What is resume parsing?

Resume parsing is the process where software reads the text in your resume file and sorts it into structured fields, such as name, email, phone, job titles, employers, dates, education and skills. Applicant tracking systems and many job sites parse resumes so recruiters can search candidates and see their details in a standard layout.

Parsing usually happens in two steps:

• Text extraction: the system pulls the raw text out of your PDF or Word file.
• Field detection: it looks for patterns, such as an email format, dates, section headings and lines that look like job titles, and assigns text to fields.

Problems happen at either step. If text cannot be extracted (for example, a scanned image), there is nothing to parse. If the text comes out in a confusing order (for example, from complex columns), the system may put information in the wrong fields.

You cannot see an employer's parser, but you can test the first step yourself by copying all the text from your file into a plain text editor. If it is complete and in a sensible order, you have removed the most common cause of parsing errors.