CAREER: YOUR CV
ATS-Friendly CV for Automation, PLC and Controls Engineers: Keywords, Bullets and Mistakes
How applicant tracking systems read a controls CV, where the platform and protocol keywords go, how to write bullets with real numbers, and what the free EDWartens checkers can and cannot tell you.
An ATS-friendly automation engineer resume is a one-column document with plain headings, contact details in the body, a date on every role, and the exact platform, software and protocol names the advert uses (Siemens S7-1500, TIA Portal, Studio 5000, PROFINET, Modbus TCP), backed by bullets that start with a verb and carry a real number. That combination survives both the software that screens first and the engineer who reads second.
Checked 1 October 2026. Research figures come from the sources listed under the post.
How does ATS screening actually work?
An applicant tracking system (ATS) does three things with your CV. It parses it, pulling text into fields such as name, employer, job title, dates and skills. It stores it, so recruiters can search across every applicant, past and present. And it often ranks or filters it against the job.
How common is this? Harvard Business School's study with Accenture, Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent, surveyed 2,275 executives and 8,720 workers in the US, UK and Germany. Writing about it in 2021, Joseph Fuller noted that 99% of Fortune 500 firms used applicant tracking software as of 2019, and that among employers using a recruitment management system, over 90% relied on it to make a first cut or rank middle-skills (94%) and high-skills (92%) applicants. Fuller also told the Harvard Gazette that half the companies in the United States filter out applicants with a gap of more than six months in their work history.
Parsing is where many good controls CVs fail. Greenhouse, a widely used ATS, lists the causes of an unsuccessful parse in its support pages: graphics, photos and word art; tables, headers and footers; contact details in a header, footer or text box; multi-column layouts; inconsistent section formatting; and files over 2.5 MB. Greenhouse also lets recruiters search candidates with Boolean queries such as AND, OR, NOT and quoted phrases. So if the parser scrambled your skills, or you wrote "Siemens PLCs" when the recruiter searched for "TIA Portal", you do not appear in the results, and nobody reads the CV at all.
Which keywords should an automation CV contain?
The words recruiters type are the words in the advert. For controls roles they fall into a few groups:
- Platforms: brand and family. Siemens S7-1200 and S7-1500, Allen-Bradley CompactLogix and ControlLogix, Mitsubishi, Omron, Beckhoff, Schneider Modicon.
- Software: TIA Portal, Studio 5000, RSLogix 500, Connected Components Workbench, TwinCAT 3, CODESYS, WinCC, FactoryTalk View, Ignition.
- Protocols: PROFINET, PROFIBUS, EtherNet/IP, Modbus TCP and RTU, OPC UA, IO-Link, MQTT.
- Standards: IEC 61131-3, ISA-88, ISA-95, ISA-18.2, IEC 60204-1, IEC 62443, and functional safety terms (SIL, PL) only if you have really worked with them.
- Disciplines: PLC, SCADA, HMI, VFD, servo, robotics, instrumentation, commissioning, FAT and SAT.
Three rules make keywords work:
- Mirror the advert's spelling. If the advert says "Studio 5000 Logix Designer", use that once, even if you call it Studio 5000 in conversation.
- Spell out each acronym once. "Variable frequency drives (VFDs)" matches a search for either.
- Put each keyword where it is evidenced. A skills list is searchable, but a bullet saying what you did with that platform is what the engineer reading it believes.
Never paste keywords you cannot discuss. The interview that follows will be technical, and one invented platform loses the trust that the rest of the CV earned.
How do you write project bullets with numbers?
Use one pattern: verb, system, outcome. The verb says you did the work, the system names the platform and the scope, and the outcome is a number someone could check.
- Weak: "Responsible for PLC programming on packaging lines."
- Strong: "Programmed a Siemens S7-1500 in TIA Portal for a 3-station case packer (96 I/O), cutting changeover from 25 to 9 minutes."
- Weak: "Familiar with SCADA."
- Strong: "Built 14 Ignition Perspective screens and 38 alarms for a 4-site water telemetry project; history logged to SQL every 10 s."
- Weak: "Exposure to commissioning."
- Strong: "Ran point-to-point and loop checks on 2 MCC panels (210 I/O); recorded 6 punch items, all closed before handover."
Numbers worth using in controls work: I/O count, number of panels, stations, drives or robots, tags and alarms, cycle time, changeover time, downtime, scrap rate, commissioning days, sites. If you are a fresher, count what the project really had: "a 22-row I/O list", "a FAT of 24 tests with 2 failures corrected". Never invent a number; you will be asked about it.
What are the most common mistakes on controls CVs?
- Two columns with a sidebar of skills. It looks tidy and parses into nonsense. Use one column.
- Contact details in the page header. Some parsers skip the header layer, so your email vanishes. Put it in the first line of the body.
- Skill bars or star ratings. "80% Siemens" means nothing to a human and nothing to a parser. Write the platform and what you did on it.
- Filler phrases. Team player, hard working, quick learner, responsible for, familiar with, exposure to. Each costs a line and proves nothing.
- No dates. Systems build a timeline from dates; a role without one may not be ranked.
- One CV for every application. The ATS matches text, so give it the text of the advert in front of you.
- Course titles instead of evidence. A certificate shows you finished something; a project bullet shows you can do the job. Our post on whether free PLC certificates are worth it covers what employers actually check.
How do the free EDWartens resume tools help?
EDWartens has a set of free tools for this, and it is worth knowing exactly what each does and does not do.
[ATS resume checker](/resources/ats-resume-checker). You paste your CV text and pick a target title from ten controls roles (automation engineer, PLC programmer, PLC/SCADA engineer, controls, instrumentation, commissioning, service, panel design, robotics and DCS engineer). It scores keywords (named platforms, protocols, standards and disciplines from a fixed automation vocabulary), structure (recognised headings, dates, bullet count, a LinkedIn URL) and language (action verbs, minus filler phrases), and lists what to fix: a missing platform name, no protocol, no years, the target title absent from the text, a length outside roughly 250 to 900 words. The text stays in your browser.
[Resume score](/resources/resume-score). A second view out of 100, split into five bars: platform evidence (30), measured results (25), technical depth (20), written like an engineer (15) and shape and length (10). It counts lines that carry a number with a unit such as %, hours, machines, panels or tags, and names the weakest bar under "Fix this first".
[Resume builder](/resources/resume-builder). Pick a role (PLC programmer, automation, SCADA or controls engineer), fresher or experienced, and the areas you can do (PLC, SCADA/HMI, commissioning, VFDs, robotics). It writes a two-line summary and verb-first bullets with blanks (___) for your own numbers, because an invented number is worse than none. Signed-in learners can also upload an existing CV, PDF or Word up to 10 MB, to their account documents.
[Job description analyser](/resources/job-description-analyzer). Paste an advert and it pulls out the platforms, protocols and standards the filter is likely set to, and flags signals such as site travel, shift work, maintenance bias or a hard experience bar.
The honest limits
These are heuristics, not an employer's ATS. They read pasted text, so they cannot see your file's layout: a two-column PDF can score well here and still parse badly at Greenhouse or Workday. Check that yourself by copying the text out of your exported PDF; if it comes out jumbled, so will the parse. The vocabulary is fixed and controls-focused, so Python, data or AI skills are not counted, and a brand it does not list will not score. Matching is by word presence, so the score rises if you paste keywords, but the engineer who reads the CV next will not be fooled. Use the scores to find gaps, not as a target.
Back it with evidence
The strongest line on a junior controls CV is a project someone can open. Every free course on EDWartens has a project brief, and most come with a sample document pack (FDS, I/O list, FAT record and more) to model your own on; our guide to building a portfolio from course projects shows how to present them. For the interview that follows, read PLC interview questions and answers and try the interview question prep tool.
If a target advert names a platform you have never touched, the free Siemens TIA Portal and Allen-Bradley Studio 5000 courses run in vendor trial software with simulators, and Industrial Communication covers the protocols. Learning is free in full; an optional EDWartens Certificate of Completion, from US$2.99, can be checked by code at edwartens.com/verification. It is not a vendor certification, and a CV should say so plainly.
Take the free course
PLC programming · Beginner · Free
Siemens TIA Portal
PLC programming · Beginner · Free
Allen-Bradley Studio 5000
Industrial networks · Intermediate · Free
Industrial Communication: Serial, Fieldbus, Ethernet, Modbus, PROFINET and OPC UA
Electrical · Beginner · Free
Electrical Control Panel Design, Building and Testing
Questions
What is an ATS-friendly resume?
One that applicant tracking software can parse into fields and find by keyword: a single column, plain section headings, contact details in the body, dates on every role, and the platform, software and protocol names a recruiter will search for, written the way the advert writes them.
Does an ATS reject CVs automatically?
Some filters do: Harvard Business School's research found employers using knock-out rules such as gaps in work history. More often the system ranks or lets recruiters search, and a CV that parsed badly or lacks the searched words simply never appears in the results. Either way, a person rarely reads it.
Should a controls engineer's CV be one page or two?
One page until you have about five years of experience, two at most after that. Recruiters skim the first pass quickly, and the ATS does not reward length; it rewards the right words in parseable places.
Can I put training projects on my CV if I have no job experience?
Yes, under a Projects heading, written as work: what you built, on which platform, how you tested it, and a real number. A simulated two-pump station with a signed test record is evidence; a list of course titles is not.
Are the EDWartens resume tools a real ATS?
No. The ATS resume checker and resume score are heuristics that run in your browser against a fixed list of automation keywords, headings and verbs. They catch the common gaps, but they cannot see your file's layout or reproduce a particular employer's system.
Sources
- Harvard Business School Working Knowledge: How to tap the talent automated HR platforms miss (Fuller, Nov 2021)
- Harvard Business School: Hidden Workers, Untapped Talent (report page)
- Harvard Gazette: New study says 'hidden workers' are being excluded (Sept 2021)
- Greenhouse Support: Unsuccessful resume parse
- Greenhouse Support: Search candidates using Boolean queries
Written by the EDWartens engineering team for general education. Product names are trademarks of their owners; mentioning them does not imply endorsement. Prices and terms of other providers were checked on the date shown and can change.
