What does ATS-safe CV formatting actually mean?
"ATS-safe" CV formatting means the output document is structured so applicant tracking systems can parse it correctly rather than losing or scrambling data on re-upload. In practice this means avoiding image-based text, complex multi-column layouts, and PDF-native formatting that breaks on conversion, and instead producing clean, machine-readable Word or structured-text output. This matters most at candidate submission into a client's TA portal, where a poorly-structured CV can silently fail to parse and drop candidate data before a recruiter knows about it.