layer. A clean visual and a readable file are different objects. You can keep the wording you already believe, and still fail the search, if the wording lives in shapes.

Write a plain version beside it. One page is fine if the career is short. Two pages are fine if the roles are real. The rule that rejects a second page is a myth repeated in group chats. A second page of selectable text beats a one-page image. Use the employer's name, your title, and dates in that order, then two or three bullets with a tool and a count. "Responsible for supporting the team" can be deleted without losing information.

When the plain version exists, export and run Resume Score. Read Parse Rate before you read anything else. Only after that number is healthy should you open one job ad and decide whether Job Match Score is worth a token. Building the file and scoring the PDF are free. The token is for a rewrite against that one ad, not for the existence of the resume.

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.

A afternoon that does not start with a download

Take the resume you have, even if you are embarrassed by it. Paste the text into a blank Word document if the original will not let you select a line. Retype the last two roles only, with dates and one number each. Export. Upload to the free check. If Parse Rate jumps, the rest of the old file was the problem and you can retype the older roles the same way tomorrow. If Parse Rate was already high, the silence you have been getting is not a format problem. Open one ad and mark the nouns you truly have. That is the edit. Leave the adjectives.

Do not add a skills cloud of thirty terms you met once in a class. A hiring search for a tool you cannot demo is how interviews go badly in the first ten minutes. JobHoot will not insert those terms for you. If you later spend a token on a tailor, read the draft for nouns you do not recognize and delete them before export.

When the plain file parses, stop decorating it. Send that one. A second visual version in the same application only gives the extractor a chance to pick the wrong attachment.

Send the plain file once it parses. Do not attach the old poster beside it. Two roles with dates and a number are enough for the first upload. Older roles can wait until tomorrow.