Coping with ATS - Resume File

Employment Recruiters, now days, have found the need to automate some of their processes.
  ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) are the most important tool for most Employers.

For you to make progress through these systems, you need for your Resume to have the ideal content 
and 'Keep It Simple'! These Artificial Intelligence, AI, tools may be smart, but not perfect. 
They deal with volumes of Resumes. Why take the chance of being, automatically, dumped?

You might think of this ATS processing as cleaning out all of the fancy formatting stuff to 
provide the most important TEXT CONTENT for examination by the computer.

1. Document File Type

The less expensive systems, likely used by smaller Employers, cannot cope with the more complicated 
variety of file types:

Recommended

-Txt  unformatted plain text file

-Rtf  Rich Text Format allows advanced formatting, easily edited

-Doc  (Binary File Format) Microsoft Word 97 -- 2003 Document

Not Recommended (Some ATS cannot cope with the larger variety of more complex and newer file formats.)

-PDF  Portable Document Format / Portable Digital Format (gives people an easy, reliable way to present and 
exchange documents) when you need to save files that cannot be modified but still need to be easily shared and printed

-HTML  hypertext markup language, a formatting system for web browsers

-OpenOffice/LibreOffice  open-source software

-Docx   file saved in Microsoft Word 2007- 2016 format

   Our website has instructions for converting to .doc format. http://www.CollectiveNet.org/ 
-> Resources -> Resource List -> docx_to_doc_Conversion

   Our website has instructions for converting to .rtf format. http://www.CollectiveNet.org/ 
-> Resources -> Resource List -> Convert_Document_To_RTF

2. Fonts - No specific fonts required. Use standard fonts for a professional appearance.

A bunch of ideas are suggested by Googling resume font:

Arial is the font most commonly recommended by our experts. Times New Roman was the go-to font for so long 
that some of our experts now say it appears dated, but it's still a safe choice in terms of readability.

It is best to use one Sans-serif font e.g.: Arial
 and one Serif font e.g.: Times New Roman

On my Business Card, I use a Sans-serif font for my email address and URLs.
Email addresses and URLs are NOT case sensitive, so a combination of upper and lower case can be used 
if it improves clarity.

Use a reasonable font size (10, 11, or 12 point, depending on the specific font).
It is fine to use larger fonts for name and headings.

3. Overall Body Format

 * Borders and Lines - Fine to use if not touching any text. If in doubt, leave them out.

 * Headers and Footers - Do not use for any important information particularly, contact information.

 * Pictures, Templates, Graphics, Logos, Charts, Graphs - Do not use.

 * Bullets - Fine to use but avoid fancy shapes. Make sure bullet is not touching any text.

 * Bold and Caps - Fine to use.

 * Italics and Underlines - Do not use.

 * Tables and Columns - Do not use. Keep everything in a single column, top to bottom.

4. Candidate Name

Recommended

Mention your name clearly in continuation with the First, Last and Middle name
. You can use Bold/Italics while writing the name.

Not Recommended

Do not use any special character like (,;0/- etc. with your name.

Do not mention your present designation/title or any skill set along with your name.

Do not use extra spaces between each letter of your name.

The system will take the generic words/special characters under elimination category while identifying the name.

5. Timelines/Dates

Try to follow the standard date format i.e. MM/DD/YYYY or you can use Month Name, Year i.e. May, 2010.
 Use the complete 4 digit year i.e. 2010.

Use consistent date formats throughout the resume.