By Justine Vendil, Founder of VA Workers PH · Published September 20, 2026 · Updated September 25, 2026
Many companies hiring virtual assistants, especially agencies and larger employers, run applications through an applicant tracking system (ATS) before a human sees them. If your resume isn't formatted in a way the ATS can parse, you can be perfectly qualified and still never make it past the first filter. Here's how to build a resume that gets through, fast.
An applicant tracking system is software that collects job applications and helps a recruiter sort them. When you upload your resume, the ATS pulls the text out of your file and tries to place each piece into fields: your name, contact details, job titles, employers, dates, skills and education. The recruiter then searches, filters or ranks candidates using that extracted information.
Two things follow from this. First, if the software can't read your text, that information effectively doesn't exist. A job title trapped inside an image or a skills list inside a table may come out as blank or scrambled. Second, recruiters often search the ATS for specific words from the job post, such as "Shopify" or "calendar management". If those words aren't in your resume, your application may not appear in the results at all, even if you have the skill.
An ATS doesn't judge whether you're a good VA. It decides whether your resume is readable and relevant enough to reach a person.
ATS software scans your resume for structure and keywords, not design. Resumes built in Canva, with multi-column layouts, text boxes, tables, or graphics, often get mangled or skipped entirely because the software cannot read the text correctly. A visually striking resume that an ATS can't parse is worse than a plain one it can read perfectly.
A common example: in a two-column resume, some parsers read straight across the page, merging a line from your skills column with a line from your job history into nonsense like "Google Sheets Executive Assistant, Tampa Canva 2023".
Stick to a single-column layout with standard section headers: Summary, Work Experience, Skills, Education. Use standard fonts (Arial, Calibri, Georgia), avoid headers and footers for critical info (many ATS tools skip them entirely), and save as a .docx or PDF exported from a text-based tool rather than a scanned image or design file.
Use plain headings. Creative labels like "Where I've Made an Impact" or "My Toolbox" can confuse the parser. "Work Experience" and "Skills" are recognized everywhere.
Keep all text as real text. No text inside images, logos, icons, text boxes or tables. Skill ratings shown as stars or progress bars carry no readable information, so write the tool name instead.
Put contact details in the body. Your name, email, phone number and city should sit at the top of the page as normal text, not in the document header.
Write dates consistently. Pick one format, such as "Jan 2023 to Present" or "01/2023 to Present", and use it for every role so the ATS can calculate your experience.
Choose PDF or DOCX based on the instructions. A PDF keeps your layout exactly as you designed it, and most modern systems read text-based PDFs well. A DOCX is the most universally parseable format and some older systems handle it more reliably. If the job post or application form asks for a specific format, use that. If it doesn't, a clean PDF exported from Word or Google Docs is usually fine. The one PDF to avoid is a scanned or image-based one: if you can't highlight and copy the text in your PDF, neither can the ATS.
ATS software ranks resumes partly by how closely they match the job description's language. If a posting says "calendar management" and your resume says "scheduling," you may lose points on an automated match even though they mean the same thing. Mirror the exact phrasing used in the job post wherever it's honestly applicable.
To find the right keywords, read the job post and note every tool, task and skill it names. A post for an e-commerce VA might mention Shopify, order processing, customer support tickets, Gorgias and returns handling. Then check which of those you have genuinely done and make sure each appears in your resume using the same wording, ideally both in your Skills section and inside a bullet that shows you using it.
Be honest about this. Adding a tool you've never touched might get you past the filter, but it will surface in the interview or the first week of work. If you've used a similar tool, say so accurately: "Managed support tickets in Zendesk (similar workflow to Gorgias)" is truthful and still matches the keyword. Avoid pasting the job description in white text or stuffing a hidden list of keywords at the bottom. Recruiters see the extracted text, and that trick looks dishonest immediately.
Lead with a short summary naming your specialization (e.g., "Virtual assistant specializing in e-commerce order management and customer support"), list specific tools by name (Shopify, Slack, QuickBooks, Google Workspace, since ATS software and human reviewers both scan for these), and quantify results where you can ("Managed inbox for 3 executives, reducing average response time to under 2 hours").
A weak bullet says "Responsible for admin tasks." A strong one names the task, the tool and the result: "Organized client files in Google Drive using a shared naming system so the team could find documents without asking."
Step one, start from a plain document. Open a blank Google Doc or Word file, or use a resume builder that outputs a single-column layout. Don't start from a design template with columns and graphics.
Step two, add your core sections. Contact details at the top, then Summary, Work Experience, Skills and Education, in that order. If you have no formal VA experience yet, list relevant freelance, volunteer or office work under Work Experience.
Step three, write one master version. Fill in every role, tool and result you can honestly claim. This master copy will be longer than what you send, and that's fine.
Step four, pull keywords from the job post. For each application, list the tools and tasks the post mentions and compare them with your master copy.
Step five, tailor a copy for the job. Adjust your summary to name the role, move the most relevant bullets to the top of each job, and match the post's wording where it's accurate. Once your master copy exists, this is a quick edit rather than a rewrite.
Step six, test the file. Save it, then copy all the text and paste it into a plain text editor. If the order is jumbled or sections are missing, the ATS will likely see the same problem. Better yet, run it through an ATS checker before you send it.
Before submitting, read through your resume one last time with the ATS in mind. Confirm that the layout is a single column and that nothing important lives in a table, text box, image, header or footer. Check that your section headings are standard names a parser will recognize and that your font is a common one. Make sure your file is a text-based PDF or DOCX, in whatever format the employer requested, and that the file name is professional, such as "Maria-Santos-Virtual-Assistant-Resume". Scan your summary and skills for the key tools and tasks from this specific job post, and confirm that every keyword you included reflects something you have actually done. Finally, verify that your dates are consistent and your email and phone number are correct, because a perfectly parsed resume is useless if the recruiter can't reach you.
Building this from scratch and second-guessing the formatting takes most people well over an hour. VA Workers PH's free resume checker scans your existing resume for ATS issues in seconds and shows you exactly what's blocking you, with no account needed to see your score. If you don't have a resume yet, the resume builder generates an ATS-safe layout automatically so formatting is never the thing holding you back.
About the author
Justine Vendil is the founder of VA Workers PH and its Facebook community of 280,000+ members. Justine has worked remotely since 2021, earning in dollars as a freelancer in marketing, writing, and community management.
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