7 ATS Resume Formatting Mistakes That Get You Rejected

The seven formatting mistakes that get resumes rejected by ATS software are: multi-column layouts, tables and text boxes, graphics and icons, headers/footers with critical info, non-standard section headings, image-based PDFs, and skill rating bars. Fix them by switching to a single-column Word or Google Docs template with standard headings and plain text skills.

Formatting errors are silent killers—you will never get a rejection email explaining that Workday merged your skills with your education section. The recruiter simply never finds you in search results.

Two-column resumes are the most common parsing failure we see. The ATS reads across the page, not down each column. A sidebar with skills next to a main experience column produces output like: "Python — Acme Corp — Java — Senior Analyst — SQL — 2021–2024."

LinkedIn's 2019 eye-tracking study found recruiters spend an average of 7.4 seconds on an initial resume scan—but the ATS decides whether that scan happens at all. If your skills live in a left column, the system may never associate them with your profile.

Fix: Move everything to a single column. Put skills below experience or in a dedicated section after your summary. Read our guide on two-column resume alternatives if you love the aesthetic.

Candidates use tables to align dates, create skill grids, or organize contact info in neat rows. Parsers treat each cell as disconnected text. Your job title in cell A1 may not link to the company name in cell B1.

Fix: Use tab stops or plain line breaks. Format dates on the same line as the title using spaces or a simple em dash, not a table cell. Follow the patterns in our ATS resume format guide.

Skill icons, star ratings, pie charts, and logos add visual polish but contain zero parseable text. An ATS cannot read a bar chart showing "90% JavaScript"—it sees a blank space or an image object.

Canva and similar design tools are frequent culprits. The exported PDF looks professional but embeds text as vector paths or images. Always verify you can select and copy text from your PDF before applying.

Fix:Replace icons with words. Write "Python, JavaScript, React" instead of icon rows. Remove company logos unless the application specifically requests a portfolio-style CV.

Putting your name, phone, and email in the document header seems tidy—until the parser ignores header content entirely. Many ATS platforms strip headers and footers during extraction, leaving your application with no contact information.

Recruiters who want to reach you cannot—and automated systems may flag the application as incomplete. Page numbers in footers are fine; critical data is not.

Fix: Place your full name, phone, email, LinkedIn URL, and city/state in the top-left of the document body on page one. Repeat nothing in the header.

Creative headings like "My Journey," "Superpowers," or "Where I've Worked" confuse section-detection algorithms trained on conventional labels. The parser may dump that content into an unlabeled field or skip it.

Stick to headings recruiters and systems recognize: Professional Summary, Experience, Work History, Education, Skills, Certifications, Projects. Subheadings within experience (company names and titles) matter more than clever section names.

Fix: Rename unconventional sections. You can still write compelling content—the label should just be boring.

A scanned paper resume or a PDF exported from Photoshop is effectively a photograph. OCR (optical character recognition) may extract text with errors—"RN" becomes "M," emails lose characters, dates break. Many ATS platforms skip OCR entirely on high-volume requisitions.

This also applies to some Canva "save as PDF" exports and infographic resumes shared on social media as templates.

Fix: Create your resume in Word or Google Docs and export a text-based PDF. Test by copying all text—if you cannot, neither can the ATS. See our comparison of PDF vs DOCX for ATS.

Visual skill meters—five dots filled for Python, three for Java—communicate proficiency to humans but not to software. Worse, the skill name sometimes lives inside a shape the parser cannot read.

Self-rated proficiency is also subjective. Recruiters prefer seeing skills demonstrated in bullet points ("Built REST APIs in Python serving 2M daily requests") over a dot chart claiming expert-level knowledge.

Fix: List skills as plain text. Optionally group by category (Languages, Frameworks, Tools). Let your experience bullets prove depth.

Three tests take under five minutes and catch most formatting failures:

1. Plain-text paste — Copy your entire resume and paste into Notepad or TextEdit. Read top to bottom. Is anything missing or out of order?
2. PDF text select — Open your PDF and try to select individual words. If you highlight a block instead of words, the file may be image-based.
3. ATS scan — Run your file through the resume format checker or full ATS resume checker for automated warnings.

If the plain-text version reads like a coherent career story, you have eliminated the highest-risk formatting problems.

Here is a structure that parses reliably across Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, and Taleo:

No tables. No columns. No icons. It is not flashy—it gets you in front of a recruiter.