ATS CV: the guide to passing recruitment filters in 2026

September 26, 2026 · 12 min read

In short

An ATS CV is first a CV a piece of software can read: extractable text, one column, standard headings, keywords from the posting reused word for word. Nothing to do with your talent, everything to do with your layout. The filter lets through what it can parse, then ranks the rest by match score — and 50% of that score depends on keywords (France Travail). “CV ATS” accounts for 14,800 searches a month in France: you are not the only one in the queue. You will find here what other guides do not show: a 6-question test to place yourself, an annotated before/after CV, the 10 rules and a keyword list by job. Allow 12 minutes of reading, 30 minutes of correction — or the Jobshift app if you want an AI to test and rewrite your CV from the target posting.

Does your CV pass ATS tools? The 6-question test

Answer yes or no, add the points. Six “yes” answers = 100/100.

CV format — the file is a .docx or a text PDF, and you can select the text with the mouse? Yes = 20 points.
Keywords from the posting — the 5 skills most cited in the ad appear word for word in the CV? Yes = 25 points.
Standard section headings — your sections are called “Professional experience”, “Education”, “Skills”? Yes = 15 points.
No tables and no columns — a single column, no table, no text box, no graphic gauge? Yes = 15 points.
Readable font — Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Georgia or Times New Roman, body text at 10–12 points? Yes = 10 points.
Contact details in the body — phone, email and city written in the CV, not stuck in a header or footer? Yes = 15 points.

What is an ATS, and why your CV is filtered before it is read

ATS stands for Applicant Tracking System: “candidate tracking system”. In plain terms, the software where the recruiter stores, sorts and scores applications. You have already seen the names without knowing it — Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, SAP SuccessFactors, Talentsoft, Recruitee, Flatchr.

The sort happens in three stages.

Parsing. The tool extracts the text: name, contact details, job titles, dates, degrees, skills. If it hits an image or a complex table, it reads emptiness.
The match score. It compares what it extracted with the posting criteria. France Travail is blunt: 50% of the ATS score depends on keywords.
Ranking. The best-scored profiles rise to the top of the list. The recruiter often goes further down, but they will never see what was not extracted.

The figures to keep in mind

80% of French recruiters use an ATS or plan to install one (Hellowork 2024 study), versus 64% in 2018.
Only 27% of French companies are equipped (APEC 2025), but 68% of organisations with more than 5,000 employees and 75% of those with more than 200 staff.

The 10 rules of an ATS-friendly CV

Send a text file. A .docx or a PDF generated from Word. The killer mistake: a scanned PDF, a .pages file, an .odt export. Simple test: if you cannot select the text of your PDF, neither can the ATS.
Stick to one column. Parsing goes left to right, in a single pass. The mistake: a two-column layout, pretty on screen, unreadable for the tool.
Remove tables, text boxes and gauges. “Excel ★★★★☆” progress bars do not exist for the machine. The classic mistake: a table to align dates on the right.
Name your sections the way the ATS looks for them. “Professional experience”, “Education”, “Skills”, “Languages”, “Certifications”. The mistake: “My journey” or “My professional adventures”.
Reuse the exact wording of the posting. If the ad writes “Agile project management”, do not write “agile methods”. The mistake: paraphrasing for elegance.
Put your contact details in the body of the text. Phone, email and city visible from the first lines. The mistake: hiding them in the Word header or footer, which many tools ignore.
Add a precise CV title under your name. “Digital marketing manager | SEO, Google Ads, Social Media” rather than “Marketing professional”. The mistake: the hollow title that reuses no word from the posting.
Standardise dates and places. “January 2020 – December 2023” and “Paris, France”. The mistake: “01/20-12/23”, or “La Défense” with no city or country.
Spell out each acronym once. “PMP (Project Management Professional)”, “CACES (Certificat d'aptitude à la conduite en sécurité)”. The mistake: the abbreviation alone, which the tool does not link to the skill.
Adapt and test on every send. A CV that passes ATS tools on one posting can be filtered on the next. The mistake: resending the same “2026 CV” everywhere for six months.

Before/after CV example: the same profile, two scores

This is the point other guides skip. Here is the same candidate — an account manager, 6 years of experience — in two versions.

Rejected version, score 35/100

Two-column layout: photo and “interests” in a coloured sidebar.
Section title placed on a decorative banner: “Professional experiences”. The tool attaches it to no section.
Skills buried in a paragraph: “Gifted with excellent people skills and a good command of CRM tools, I manage customer relationships day to day.”
Dates in short format: “2019-2022”.
Languages as graphic gauges.
Contact details in the Word header.

Corrected version, score 85/100

A single column, headings in plain text on their own line.
A title under the name: “B2B account manager | Salesforce CRM, telephone prospecting, negotiation”.
Sections: “Professional experience”, “Education”, “Skills”, “Languages”.
Skills as a bullet list, posting keywords in the clear: “Salesforce CRM (administrator), B2B telephone prospecting, price negotiation, weekly reporting”.
Each experience starts with “January 2019 – December 2022, Account manager, [company], Lyon, France”.
Languages as text: “English: fluent (C1)”. No more gauges.

The corrections, annotated

The decorative banner becomes a line of text → the section is finally recognised.
Skills leave the paragraph → they are indexed as keywords.
Long dates replace short dates → the chronology is rebuilt.
Gauges become text → the level is read correctly.
Contact details move up into the body → the profile is complete.

The keywords to put in your ATS CV

Five minutes are enough to extract the right keywords from a posting.

2 minutes — highlight. In the ad, mark every recurring term: technical skills, tools, software, certifications, plus two or three soft skills explicitly cited.
1 minute — note the proper names. Salesforce, Sage, React, CACES 3, HACCP, TOEIC 850: those are reused identically, with no translation or synonym.
1 minute — spot the repetitions. A word cited twice in the posting is a priority criterion for the recruiter. It must appear at least once in your CV.
1 minute — distribute. Job keywords in the title and summary, tools in the experience, the rest in the “Skills” section.

Job family	Keyword to reuse as-is	Wording to avoid
Sales	“B2B business development”, “Salesforce CRM”, “telephone prospecting”, “price negotiation”	“Good people skills”, “a hunter at heart”
IT	“React”, “REST API”, “CI/CD”, “AWS”	“modern web development”, “cloud technologies”
Accounting	“Bank reconciliation”, “SAGE Compta”, “month-end close”, “VAT return”	“general accounting”, “administrative management”
Healthcare	“State nursing diploma (DEI)”, “palliative care”, “electronic patient record”	“care for people”, “experience in a medical setting”
Logistics	“CACES 1-3-5”, “order picking”, “stock management (WMS)”, “forklift operator”	“warehouse work”, “logistics in general”

The formats and software that cause problems

PDF or Word? .docx remains the safest on older ATS tools. A text PDF generated from Word passes everywhere; an image PDF (scan, screenshot, badly set export) passes nowhere. Check it by trying to select the text of your PDF.

Canva and design tools. The problem is not Canva, it is what you export: columns, icons, text boxes and decorative frames break parsing. If you want to keep your template, start from a “simple CV” template with no column and no icon carrying information, and test the PDF before you send. Otherwise, keep the designed version for the interview and send a sober version online. You need an ATS-friendly CV to apply, not to seduce.

The other silent killers: tables (even invisible ones), headers and footers, cursive or exotic fonts, special characters in the file name, and any essential information locked inside an image.

Name the file correctly. CV-FirstName-LastName-Account-Manager.pdf. No “cv final (3).pdf”, no accents, no spaces.

An honest clarification, because the sources contradict each other: Hellowork recommends a two-column CV, France Travail advises a single column. Faced with that disagreement, choose the single column — it is the only format every parser reads without getting it wrong.

How to test your CV before you apply

There are free ATS CV tests online, and France Travail recommends three: Jobscan (jobscan.co), which compares your CV with a specific posting and lists missing keywords; Resume Worded (resumeworded.com), instant analysis with concrete suggestions; VMock (vmock.com), a more detailed simulation, useful for junior profiles. On the French side, the cvdesignr scanner (cvdesignr.com/fr/scanner-ats) and cvsmart give a structure diagnosis and a score out of 100.

What these tools measure: technical readability (structure, recognised sections, format) and alignment with a posting (keywords present or missing). What they do not measure: your professional value. A free ATS CV score remains a form indicator, not a hiring verdict — France Travail repeats it: a high score does not guarantee an interview, a low score condemns no one.

The right way to test, in three passes:

Note your score on a CV + specific posting pair, never on your CV alone.
Fix the blocking errors first (format, sections, contact details) before chasing keywords.
Retest after correction. Target: 75/100 minimum.

Jobshift: CV generated against the posting, to reread before sending — The Jobshift app prepares the CV against the posting. Reread the proposed version before you send.

Let Jobshift test and rewrite the CV

Test my CV from a posting

FAQ

Which keywords should you put in a CV to pass ATS filters?

Those from the posting, reused word for word: technical skills, software names, certifications, plus two or three soft skills cited in the ad. A term repeated twice in the ad is a priority. The table by job family above gives examples ready to adapt.

Does a Canva CV pass ATS tools?

It depends on the export. A Canva template with no columns, no informational icons and exported as a text PDF passes the filters. A two-column template with text boxes stays unreadable. Test the PDF: if you can select the text, that is a good sign.

Should a CV be one page or two?

One page if you have under ten years of experience, two at most beyond that. The ATS does not care: it is the recruiter who checks out beyond that. Prioritise lines useful to the role rather than exhaustiveness.

Do ATS tools score CVs?

Yes. They calculate a match score against the posting criteria, of which about 50% rests on keywords. But that score ranks, it does not decide: a human reads, invites and decides.

Can you pass ATS tools with no experience?

Yes. Your internships, school projects, summer jobs and courses already contain the expected keywords. Write them as concrete results (“50 files handled a week”, “€12,000 of sales in a summer job”) rather than as declared skills.

How long before you get a reply?

Allow a few days for an automatic acknowledgement, one to three weeks for a human reply. After three weeks, follow up in one line, via LinkedIn or the contact email on the posting.