The keyword tricks you learned in 2020 don't work anymore. Here's what does.
You've probably been told to "tailor your CV for the ATS." Match exact phrases from the job description. Avoid graphics, tables, columns. Use "power verbs." Keep it to one page, maybe two. A lot of that advice is still worth following. A clean, readable, well-structured CV genuinely matters, because if a system or a recruiter can't parse it, no one reads it. That part hasn't changed.
What's changed is the balance. Keywords still matter, and plenty of recruiters still search and filter by them inside their ATS. But the old game of cramming your CV full of the right phrases has stopped working. The applicant tracking systems most employers use in 2026 (Workday, Greenhouse, Ashby, SmartRecruiters, Lever, iCIMS) increasingly layer AI matching on top of keyword search, so they read context and related skills, not just exact words. Some platforms, including the engine behind hackajob, look at your profile and real experience before you apply at all. A clean CV still gets you through the door. Stuffing it with keywords doesn't move you up the list, and often pushes you down.
What ATS-friendly actually means now
The short answer: get the basics right, and stop trying to game it.
ATSs in 2026 do three things with your CV. First, they parse it into structured fields (name, role, dates, education). Second, they pass it to a recruiter, who reads it the way a human reads things. Third, in some platforms, they run it through an AI matching layer that scores how well your background fits the role.
The first thing still needs basic CV hygiene. The second doesn't reward gaming. The third actively penalises CVs that look generic or AI-generated. That's the shift most career advice hasn't caught up to.
If you're applying to a company using a modern ATS, your CV is competing against:
- AI-generated CVs that all look similar
- Mass-applied CVs from people who didn't read the JD
- Real, considered applications from people who actually want the role
Your job is to be the third one, visibly. Keyword tricks no longer separate you from the AI-generated noise. They make you part of it.
What still matters in your CV
A handful of things still need to be right. None of them are about beating the ATS. They're about being readable.
Use a clean, parsable file type. PDF is the safest default. .docx works most places. JPG, PNG, or scanned files often fail. Some ATSs reject anything that isn't text-based.
Use simple, consistent structure. Standard section headers (Experience, Education, Skills, Projects). Roles listed in reverse chronological order. Dates in a consistent format. No fancy column layouts that confuse the parser.
Use real text, not images. If your name, contact details, or role titles are inside a JPG image (yes, some templates do this), the ATS often can't read them. Whoever opens your CV won't see your name in their system. They'll see a blank.
Keep it under three pages. Two pages is the sweet spot for most professionals. One page is fine if you're early-career. Three is acceptable for senior people with a lot of real ground to cover. Beyond three, you're losing the recruiter before they reach the relevant bit.
Include a profile or summary section. A short paragraph at the top, two to four sentences, that says what you do, what you're known for, and what you're looking for next. It's the only place a CV lets you speak directly. Use it.
Want to see how your CV reads to a modern matching system? Our free Resume Checker tool gives you a parsed-back view of what an ATS sees in your CV. No sign-up needed.
What's overrated
A few things career advice still tells you to do that don't help.
Keyword stuffing. Copy-pasting phrases from the JD into your CV, repeating "stakeholder management" eight times, or dumping a long keyword list into your skills section. Old systems used to reward this. Now it backfires. Both recruiters and AI matching look at where a skill actually shows up (a real job, a project, a result), not just whether the word appears, so a skill you've listed but never demonstrated reads as weak. And the oldest trick of all, hiding keywords in white text at the bottom of the page, gets stripped out by modern ATSs and flagged as low quality.
Generic "power verbs." "Spearheaded," "leveraged," "orchestrated," "drove." These verbs used to make CVs sound senior. Now they're a tell that the CV was either AI-generated or written by someone who read a 2018 LinkedIn post about CV tips. Use specific, plain verbs. "Ran," "built," "shipped," "led," "rewrote," "fixed." They sound like a human describing real work.
The bigger shift in how employers find candidates
The thing most career advice misses is that the way employers find candidates has changed. Applying to a posted role isn't the only way in anymore. More and more companies use AI tools and recruitment platforms to find people who fit. That happens in a few ways. Some recruiters search and reach out directly. Many also use AI sourcing tools or agents that surface relevant candidates.
That's why your profile is doing more of the work now. A CV is a static document you send out. A profile is a structured record of what you've done, what you can do, and what you're looking for, sitting somewhere an employer or an AI tool can actually find it.
If you're going to invest time in something this week, make yourself findable: a complete, current profile somewhere employers are actually looking, not just a polished CV sitting in your downloads folder.
A practical 2026 CV checklist
If you only do these, you've covered 90% of what matters.
- Save as PDF. Open it back up and confirm the text is selectable (if you can copy-paste it out, the ATS can parse it in).
- Use clear section headers and a consistent date format.
- Lead with a 2-4 sentence profile. Plain language, not buzzwords.
- List roles in reverse chronological order. For each, state what the company does (one short line), what you did, and one or two specific outcomes.
- Use real verbs and specific numbers where you have them. "Shipped a new onboarding flow that took activation from 18% to 31%" beats "drove significant improvements in user activation."
- Cap the skills list at the skills you actually have and can talk about in an interview.
- Length: 1-3 pages depending on seniority.
- Run it through our free Resume Checker for a second look.
A note about AI tools that "rewrite your CV for the ATS"
There are a lot of them on the market. Some are useful for surface polish (typo fixing, formatting). Most are not useful for ATS optimisation, because the thing they're optimising for is mostly obsolete.
The pattern we see at hackajob: candidates run their CV through an AI rewriter, the rewriter inserts generic SaaS verbs and "results-oriented professional" language, the CV ends up sounding less like the candidate and more like a stock template. That's the opposite of what you want.
If you use AI to help with your CV, use it for one specific thing: rephrasing a sentence you've drafted yourself but aren't happy with. Don't use it to generate the whole thing.
Apply where you already fit
Here's the lever most CV advice ignores. Whether your CV gets a real look depends less on the formatting and more on whether you're applying to roles you actually fit. A strong CV sent to forty roles you're a stretch for still mostly gets ignored. The same CV sent to five roles you genuinely match gets read.
That's the thinking behind hackajob. You build one profile and add what you're looking for: salary, location, the kind of company and role you want. Archer matches you against live roles using those preferences plus the skills and experience parsed from your CV, then shows you the roles where you're a real fit, with the reasons why. You apply to those roles with your CV, knowing you're not a long shot.
"Before hackajob, I was sending over 100 applications on Indeed and hearing nothing back. Archer picked roles tailored to my experience and qualifications, and it made all the difference." — Lewis Cairns, Sales Executive at Vitality
Your CV still does real work here. It's what you apply with, and it still passes through the employer's systems and gets read by a recruiter, so everything earlier on this page still holds: clean format, real content, no stuffing. What changes is where that CV lands. You're putting it in front of roles you genuinely fit, and because employers rate the candidates who come through hackajob, your source counts in your favour the moment you show up in their pipeline.
Mark Chaffey, CEO of hackajob, on what makes good candidates stand out in 2026:
"The best candidates aren't always the ones with the traditional background. They're the curious ones who've been stuck next to a broken process for years, asking why it can't be better, frustrated they couldn't fix it themselves. Now they can." — Mark Chaffey, CEO of hackajob
Frequently asked questions
Will an ATS reject my CV if it has graphics or columns?
Probably not in 2026, but it depends on the ATS. Modern parsers handle most layouts. The safer bet: simple, single-column layout in PDF form, with text-based content (no images of text). If you're nervous, run the CV through our Resume Checker to see what an automated parser sees.
Do I need to include keywords from the JD?
If the keywords describe things you've actually done, include them naturally. If they don't, don't fake it. AI matching can tell.
What's the right CV length?
1 page if you're early-career, 2 pages for mid-career, 2-3 for senior. Beyond 3, you're losing the reader.
Are AI CV writers worth using?
For polish on something you wrote yourself, sometimes. For generating the whole CV, no. The output tends to read as generic AI prose, which is exactly what modern matching systems are filtering out.
What if my applications aren't getting any responses?
The CV is rarely the only problem. There's usually a mix of factors. We wrote a deeper guide on why applications get ignored and a separate post on the 10 reasons you're not getting interviews.