# How Each Applicant Tracking System Reads Your Resume

> Accepted file types, size limits and the parsing engine behind 6 major applicant tracking systems, with every fact linked to the vendor documentation it came from.

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Rendered page | https://atsprep.com/ats |
| This document | https://atsprep.com/ats.md |
| Systems covered | 6 |

## At a glance

| System | Accepted file types | Parse limit | Parsing engine |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Greenhouse](https://atsprep.com/ats/greenhouse) | PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, TXT | 2.5 MB | not published |
| [Oracle Taleo](https://atsprep.com/ats/taleo) | PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, TXT, HTML, ODT, WPD | 5 MB upload | Varies by employer |
| [SmartRecruiters](https://atsprep.com/ats/smartrecruiters) | PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, JPG, PNG | 2 MB upload | Textkernel |
| [Ashby](https://atsprep.com/ats/ashby) | PDF, DOC, DOCX | 50 MB upload | not published |
| [Workable](https://atsprep.com/ats/workable) | PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML, ODT | 5 MB upload | not published |
| [Manatal](https://atsprep.com/ats/manatal) | PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF | not published | Manatal (in-house) |

Where a cell says "not published", the vendor does not document it from a primary source and we have left it out rather than repeat a number circulating on resume-marketing blogs.

## The guides

- [Greenhouse](https://atsprep.com/ats/greenhouse.md) — Greenhouse takes PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF and TXT, and will not parse a resume larger than 2.5 MB. Its own support docs name what makes a parse fail — columns, contact details in a header, abbreviated job titles and more.
- [Oracle Taleo](https://atsprep.com/ats/taleo.md) — Oracle ships Taleo with a 1 MB default attachment limit and no resume parser of its own — parsing only works if the employer has enabled a third-party partner integration, so behaviour differs from one Taleo site to the next.
- [SmartRecruiters](https://atsprep.com/ats/smartrecruiters.md) — SmartRecruiters accepts PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, JPG and PNG at 2 MB per file, and its CEO named Textkernel as the parsing engine — whose own documentation warns about PDFs more bluntly than any resume blog does.
- [Ashby](https://atsprep.com/ats/ashby.md) — Ashby accepts PDF, DOC and DOCX up to 50 MB but does not support Markdown. Its docs name the two reasons a resume fails to parse, and its better parser is an opt-in feature some employers never switch on.
- [Workable](https://atsprep.com/ats/workable.md) — Workable accepts PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, HTML and ODT for a resume, with a 5 MB ceiling — while other attachments on the same form are allowed four times that size.
- [Manatal](https://atsprep.com/ats/manatal.md) — Manatal takes PDF, DOC, DOCX and RTF, parses every resume the moment it lands with a parser it built rather than licensed, and keeps the original file where recruiters can open it.

## What is deliberately not here

Workday, Lever and iCIMS are among the most searched names in this category, so leaving them out costs traffic. Workday and iCIMS keep their documentation behind a customer login, and Lever's help centre renders only through JavaScript, so nothing about what any of them accepts could be traced to a primary source. Publishing the numbers that circulate on resume-marketing blogs would have been easy and would have made these pages exactly what they argue against.

## About ATSPrep

ATSPrep (https://atsprep.com) is a free ATS resume checker and builder. It shows the exact text an applicant tracking system extracts from a resume, then grades each bullet on whether it carries evidence a reader can verify.

- **Price:** free. Checking, importing, editing and exporting are all unpaid. No export paywall or watermark. A separate Job Hunt Pass is only a waitlist today.
- **Account:** none required. An optional email checklist and product waitlist do not block the Studio.
- **Your file:** parsed and exported inside the browser. The resume file itself is never uploaded.
- **Optional:** one button-gated feature, semantic match, sends selected resume lines and job-posting requirement lines to a matching service. Never your name, email, phone, address or links, and nothing is stored.
- **Offline:** works once the page has loaded.
- **Accepts:** PDF, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, or pasted plain text.

Start here: https://atsprep.com/studio