ATS-Friendly CV for UK Public Sector: NHS Jobs, Trac, Oleeo, Civil Service Jobs

**TL;DR.** UK public sector recruitment runs on a small set of applicant tracking systems — NHS Jobs (operated by NHSBSA), Trac (the main trust-hosted portal alternative), Civil Service Jobs, Oleeo (used by many departments and local authorities), Jobtrain, Eploy, and Teaching Vacancies. Each strips different formatting. A CV that looks beautiful in Word often becomes unreadable after ATS parsing. This guide shows you what survives, what breaks, and the formatting rules that work across every system.

You have spent two hours polishing a CV in Word. Two-column layout, custom icons, a pale grey skills matrix, a branded header. You paste it into NHS Jobs. You submit. Later you check the CV preview — your employment dates have moved into your address field, your skills matrix is a block of run-on text, and your custom icons have become rectangles with question marks.

This is not a rare problem. It is the default behaviour of most public sector ATS platforms. They parse CVs to extract structured data — name, contact details, employment history, education, qualifications — and they do not render visual formatting. If your CV depends on layout for meaning, the meaning is lost.

The ATS platforms in UK public sector recruitment

Different sectors use different systems. Know which one your target role uses before you format.

**NHS Jobs (NHSBSA).** The central NHS recruitment platform at jobs.nhs.uk. Used for most trust-advertised vacancies that are not posted through a trust's own Trac portal. Form-based application; CV attachment is typically accepted but employment history is duplicated into form fields that the system parses.

**Trac.** Used by many NHS trusts for their own portals (e.g. trust-branded sites like "Careers at [Trust Name]"). Similar architecture to NHS Jobs; form-based with CV upload. Individual trusts can customise the form fields they require.

**Civil Service Jobs.** The central platform at civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk. Form-based; most roles do not accept CV uploads in the conventional sense — you complete structured fields for employment history, qualifications, and the behaviour/personal statement text boxes.

**Oleeo.** Enterprise ATS used by a number of government departments, local authorities, and NHS trusts. Strong CV parsing; CV upload auto-populates many fields which you then verify. Strict character limits on text boxes.

**Jobtrain.** Used by many NHS trusts and local authorities. Form-based with CV parsing. Less reliable CV parsing than Oleeo — manual verification required.

**Eploy.** Used by a mix of NHS and local government. Similar to Jobtrain. Form-based.

**Teaching Vacancies.** The DfE's service at teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk. Form-based with CV upload. Some schools still use agency sites but Teaching Vacancies is the canonical government route.

What gets stripped by public sector ATS platforms

Universal rules — things that break on most systems:

**Tables.** Stripped or rendered as broken run-on text. Never use tables in a CV for a public sector ATS submission.

**Two-column layouts.** Columns collapse into single-column, usually in the wrong reading order. Your sidebar skills list ends up between your last two jobs.

**Text boxes and sidebars.** Rendered as loose paragraphs somewhere unpredictable.

**Custom fonts.** Reverted to system default on render. If your CV design relied on font weight or family for hierarchy, that hierarchy is lost.

**Icons.** Usually become Unicode rectangles or question marks. Some ATS replace them with blank space.

**Images and logos.** Usually stripped entirely. Sometimes generate a parsing error that prevents the CV from uploading.

**Headers and footers.** Headers are usually parsed as part of the first page's body. Footers are often ignored entirely — including page numbers.

**Unicode symbols.** Bullet points sometimes survive (● and • usually do; ✔ and → usually don't). Em-dashes sometimes become question marks. Smart quotes often become question marks.

**PDF with embedded fonts.** Some ATS fail to parse PDF correctly. Word (.docx) is more reliably parsed than PDF on most public sector systems.

**Color.** Usually stripped. Colored section headers become plain text.

**Hyperlinks.** Text of the link is kept; URL is usually stripped. If you have "LinkedIn profile" as a hyperlink, the link URL is lost.

**Multi-column bullet lists.** Often reflow into a single column in unpredictable order.

What survives ATS parsing across every public sector system

The format that works universally:

• Single column layout
• Left-aligned text
• Plain black text on white background
• System fonts: Calibri, Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica
• Size 11 or 12 body text
• Plain text section headings in bold (JOB HISTORY, EDUCATION, QUALIFICATIONS)
• Standard bullet points (• or ●) for lists
• Straight quotes, not smart quotes
• Hyphens or three-hyphen dashes; avoid em-dash and en-dash
• Dates in a consistent format (Month YYYY to Month YYYY)
• Job titles on their own line, in bold
• Employer names on their own line
• Tabular information rewritten as narrative bullets

The structure that parses reliably

Use this exact structure in a single-column layout:

• Full name (bold, size 14)
• Location (city, country — not full address unless asked)
• Telephone number
• Email address
• (Optional) LinkedIn URL as plain text

• 3–4 lines summarising your current role, years of relevant experience, and one standout achievement

• Reverse chronological
• For each role:

• Degrees, professional qualifications, significant CPD
• Institution, qualification, year

• Regulatory body, registration number, expiry if relevant

• Plain bullet list of hard skills (software, languages, frameworks)

• Keep brief

• "Available on request" — most public sector applications request references separately

What NHS Jobs does with your CV

NHS Jobs strongly prefers the form-based application. When you upload a CV, the system attempts to parse it into the form fields. You are then required to verify the auto-populated content, which almost always needs correction. Treat the CV upload as a starting point; expect to manually edit every field.

NHS Jobs keeps your CV on record for your application profile, but shortlisting panels typically score your supporting statement, not your CV. The CV is a background document; the supporting statement is the scoring document.

What Civil Service Jobs does

Civil Service Jobs does not accept CV uploads for most roles. Instead you complete structured form fields for:

• Personal details
• Employment history (each role entered separately)
• Education and qualifications
• Professional memberships
• Ability test results (from the tests taken earlier in the process)
• Behaviour example text boxes
• Personal statement text box
• Technical exercise responses (if applicable)

The form is the CV. Format your Civil Service application content with strict character counts and plain text — no formatting carries across from pasted content.

What Teaching Vacancies does

Teaching Vacancies (gov.uk service) accepts a CV upload alongside the supporting statement. CV parsing is less aggressive than some commercial ATS — the system stores your CV and presents it to the school recruiter as-is. Schools typically download the CV rather than reading it inside the ATS. This means some formatting survives — but you should still follow the ATS-safe rules in case the school's own internal process involves further parsing.

How to test your CV before you submit

Three checks:

**Check 1 — Copy-paste into plain text.** Open your CV, select all, copy, paste into a plain text editor (Notepad, TextEdit in plain text mode, or any browser URL bar). If the result is readable, the CV is ATS-safe. If the result is jumbled, the CV will break.

**Check 2 — Convert to .txt.** "Save As" your Word CV as a .txt file. Open the .txt. If key information is missing (contact details, dates, employer names), the layout is causing data loss.

**Check 3 — Test in ATS preview.** Most public sector ATS show you a preview of the parsed CV before you submit. Always check this preview. If information is in the wrong field, fix it before submitting.

What to do when an ATS requires both a CV and a structured form

This is the default for NHS Jobs, Trac, Oleeo, and most local authority ATS. The form fields are the primary data source for shortlisting. The CV is supplementary.

• Complete the form fields in full, even if the CV already contains the same information
• Do not assume the panel will read the CV to fill in a blank form field
• Match dates exactly between CV and form — date discrepancies trigger follow-up or rejection

Three universal CV formatting mistakes

**Mistake 1 — Using tables for the "Skills" or "Core Competencies" section.** Tables reflow into unreadable text. Rewrite as a plain bullet list.

**Mistake 2 — Putting contact details in the document header.** Headers are often ignored or misparsed. Put contact details in the body of the document at the top.

**Mistake 3 — Placing dates on the right with job title on the left.** When this reflows, the dates end up in the wrong position or attach to the wrong employer. Put dates on the same line as the employer, clearly separated.

How SpecMatch handles public sector CV formatting

SpecMatch exports tailored CVs in ATS-safe DOCX and PDF formats, with no tables, no smart quotes, no em-dashes, no embedded images, system fonts only, and single-column layout. The exporter is tested against NHS Jobs, Trac, Civil Service Jobs, Oleeo, and Teaching Vacancies parsing patterns.

The Pro plan includes the tailored CV generator alongside the supporting statement. Start free to see it in action.