How applicant tracking systems really handle your application

What happens after you click apply: how Workday, Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby parse your CV, what recruiters see, and how to format a CV that survives. 7 min readUpdated 11 November 2026By the Prepper team

Almost every employer above a few dozen staff receives applications through an applicant tracking system. Knowing what it does, and what it does not do, removes most of the myths about "beating the bots".

What the system actually does

Collects your application through a form: contact details, CV upload and the employer's own questions.
Parses your CV into fields such as employer, job title, dates and education.
Stores and sorts candidates so recruiters can search, filter and move people through stages.
Applies knockout questions. Answers on work authorisation, location or required qualifications can filter you out before a person looks.

Most systems do not reject CVs automatically on keyword scores. A recruiter usually decides, often after searching or filtering, which is why matching the language of the job description still matters.

The systems you will meet

Workday: common at large corporates and banks. You create an account per employer and re-enter your history across several pages.
Greenhouse: popular with technology companies. A single page: CV upload, a few fields and custom questions.
Lever: similar to Greenhouse, one page with optional links and a short set of questions.
Ashby: newer, used by fast-growing start-ups, with clean one-page forms.
SmartRecruiters: used by large international employers; you can apply with a profile.
Recruitee, Personio, Teamtailor: frequent among European employers.

Formatting that parses cleanly

One column, standard headings: Experience, Education, Skills.
Dates in one consistent format on the same line as the role.
A text-based PDF or a Word file, never a scan or an image.
No tables, text boxes, headers or footers for important content. Contact details in a page header are often missed.
Standard job titles, with your internal title in brackets if it is unusual.

The questions matter as much as the CV

Screening questions are read first and filtered on. Answer them precisely, keep your answers consistent across applications, and never leave required ones blank.

To see how your CV reads against a specific job, paste the description into the resume scanner in PrepperApply.

Frequently asked questions

Do applicant tracking systems reject CVs automatically?
Rarely on CV content alone. Automatic rejection usually comes from knockout questions such as work authorisation. Most filtering is done by recruiters using search and filters.
Is PDF or Word better for an ATS?
Both work in modern systems as long as the PDF contains real text. Avoid scanned documents and designs built from images or text boxes.
Why do I have to retype my CV on Workday?
Workday stores your history as structured data per employer, so it asks you to confirm each field after parsing your upload.

Do applicant tracking systems reject CVs automatically?

Rarely on CV content alone. Automatic rejection usually comes from knockout questions such as work authorisation. Most filtering is done by recruiters using search and filters.

Is PDF or Word better for an ATS?

Both work in modern systems as long as the PDF contains real text. Avoid scanned documents and designs built from images or text boxes.

Why do I have to retype my CV on Workday?

Workday stores your history as structured data per employer, so it asks you to confirm each field after parsing your upload.