How to Improve Your CV ATS Score: The Five Changes That Matter Most

Most CVs that fail ATS checks share the same handful of problems. The good news is that all of them are fixable, and the changes that make the biggest difference are not complicated: they are mostly a matter of word choice and structure.

1. Replace synonyms with the exact keywords from the job description

Keyword matching is the largest single driver of your ATS score, and it works on exact or near-exact matches. If the job description says "stakeholder management" and your CV says "managing relationships with key partners," those are not the same match. Before you submit, read the job description and pick out the 8 to 10 most important skills, qualifications, and role-specific terms. Then check that your CV uses that exact language, not rewrites of it.

2. Switch to a single-column layout

Multi-column CVs, graphical layouts, and tables can cause ATS parsers to misread or skip entire sections. The system reads text in a linear flow. When your CV has two columns, the parser often merges them into a jumbled sequence that no longer makes sense. A clean single-column layout with standard fonts (Arial, Calibri, or Georgia) and no graphical elements gives the ATS the best chance of reading every word correctly.

3. Use standard section headings

ATS systems navigate your CV using headings. They look for recognisable labels: Work Experience, Education, Skills, Professional Summary. If you have renamed these sections to something more distinctive, the system may fail to classify them correctly. Your experience section may not be read as experience at all, which means the history underneath it may not be counted. Replace creative headings with the conventional labels the ATS expects.

4. Add measurable results to recent roles

ATS systems score more than just keyword presence. They also assess whether your experience descriptions are substantive. A role listed with only a job title and a one-line description will score lower than one with specific, quantified achievements. Add at least two or three results per recent role: percentages, monetary values, team sizes, timelines. "Reduced onboarding time by 30%" scores better than "improved onboarding."

5. Expand your skills section to 8 to 15 items

A skills section that lists only three or four items leaves a lot of matching potential unused. Most roles list 10 to 15 required skills explicitly. If your CV only acknowledges four of them, the match score on skills coverage will be low regardless of how well the rest of your CV is written. Aim for 8 to 15 relevant skills, drawn directly from the job description and your own genuine experience.

Which change to make first

If you only have twenty minutes, start with keywords and headings rather than the skills section rewrite. Keyword matching and formatting readability drive more of your score than any single content edit, so pulling the exact terms from the job posting into your experience bullets and confirming your section headings are standard will usually move the score more than a longer skills list on its own. Quantified results and an expanded skills section are worth doing too, they're just the second pass, not the first.

The fastest way to find out what to fix

Running a CV score check before you apply tells you exactly which of these issues your CV has and how they affect your overall score. Rather than guessing, you get a clear breakdown of what to prioritise, so you're not rewriting sections that were already fine.

Related guides

• What is a good ATS score?
• Why your CV keeps failing ATS checks

For more on how this fits together, see How Does ATS Scoring Work? What Applicant Tracking Systems Actually Measure, Good ATS Score 2026: What Counts as Passing, and Why Your CV Gets Rejected Before Anyone Reads It: Patterns from Thousands of Applications.