You can spend hours making your resume look perfect. The headings are polished. The spacing is just right. Everything fits neatly onto the page. Then you upload it to an online application form and suddenly your carefully designed resume looks like someone shook it in a box. Job titles disappear. Dates move into strange places. Bullet points turn into random symbols. A two-column layout becomes one long paragraph. This is exactly why having a plain text version of your resume can still be useful.
Many employers use applicant tracking systems to collect, organize, and search applications. Of course, modern systems can handle common file formats much better than older software could. However, complicated formatting can still cause problems when information is extracted or copied into online forms. After reviewing resumes, recruiters can use structured interviews to evaluate candidates more consistently. Preparing relevant one-way video interview questions helps hiring teams assess applicants’ communication, experience, and suitability for a role while keeping the initial screening process organized.
A plain text resume strips everything back to the essentials. It may not look impressive from a design perspective. However, it gives you a clean version of your content that is easy to copy, paste, check, and reuse. Here is how to create one without turning your resume into an unreadable wall of text.
Why a Plain Text Resume Still Matters for ATS Screening
A plain text resume is exactly what the name suggests. It has text without any formatting, as you would see in a Word document or a PDF file. There are no text boxes, graphics, icons, columns, or elaborate design elements. The document instead uses only basic characters, line breaks, spacing, and capitalization to structure information.
Why bother when most job sites accept Word documents and PDFs? This is only a part of the application process because you have to upload the file. Some recruitment sites will pull data from your resume and fill in some sections. Other employers require that candidates copy and paste the content of their resumes into an online form. Some applications ask you to provide your work history even after you have uploaded it to an application.
If there is a plain text version, all this will be much easier. It may even allow you to take a novel look at your resume. But when the visual design goes, the actual content remains. Do your job titles make sense? Does anyone see how one role merges into the other? If you haven’t got bold fonts and arranged columns, are your achievements still clear? If the answer is no, then the problem might be the structure.
The Hidden Formatting That Quietly Breaks Resumes in Online Job Forms
The problem with formatting resumes is that you can’t always see what is causing it. A document might be perfectly fine in Microsoft Word or Google Docs. At the same time, it may contain formatting that behaves strangely when copied into another system. A typical example is tables. These can also be helpful for matching dates, skills, or contact information. However, if the table structure is deleted, the information could be in a different order.
Columns can cause similar problems. Now imagine listing employment titles and job descriptions on the left and the dates on the right. The reader of the document can see the relationship at a glance. The text may not be extracted the same way by a software program that extracts the text. Text boxes, headers, footers, icons, and graphics can cause further problems depending on the way the application system handles the file.
Simple bullets can get messed up. Copy text from one platform to another. This clean bullet could transform into a strange symbol or vanish altogether. There are also hidden tabs, special spaces, manual line breaks, and more. The best way to do this is to make a copy of your original document in plain text that you can use in any application that doesn’t process your original document correctly.
How to Convert Your Resume Into Plain Text Step by Step
It is actually quite an easy task to convert a resume into plain text. However, you need to keep your original file. Please do not edit the well-formatted version. Do not delete the plain text copy; you may want to use it for some applications.
The first step is to open the existing resume and verify that all data is current and accurate. Do not bother to tidy up the formatting when you are moving over an old phone number, or a job description that you had hoped to rewrite six months ago. Then, copy and paste the content of the resume in a plain text editor. You can use Notepad on Windows. Other basic text editors work just as well. What they want to do is relocate content to a location that doesn’t retain complicated formatting.
Once pasted, inspect everything from top to bottom. You will probably need to fix:
- headings that are no longer visually distinct;
- bullet points that disappeared or changed into strange characters;
- dates that moved away from the jobs they belong to;
- inconsistent spacing between sections;
- lines that were previously separated by columns or tables;
- special symbols that did not survive the conversion.
Replace fancy bullets with simple characters. Use straightforward headings. EXPERIENCE, EDUCATION, and SKILLS are good examples. Keep dates close to the relevant company, degree, or qualification.
There is also a simple test worth doing. Copy your newly cleaned text into a blank document or form and read it again. If the structure still makes sense without the original formatting, you are on the right track.
How to Rebuild Structure So an ATS-Friendly Resume Stays Easy to Read
Removing formatting is easy. Making the result nice for a human to read takes a little more thought. A plain text resume should still have a clear hierarchy. Start with your name and contact information. Then separate major sections using simple headings. Capital letters can work well because you cannot rely on font size or bold formatting to create visual hierarchy.
Within your experience section, use the same order for every position. You might list job title first, followed by company, location, and dates. Whatever structure you choose, keep it consistent. Achievements and responsibilities should also be separated clearly. Short lines beginning with hyphens are generally easier to scan than one large paragraph.
It can help to compare your version with a strong resume example for a role that depends on accuracy and clear information. This data entry clerk resume guide is one useful reference for seeing how experience, skills, and other important details can be organized logically. The same principles can then be applied when rebuilding your own resume after converting it to plain text. If you are rebuilding your resume before converting it to plain text, a resume builder can help organize your experience, skills, and achievements into a clear structure first.
Resume Formatting Mistakes to Catch Before You Hit Submit
Before applying for a position, take some time to see where your resume went when it got into the employer’s system. See any pre-filled fields first. Look for any errors in the company names, job titles, dates, and education information that may have been included in your work history. Don’t assume that the upload has been successful if the information was also parsed.
Then look for anything that is missing. Apostrophes, quotation marks, accented letters, and other special symbols at times act differently when the text is transferred from one platform to another. Check spacing. If a resume is too compact, it will be hard to scan. However, too much can make related information appear disconnected.
A second frequent error is using visual formatting to communicate relationships. When a date is only useful if it is in the column next to a company name, rearrange the text so that it is easy to see the relationship even when both the date and company names are aligned to the left. Also, don’t overstuff the content with keywords. Creating an ATS-friendly resume doesn’t require you to duplicate every phrase in the job description and say it a few times. But the resume needs to be natural when a recruiter reads it.
Lastly, proofread the plain text version on its own from your original resume. Errors that you don’t have in the source document may occur when converting, particularly in the areas of line breaks, bullets, and special characters. The resume should not be “cleverly” formatted. Remove the fonts, columns, colors, and graphics, and the most important elements should be apparent.