7 Resume Mistakes That Get You Rejected by ATS (And How to Fix Them)

More than 90% of large companies in India — including TCS, Infosys, Accenture and every major MNC — use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to filter resumes before a recruiter ever opens them. If your resume isn't built for that software, it gets rejected silently, no matter how good you are at your job.

Here are the 7 mistakes we see most often, and how to fix each one.

1. Fancy templates with tables and columns

That two-column Canva template looks beautiful to you — and like scrambled text to an ATS. Parsing software reads left to right, top to bottom. Tables, text boxes and multi-column layouts jumble your work history into nonsense.

Fix: Use a clean, single-column layout. Simple headings, standard fonts, no graphics.

2. Missing keywords from the job description

ATS software ranks your resume by matching it against the job posting. If the JD says "stakeholder management" and your resume says "coordinated with teams", you lose the match.

Fix: Mirror the exact phrases from the job description wherever they honestly apply to you. Check your match with our free JD match tool.

3. Creative section headings

"My Journey" instead of "Work Experience". "What I Bring" instead of "Skills". The software doesn't understand creativity — it looks for standard section names.

Fix: Stick to standard headings:

• Work Experience
• Education
• Skills
• Certifications

4. Sending a PDF made from a design tool

Some PDFs are actually images of text — the ATS sees a blank page. This happens with resumes exported from design tools or scanned documents.

Fix: Always create your PDF from a text editor (Word, Google Docs, or a proper resume builder). Quick test: if you can select and copy text in the PDF, a machine can read it too.

5. Job titles that don't match reality

Internal titles like "Member of Technical Staff — Level 4" mean nothing to a recruiter searching for "Senior Software Engineer".

Fix: Use the industry-standard version of your title. You can note the internal title in brackets if you like.

6. Skills buried in paragraphs

If your skills only appear inside long paragraphs, keyword scanners may miss them — and human recruiters (who spend about 7 seconds per resume) definitely will.

Fix: Keep a dedicated Skills section with a clean, scannable list of your top tools and competencies.

7. One resume for every application

The biggest mistake of all. A generic resume matches every job a little and no job well.

Fix: Keep a master resume, then tailor it for each application — reorder bullets, swap keywords, adjust your summary. Fifteen minutes of tailoring beats a hundred generic applications.

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Check your resume right now — free

Not sure how your resume scores? Run it through our free ATS resume check — you'll get a score out of 100, the top issues holding you back, and a rewrite example in under a minute.

The average resume we check scores 41/100 on the first attempt. Fixing just the ATS basics typically adds 25–30 points.

If you'd rather have professionals rebuild it for the role you want, see our plans and pricing — every resume we deliver is ATS-tested before it reaches you.