Format & ATS Check
Updated February 2026

Is Your Formatting Killing Your ATS Score? Find Out in 30 Seconds

Tracking jobs does not get interviews. Actions do. Upload your CV and see exactly how ATS systems parse it. Before a single recruiter ever does.

Free to start · No credit card required

Beautiful CVs Often Fail ATS. Here's Why

Tables, columns, headers, graphics, and text boxes that look impressive to humans are invisible. Or garbled. To screening software. The irony: the more effort you put into design, the more likely it is to be rejected before a human ever sees it.

Tables & columns

Most ATS platforms read left-to-right in a single column. Multi-column layouts and tables scramble your content into nonsensical fragments.

Custom fonts

Decorative or uncommon fonts often fail to render. The ATS substitutes a fallback, mangling special characters and breaking spacing.

Headers & footers

ATS systems frequently ignore document headers and footers entirely. Your name, contact details, or page numbers disappear.

Graphics & images

Logos, headshots, icons, and decorative lines are invisible to ATS. Worse, they can confuse the parser and corrupt surrounding text.

Text boxes

Text inside floating text boxes is often extracted out of order. Or skipped completely. Your skills section could vanish.

Multi-column layouts

Sidebar designs look stunning on screen but get flattened into garbled single-column text by most ATS parsers.

Three Steps to ATS-Safe Formatting

01

Upload your CV

Drop your CV into ApplyArc. The AI analyses your document structure, layout, fonts, and every formatting element.

02

AI simulates 6 major ATS systems

See exactly how Lever, Greenhouse, Workday, iCIMS, Taleo, and BambooHR parse your document. Where text disappears, where content scrambles.

03

Get specific formatting fixes

Receive a compatibility score for each ATS plus exact instructions: which tables to remove, which fonts to swap, which sections to restructure.

What You Actually Get

Not a generic "your CV looks fine". A system-by-system breakdown with precise fixes.

ATS Simulation (6 Systems)

See exactly how Lever, Greenhouse, Workday, iCIMS, Taleo, and BambooHR parse your CV. Each system has different quirks. Know them all.

Formatting Issue Detection

Every table, column, text box, header, footer, graphic, and custom font flagged with severity level and exact location in your document.

Compliance Score

A clear 0–100 score for each ATS system. Know instantly whether your CV is safe to submit or needs fixes first.

Fix Instructions

Not just 'remove this table'. Step-by-step instructions for restructuring your CV while keeping it professional and visually clean.

See Your CV the Way an ATS Sees It

❌ Beautifully designed. ATS destroyed

  • "J oh n S mi th" (name split by columns)
  • "Senior Dev SeniorDeveloper" (merged cells)
  • [Header content: INVISIBLE]
  • "Skills: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■" (graphics parsed as symbols)
  • ATS parse success: 23%. Auto-rejected

Clean format. Perfectly parsed

  • "John Smith" (clean, single line)
  • "Senior Developer | 8 Years Experience"
  • Contact details in body text, fully visible
  • "Skills: Python, React, AWS, SQL, Docker"
  • ATS parse success: 98%. Every field detected

Your AI Career Coach

Not sure if your format is the problem? Upload your CV and ask the Coach. It doesn't just flag issues. It explains exactly why each formatting choice matters and gives you system-specific answers.

🤖 AI Career Coach

"Your CV uses a two-column layout and 3 text boxes. Workday will lose your entire skills sidebar. That's 14 keywords gone. Greenhouse handles it slightly better but still scrambles your contact section. Switch to a single-column layout, move skills into a bullet list under a clear ‘Skills’ heading, and you'll go from 41% parse rate to 95%+ across all 6 systems."

The Coach knows every ATS system's quirks. Ask it: "Will my formatting pass Workday's ATS?" and get a specific yes-or-no with fixes. That's an action system, not a generic formatting guide.

Stop Getting Rejected by Robots

Upload your CV and see exactly how 6 major ATS systems parse it. In under 30 seconds. Fix the formatting issues before they cost you interviews.

5 AI generations per month · No credit card required

Resume Format Checker Questions