What happens to your CV before a human reads it
Apply through Werk.nl, Indeed, LinkedIn or a company careers page in the Netherlands and your CV is usually parsed by software first. The applicant tracking system turns your file into a structured record: name, contact details, employers, job titles, dates, skills, education. Recruitee and Homerun are both Dutch-built and widely used here; larger employers often run AFAS or an international system.
Recruiters then search and filter that record rather than reading your file. The original stays attached, but the parsed version decides whether you appear in a search at all.
The failure is quiet. A section does not parse, a date is misread, a skill never reaches the record — and you become harder to find, with no error anywhere. Formatting for an ATS is not about outwitting software. It is about making sure nothing is lost between your file and the record a person reads.
1. One column, top to bottom
Parsers read in document order. A two-column layout — skills in a sidebar, experience beside it — frequently comes out interleaved, with skill names spliced into job descriptions and dates detached from roles.
A single column cannot be scrambled, and it reads perfectly well for humans.
2. No photo, and that helps
Dutch CVs conventionally omit the photo, and most employers here neither expect nor want one. That convention happens to be helpful for parsing, because photos are usually placed in headers or text boxes — and those containers are what swallow your contact details.
If you are applying from abroad and your template has a photo frame, remove it. You lose nothing in the Dutch market and you remove a common parsing failure.
3. Real text, not graphics
Anything drawn rather than typed is invisible: text inside images, skill bars, icons instead of words, logos. A language level shown as four dots parses as nothing — write Nederlands moedertaal or Engels C1 instead.
Quick test: open your exported PDF, select all, copy, paste into a plain text editor. What does not survive the paste is what the ATS cannot see.
4. Standard section headings
Use the conventional Dutch headings — Werkervaring, Opleiding, Vaardigheden, Talen — rather than invented ones. A parser matching on keywords will find Werkervaring and will not recognise something clever.
Applying in English to an international employer in Amsterdam? Use English headings consistently, and do not mix the two languages in the same CV.
5. One consistent date format
MM-YYYY parses reliably. The problem is mixing formats — 03-2021, maart 2021 and 2021/03 in the same document. Choose one and apply it everywhere, education included.
Write current roles as 03-2021 – heden, not with a dash trailing into blank space.
6. Keep the motivatiebrief in its own file
If the form asks for a CV, upload the CV. Combining motivatiebrief and CV into a single PDF means the parser reads the whole thing as a CV, and cover-letter prose can end up populating fields meant for job titles and employers.
Upload separate files wherever the form allows it.
7. PDF, unless asked otherwise
A PDF exported from a word processor or CV builder parses well. A PDF made by scanning a printed page contains no text at all and parses as blank. If a portal explicitly asks for .docx, follow the instruction.
Name the file for a human: CV_Achternaam_Voornaam.pdf.
Before you submit
- Single column, no sidebar
- No photo
- Contact details as ordinary text, not in a header or text box
- Select-all-and-copy test passes
- Standard Dutch section headings
- One date format throughout
- Language levels as words, not dots
- CV and motivatiebrief as separate files
- Text-based PDF, sensibly named
What this will not do
Formatting makes you readable and findable. It does not make you a stronger candidate. If the role needs five years of experience you do not have, a clean layout changes nothing.
What it prevents is the quiet loss: being qualified, applying, and never surfacing in the recruiter's search because your skills section ended up inside a job description.