Arc Resume Builder - Stop Getting Auto-Rejected by Workday

Look, I've applied to probably 200+ tech companies in the last 3 years. Got rejected by software more often than humans. Here's what I learned about the specific ways these systems fuck up perfectly good resumes.

Workday Will Ruin Your Day

Workday is the worst offender. Their PDF parser is absolute dogshit. I had a clean, well-formatted resume that looked great. Uploaded it to Workday for a senior engineer role at a Fortune 500.

The system extracted my name as "SOFTWARE" (it was in a header), my phone number as "ENGINEER" (same line as my title), and completely missed my work experience section because I used a slightly non-standard font. This isn't just me - Workday's parsing problems are legendary.

Had to manually re-enter everything in their terrible form interface. Took 45 minutes. Still got auto-rejected, probably because their keyword matching couldn't connect "React developer" with "Frontend Engineer."

Greenhouse: Better But Still Broken

Greenhouse is what most startups use. It's less shitty than Workday but has its own fun quirks:

• Header parsing fails: Put your contact info in the document header? Greenhouse can't see it. I learned this after getting "missing contact information" rejections when my email was clearly visible at the top.

• Date format matters: Use "Jan 2023" instead of "January 2023" and their parser thinks you worked there for negative time. Same job, different date format, different outcome.

• Skills extraction is keyword literal: Listed "Node.js" but the job posting said "NodeJS"? No match. Listed "React.js" but they wanted "ReactJS"? No match. It's fucking ridiculous.

iCIMS: The Enterprise Nightmare

Big corporations love iCIMS. It's somehow worse than Workday:

Got rejected from a Python role where I had 5 years of Python experience. The job description said "Python developer." My resume said "Python engineer." System couldn't match them. This keyword matching problem is everywhere.

iCIMS also can't handle:

• Contact info in tables (very common resume format)
• Multiple locations for remote work
• Contract vs full-time work properly
• Any PDF that isn't perfectly structured

BambooHR: Small Company, Big Problems

Even smaller ATS systems are broken. BambooHR rejected me from a startup because:

My job title was "Senior Software Engineer, Platform Team" and it parsed the company name as "Platform Team." So the system thought I worked at a company called "Platform Team" doing "Senior Software Engineer."

The actual company name was right below it. Didn't matter.

What Actually Gets Through

After all this pain, here's what I've learned works:

Use the most boring format possible:

• "Work Experience" not "Professional Experience"
• "Skills" not "Technical Competencies"
• "Education" not "Academic Background"

Separate everything clearly:

SOFTWARE ENGINEER
Company Name, Inc.
March 2022 - Present

Not:

Software Engineer | Company Name | March 2022 - Present

List skills exactly as posted:
Job says "JavaScript"? Use "JavaScript" not "JS" or "ECMAScript"
They want "PostgreSQL"? Don't write "Postgres"
React version matters: "React 18" if they specify it

The Real Technical Gotchas

Framework versions matter way more than you think:

• "React" might not match "React 18"
• "Angular" definitely won't match "AngularJS"
• "Node" won't match "Node.js"

GitHub has entire projects dedicated to fixing ATS parsing problems because this shit is so broken.

Database naming is weirdly specific:

• PostgreSQL ≠ Postgres ≠ PostGIS
• MySQL ≠ MariaDB (even though they're compatible)
• MongoDB ≠ Mongo

Cloud platform specifics:

• "AWS" often doesn't match specific services like "EC2" or "S3"
• "Google Cloud" ≠ "GCP" ≠ "Google Cloud Platform"
• "Azure" sometimes needs "Microsoft Azure"

Why Arc's Templates Actually Help

Arc's templates work because they're built by people who've debugged this shit:

Proper field separation: Job title, company, and dates on separate lines where parsers expect them

Standard section headers: Boring but functional - what the systems were trained to recognize

Technology naming consistency: Uses the official names that actually match job postings

PDF structure: Formats that survive Workday's terrible parsing without manual cleanup

I tested Arc's format against my old resume on the same job applications. Got through initial screening 3x more often. Still had to deal with shitty interview processes, but at least humans saw my actual qualifications.

Other developers have found similar results when they stopped fighting the system and started formatting for it.

The system is broken, but if you format for the broken system, you can at least get to the interview stage where your actual skills matter.

But let me be more specific about exactly how each vendor breaks your shit, because they all have their own special ways of fucking up resumes.

After getting auto-rejected by more companies than I care to count, I decided to actually figure out why. Turns out ATS systems fail in predictable ways, and once you know what breaks them, you can work around it.

The 3AM Resume Upload Test

Here's what I did that changed everything: At 3AM after a particularly brutal rejection from a company I was clearly qualified for, I uploaded my resume to every free ATS testing tool I could find.

The results were horrifying. Workday extracted my GitHub username as my middle name. Greenhouse completely missed my work experience section. iCIMS thought I worked at a company called "React Developer" for 5 years. This shit is so common that developers have built entire open-source projects just to debug ATS parsing.

Specific Formatting That Breaks Everything

The Header Trap:
Put your contact info in a document header? Workday can't see it. I spent 2 months wondering why companies weren't calling, then realized the ATS couldn't extract my phone number.

The Two-Column Disaster:
Made a beautiful two-column resume with skills on the sidebar? Greenhouse reads it like this:

SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER React, Node.js, Python
GOOGLE INC. 2020 - PostgreSQL, MongoDB
Built user authentication Present AWS, Docker

Complete garbage.

The Creative Title Problem:
Used "Software Craftsman" instead of "Software Engineer"? Zero matches for "Software Engineer" roles, even though they're the same thing.

The Framework Name Minefield

This is the shit that really gets you:

React Variations That Don't Match:

• Job posting: "React experience required"
• My resume: "React.js projects"
• ATS result: No match found

Database Name Confusion:

• Job posting: "PostgreSQL developer"
• My resume: "Postgres database optimization"
• ATS result: Missing required skill

Version Number Chaos:

• Job posting: "Node.js developer"
• My resume: "Node 16+ backend development"
• ATS result: No Node.js experience detected

I started keeping a spreadsheet of technology name variations after getting rejected from a Python job where I listed "Python 3.9" but they searched for "Python". This exact keyword matching problem is well documented.

The Date Format That Broke My Career

This one cost me a senior role at a unicorn startup:

My resume had dates like "March 2020 - Present". Their ATS parsed it as "March 2020 Present" and thought I had a 0-day job. System flagged me as having gaps in employment.

Changed to "Mar 2020 - Present" and suddenly the same resume started getting responses.

Contact Information Russian Roulette

What breaks extraction:

┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ John Developer              │
│ john@email.com | (555) 123  │
│ github.com/john             │
└─────────────────────────────┘

What actually works:

John Developer
john@email.com
(555) 123-4567
github.com/john

Boring, but Workday can actually read it.

The Skills Section That Destroyed My Life

I had this beautiful skills section with proficiency bars and grouped technologies. Looked amazing, extracted like shit:

What I had:

Frontend: React ████████ Expert
Backend: Node.js ██████ Advanced
Database: PostgreSQL ████ Intermediate

What ATS extracted:

Skills: Frontend Backend Database

Zero actual technologies detected.

What works now:

Languages: JavaScript, Python, TypeScript
Frameworks: React 18, Node.js, Express.js
Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis
Cloud: AWS, Docker, Kubernetes

Boring as hell, but every ATS can read it.

The Job Title Hierarchy Nightmare

ATS systems are weirdly picky about job title progression:

Got me rejected:

• Software Developer (2019-2021)
• Senior Software Developer (2021-2022)
• Lead Software Developer (2022-Present)

System logic: "Lead" isn't "Senior", missing senior experience

What works:

• Software Engineer (2019-2021)
• Senior Software Engineer (2021-2022)
• Senior Software Engineer (2022-Present)

Same responsibilities, different title matching.

Testing Your Resume (The Right Way)

Step 1: Copy your entire resume, paste into Notepad. If it looks fucked, fix it.

Step 2: Upload to Jobscan with a real job posting. Check what keywords it misses. SkillSyncer is another free option that works well.

Step 3: Test both PDF and Word formats. Some ATS systems hate PDFs, others hate Word docs. The file format can make or break your application.

Step 4: Try uploading to actual ATS systems. Many company career pages let you create accounts and test uploads without applying.

What Finally Worked

Arc's templates solved most of this shit for me because they:

• Use the exact section headers ATS systems expect
• Put contact info where parsers can actually find it
• Format job titles and companies on separate lines
• Include both full and abbreviated technology names
• Use standard date formats that don't confuse parsers

Went from 5% response rate to 35% response rate with the same experience, just formatted for machines instead of humans. Multiple GitHub projects track similar success stories from developers who stopped fighting the ATS and started working with it.

The system is broken, but at least now I know how it's broken.

Now let me answer the questions I get from other developers who are going through the same shit I went through.