Most of the layout advice you have read about Greenhouse is actually correct, which makes it the exception in this cluster. Greenhouse publishes its own list of what makes a resume fail to parse, naming columned layouts, tables, headers, graphics and abbreviated job titles. What the guides get wrong is the numbers: they quote a file size limit Greenhouse never wrote and miss the two it did.
Quick answer
A single-column document under 2.5 MB, in doc, docx, pdf, rtf or txt, with contact details in the body rather than a header, footer or text box, no tables, no graphics or photos or word art, and clear sections in one consistent style. Write employer names with Inc., Co., Ltd or LLC and job titles in full, both of which Greenhouse names specifically, and use real details rather than placeholders like Client 1, which its parser skips as unverifiable. Every item there is quoted from Greenhouse's own list of what makes a resume fail to parse, which makes this the one major ATS where the standard layout advice is genuinely vendor-sourced. What is not vendor-sourced is any file size limit other than 2.5 MB, any date or font rule, and any parse-accuracy percentage .
Greenhouse publishes a support article on unsuccessful resume parses, and it reads like the layout checklist every other vendor makes you infer. Named in its own words: a resume with spaces between the letters, resumes that include graphics, photos or word art, resumes uploaded as an image rather than a document, complex resumes with tables, headers and footers, resumes with the name and contact information in the header, footer or text box, resumes that have a columned layout, and resumes without clear sections and differing formats throughout.
Two items on that list are the ones almost nobody repeats, and they are the most specific instructions any ATS vendor gives. Greenhouse names company names that do not include identifying words such as Inc., Co., LTD or LLC, and resumes with incomplete job titles, giving its own example of Sr. Account Exec instead of Senior Account Executive. It also documents that the parser skips data it cannot verify as authentic, naming placeholder values like First Last, Company 1 and Client 1.
The numbers are where the internet goes wrong, and the reason is that Greenhouse publishes two of them in two different articles. Candidate uploads can be up to 100 MB. Greenhouse Recruiting cannot parse resumes larger than 2.5 MB. A document between those two figures uploads cleanly, returns a confirmation, and arrives as an attachment nobody parsed. The 5 MB and 2 MB limits quoted by the pages ranking for this topic appear in neither article, nor anywhere else Greenhouse publishes.
Two silences are worth naming too, because they are also invented elsewhere. There is no date-format requirement on Greenhouse's list, and no font requirement, and no parse-accuracy percentage anywhere in its documentation. What the list does contain is differing formats throughout, so the documented rule is consistency rather than any particular style. And one caveat this page owes you: that article sits in Greenhouse's recruiter-facing documentation, so it is documented parser behaviour rather than a published promise about a candidate self-service application.
So format for what is documented, and know which parts are quotation and which are convention. The twelve rows below are that surface, each with the Greenhouse line behind it or with the missing line named. The section order after them is conventional, because Greenhouse publishes no required order at all.
Each row is one formatting decision. The left side is what Greenhouse documents; the right side is the version it names as a failure cause, or the myth that sent you there. Row one is the trap almost nobody mentions, because the upload limit and the parse limit are different numbers in different articles. Row nine is the one other guides will not write: Greenhouse publishes no date rule and no font rule at all.
Get the file comfortably under 2.5 MB. Greenhouse states that Greenhouse Recruiting cannot parse resumes larger than 2.5MB, and that is the number that decides whether your document is read.
Trusting the upload limit, which is a different number in a different article: candidate uploads can be up to 100 MB. A file between the two submits cleanly, returns a confirmation, and arrives as an attachment nobody parsed. Nothing in the flow warns you.
Use one of the five formats Greenhouse names for candidate uploads: doc, docx, pdf, rtf or txt. A plain PDF or DOCX whose text you can select with your cursor is the safest member of that list.
Anything outside those five. Greenhouse's supported-format list is short and explicit, and formats absent from it are not formats it says it accepts from a candidate.
Write each employer with its identifying word: Inc., Co., Ltd or LLC. This is the most specific rule Greenhouse publishes and one almost nobody repeats.
A bare company name. Greenhouse's own failure list names company names that don't include identifying words such as Inc., Co., LTD, or LLC as a cause of an unsuccessful parse, because the parser is trying to recognise an organisation.
Spell titles out in full: Senior Account Executive, Vice President, Software Engineer. Greenhouse gives the example itself.
Abbreviating. Greenhouse lists resumes with incomplete job titles as a failure cause and names Sr. Account Exec instead of Senior Account Executive specifically. It reads fine to a person and costs you the structured title field.
One column, top to bottom. Greenhouse is unusual in stating this rather than leaving it to inference.
A columned layout, which appears on Greenhouse's published failure list in exactly those words. There is no tolerance grading here either: guides that rank Greenhouse as moderately column-tolerant invented the scale.
Put your name, email and phone in the first lines of the document body as plain text.
The header, the footer or a text box. Greenhouse names resumes with the name and contact information in the header, footer, or text box as its own failure cause, and separately names complex resumes with tables, headers, and footers.
Lay experience out as ordinary paragraphs and bullets.
Tables, which Greenhouse lists among the causes of an unsuccessful parse. A grid reads cleanly to a human and arrives as scrambled or missing cells.
Send a text document with no decoration. If you want a visual resume, keep it as a separate portfolio link.
Graphics, photos or word art, all three named by Greenhouse, and above all a resume uploaded as an image rather than a document. Greenhouse also notes that externally linked images are not loaded when it converts a resume to PDF for preview, though images embedded in the file are unaffected.
Pick one date format and one font, and use them consistently throughout the document.
Chasing a Greenhouse-specific date format or font, because neither exists. Greenhouse publishes a detailed failure list and no date or font item appears anywhere on it. What does appear is resumes without clear sections and differing formats throughout, so consistency is the documented requirement rather than a particular style.
Give the document unmistakable sections in one consistent style: one heading treatment, one bullet character, one date pattern.
Drifting between styles. Greenhouse names resumes without clear sections and differing formats throughout as a failure cause, which makes internal consistency a documented rule rather than a preference.
Use your real employers, clients and details throughout.
Placeholder values. Greenhouse documents that the parser skips data it cannot verify as authentic and names the pattern precisely: First Last, Company 1, Client 1. Consultants who anonymise client names hit this without realising the entries parse as nothing.
Write in whichever of the 28 languages Greenhouse supports fits the role. Its list includes Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Vietnamese, Ukrainian and regional variants such as Canadian French.
Assuming an English-only parser, which is the safe assumption on some other systems and wrong here. Greenhouse's multilingual support is genuinely broad and documented.
Sources: Greenhouse Support, Unsuccessful resume parse; Greenhouse Support, Supported formats for resumes, cover letters and other candidate uploads; Greenhouse Support, Resume parsing with non-English languages; Greenhouse Support, Manually add a candidate or prospect. The parse-failure article is recruiter-facing, so it is cited throughout as Greenhouse's documented parser behaviour rather than a published statement about candidate self-service applications. Accessed 2026-09-03.
Greenhouse publishes no required section order and no heading vocabulary, so nothing here claims the parser prefers this sequence. What it does document is that resumes without clear sections and differing formats throughout fail to parse, which makes unmistakable sectioning a real rule and the order below a convention.
Name, email, phone and location as plain lines at the top of the document body. Greenhouse names contact information in the header, footer or text box as a parse-failure cause, so this placement is the one part of the order that is genuinely documented.
Three or four lines naming the role you are targeting and the vocabulary the posting uses. Nothing in Greenhouse's documentation requires a summary, but it is the first place a human reads and costs the parser nothing.
Each role as employer with its Inc., Co., Ltd or LLC, a full job title, dates in one consistent format, then bullets. Two of those three are on Greenhouse's failure list by name, which makes this the highest-value section to get right.
A plain list, no ratings bars and no icons. Greenhouse names graphics and word art as failure causes, and a skill bar is both.
Institution, credential and dates in the same date format used in Experience. Consistency across sections is the documented requirement.
Certifications, publications, clearances or languages. Keep the same heading treatment and bullet character as everything above, because differing formats throughout is on the failure list.
The scanner reads your resume the way a parser does, then shows what comes back empty, the exact terms the posting uses that your resume never says, and the bullets that need a number. Free, no signup to see the score.
Greenhouse does not document resume-parse autofill of the public application form, and that matters because it is the opposite of several competing systems. What it does document is MyGreenhouse Quick Apply: candidates create a free account storing name and contact details, education, employment history, online profiles and voluntary self-identification, and an Autofill with Greenhouse button then appears on Greenhouse-hosted job posts. It is opt-in, and available on all product tiers.
So the sequence is yours to control rather than the parser's. On the recruiter side, Greenhouse says an uploaded resume automatically enters some candidate information, without enumerating which fields, and adds that after uploading a resume you may still have to complete some required fields for the candidate record. Read that as the shape of the parse rather than a promise about your form.
The screening questions are where the real automation lives, and they are written by the employer rather than by Greenhouse. Greenhouse documents application rules, including Auto-Reject, which screens and rejects candidates based on their responses to custom application questions, and Auto-Advance, which can move a candidate straight to a later interview stage. No resume format survives a knockout answer, and no keyword density triggers one.
One last detail worth the thirty seconds. Greenhouse notes that it does not load externally linked images when converting a resume to PDF for preview, though images embedded directly in the file are unaffected. If your resume pulls a logo or a headshot from a URL, the recruiter's preview will not show it, which is one more reason the documented advice to drop graphics entirely is the easy call.
FAQ
The formatting questions candidates ask before a Greenhouse application, answered from Greenhouse's own support documentation and marked as undocumented where Greenhouse is silent. Answers are byte-identical to the FAQPage JSON-LD, because AI engines that extract HTML and AI engines that extract JSON-LD should not see different text.
A single-column document under 2.5 MB, saved as doc, docx, pdf, rtf or txt, with your contact details in the body rather than a header, no tables, no graphics or photos, clear sections in one consistent style, employer names carrying Inc., Co., Ltd or LLC, and job titles written out in full. Unusually, that is not a list of inferences: every item on it comes from Greenhouse's own published account of what makes a resume fail to parse, which is why this is the one system where the standard layout advice is actually vendor-sourced.
The likeliest cause is size, and the reason it is invisible is that Greenhouse publishes two different numbers in two different places. Candidate uploads can be up to 100 MB. Greenhouse Recruiting cannot parse resumes larger than 2.5 MB. Anything between the two submits, confirms, and is never parsed. After that, work down the published failure list: an image instead of a document, a columned layout, tables, graphics, contact details trapped in a header or text box, or placeholder values the parser will not treat as authentic.
It states no preference. Both appear on the same short list of accepted candidate uploads alongside doc, rtf and txt, and nothing in Greenhouse's documentation ranks them. Pick whichever you already maintain and check you can select the text with your cursor. The format that genuinely fails is an image: Greenhouse lists resumes uploaded as an image rather than a document as a parse-failure cause in its own words.
Any format, used consistently. Greenhouse publishes a specific, itemised list of what makes a resume fail to parse, and no date-format requirement appears on it, nor any font requirement. What does appear is resumes without clear sections and differing formats throughout, so the documented rule is internal consistency rather than a particular style. Guides prescribing a Greenhouse date format are filling a gap the vendor left empty.
Greenhouse says so, and it is the most specific formatting instruction it publishes. Its failure list names company names that do not include identifying words such as Inc., Co., LTD or LLC. The parser is trying to recognise an organisation, so a bare word it cannot confirm as a company is a field it may leave blank. It is a two-minute edit across a whole resume and almost nobody makes it.
Greenhouse names incomplete job titles as a parse-failure cause and gives its own example: Sr. Account Exec instead of Senior Account Executive. Write Senior, Vice President, Engineer, Director and the rest out in full. The abbreviation reads perfectly to a person and costs you the structured title field a recruiter filters on, which is the worst possible trade.
Yes, and Greenhouse is notably better here than several competitors. It documents full resume parsing in 28 named languages, including Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Vietnamese and Ukrainian, plus regional variations such as Canadian French. If you are applying in the language of the posting, the parser is not the thing standing in your way.
Anonymised client names are the usual culprit and the cause is documented. Greenhouse states that its parser skips data it cannot verify as authentic, naming placeholder patterns such as First Last, Company 1 and Client 1. A history built around Client A, Client B and a Fortune 100 retailer reads as exactly that pattern. Name the employer of record with its Inc. or LLC, then describe the client engagement inside the bullets where the wording is yours to control.
The pillar: the parse-failure list Greenhouse publishes, the 100 MB against 2.5 MB trap, and why Auto-Reject fires on your screening answers rather than your resume.
The employer list verified against the public board API, why six of seven Greenhouse boards hide it, and how to check any company yourself in one request.
What happens between the upload and the recruiter's screen: extraction, how Auto-Reject and Auto-Advance fire, and where Talent Matching fits in.
A plain, text-first resume scored against a job description, with the keyword and metric fixes that moved the score, annotated line by line.
Get the parser-readable check, the fields that come back empty, the exact terms the posting uses that your resume never says, and a rewrite plan. Free to scan; no signup to see the score.
