How Recruitee reads your resume

What trips people up on Recruitee

1. No readable email address, no parse

   For an emailed application to become a candidate, Recruitee says the attached CV must contain an email address, and the name and email fields are pre-filled with what its parser extracts from that file. It recommends one attachment per email, so another file is not mistaken for the CV.

   Source: Recruitee Help Center, CV and resume FAQ · checked Oct 19, 2026

2. An email in the header or footer is the usual miss

   The most common warning Recruitee shows when CVs are added is that the candidate email could not be extracted, which it says is usually a CV where the email sits in a header, a footer or an image. The profile is still created, and someone has to type the address in. Recruitee also says a profile needs a name, an email address and a readable CV, and gives a CV forwarded as a scanned image as an example of an email that is kept rather than turned into a candidate.

   Source: Recruitee Help Center, add candidates to Recruitee · checked Oct 19, 2026

3. Highly visual CVs are not parser-friendly

   Recruitee names a highly visual CV as the most common reason a document cannot be read. Its own checklist asks whether the file is Word, PDF or ODT, whether the text can be highlighted, whether a standard web-safe font such as Arial or Times New Roman was used, whether a scanned CV is searchable, and whether the document is protected.

   Source: Recruitee Help Center, why a CV was not parsed correctly · checked Oct 19, 2026

4. One file should hold one CV

   When a single file combines a CV with a cover letter, references or other documents, Recruitee parses the whole thing, and can pick up someone else's email address as the candidate's.

   Source: Recruitee Help Center, why a CV was not parsed correctly · checked Oct 19, 2026

5. Every file is shown to the recruiter as a PDF

   JPG and PNG images of a CV are on Recruitee's upload list alongside the document formats, and anything else is marked unsupported and not uploaded. Files that are not already PDFs are converted to PDF so they can be previewed inside Recruitee; the original stays on the profile and can still be downloaded.

   Source: Recruitee Help Center, upload and parse CVs · checked Oct 19, 2026

6. Knockout questions can reject on the spot

   Employers can mark screening questions as knockout questions that disqualify an applicant who picks a set answer. If the disqualify reason has an automated rule such as a rejection email, Recruitee says it triggers immediately after the candidate applies. Name and email are always on the form; the CV field can be required, optional or hidden. The form itself sits at the job's URL followed by /c/new.

   Source: Recruitee Help Center, create an application form for each job · checked Oct 19, 2026

7. Careers sites live on recruitee.com by default

   Recruitee hosts each employer's careers site at an address like yourcompany.recruitee.com. An employer can use its own subdomain, such as jobs.yourcompany.com, as a custom domain for the same site, so the address bar will not always say Recruitee.

   Source: Recruitee Help Center, show jobs on your own website · checked Oct 19, 2026

8. The parser is third-party and unnamed

   Recruitee says it uses third-party CV parsing software and that mistakes can happen because of that software's machine learning rules. It does not name the vendor, so this guide does not either.

   Source: Recruitee Help Center, why a CV was not parsed correctly · checked Oct 19, 2026

9. No size limit is published

   Recruitee's help centre does not state a maximum file size for a CV. This guide leaves the field blank rather than borrow a number from a different part of the product.

Recruitee and your resume

What is Recruitee?

Recruitee, also called Tellent Recruitee, is an applicant tracking system employers use to run their careers site, collect applications and parse CVs into candidate profiles.

Does Recruitee read PDF resumes?

Yes. PDF is on Recruitee's accepted list. Recruitee's checks for a CV that will not parse include whether you can highlight the text, whether a scanned CV is searchable, and whether the document is protected, so a text-based, unprotected PDF is the safe choice.

What file types does Recruitee accept for a CV?

PDF, DOC, DOCX, ODT, RTF and TXT files, and JPG and PNG images of a CV. Anything else is marked as unsupported and not uploaded. Files that are not PDFs are converted to PDF for preview, and the original stays downloadable.

What is the Recruitee resume size limit?

Recruitee does not publish a maximum file size for CVs in its help centre. If an upload goes through but nothing is extracted, the email address and the layout are more likely causes than size.

Why did my resume fail to parse in Recruitee?

Recruitee names the causes: no email address in the CV, an email address in a header, footer or image, a highly visual layout, a non-standard font, text that cannot be highlighted, a scan that is not searchable, a protected document, and several documents combined into one file. It also says some mistakes come from the parsing software's machine learning rules.

Does a failed parse mean Recruitee rejected my application?

No. Recruitee documents manual fallbacks: a profile is still created when the email cannot be extracted, and an email application that cannot be converted is kept for the recruiter to convert by hand. What can reject you automatically is a knockout question.

How do I know if an employer uses Recruitee?

Recruitee careers sites are hosted at an address like yourcompany.recruitee.com, unless the employer has set up its own domain such as jobs.yourcompany.com. The application form itself sits at the job's URL followed by /c/new.