Greenhouse resume format and parsing guide

Greenhouse sells its recruiting software to employers. (Greenhouse) For candidates it runs MyGreenhouse, which it describes as "a candidate portal that brings together jobs from companies that use Greenhouse Recruiting". Its FAQ is plain about the limits: MyGreenhouse "can't change an application, make hiring decisions, or contact recruiters for you"; for questions about an application, contact the company you applied to. (Greenhouse Support)

1. Apply on the employer's job board. The GitLab posting we looked at asked for first and last name, email, phone, country, a Resume/CV (required, with "Attach" or "Enter manually", accepting pdf, doc, docx, txt or rtf), an optional cover letter, a LinkedIn profile, the employer's own questions and voluntary self-identification. (GitLab job board (Powered by Greenhouse))
2. Or use MyGreenhouse. Its Quick Apply fills application fields from a profile you enter once. (Greenhouse Support)
3. The employer's team reviews it in Greenhouse Recruiting. If your resume can't be parsed, Greenhouse's support article says it is only attached, and the candidate's details have to be entered by hand. (Greenhouse Support)

Greenhouse's article on unsuccessful resume parses lists these causes: (Greenhouse Support)

• Files larger than 2.5MB; the article mentions resumes with large, high-quality images.
• Resumes uploaded as an image rather than a document such as a .docx or .pdf.
• Graphics, photos or word art.
• Complex resumes with tables, headers and footers, and contact details placed in a header, footer or text box.
• Fake or poorly disguised data, such as "Company 1" or "Any Company".

Some of these cause a partial parse, which also needs correcting by hand. On the candidate side, the MyGreenhouse FAQ says resume parsing "is designed to save time, but can make mistakes" and advises: "Upload a PDF for best results." (Greenhouse Support)

1. Keep the file under 2.5MB. Greenhouse says it can't parse larger resumes and points to large, high-quality images. Remove or shrink them.
2. Upload a document, not an image. A text-based PDF or DOCX. MyGreenhouse recommends PDF.
3. Put contact details in the body. Not in a page header, footer or text box, and no tables, graphics, photos or word art.
4. Replace every placeholder. Template text like "Company 1" or "Your Name" is treated as fake data and skipped.
5. Check what was filled in. Parsing can make mistakes, so read the autofilled fields before you submit.

In a study dated 9 October 2026, we exported 21 PDFs from Resumity's 7 templates and read them back with three open-source text extractors, pdf.js, pdftotext and pypdf (63 extractions). Every name, email, phone number, section heading and bullet came back intact and in order. That tells you the text layer of those PDFs is complete.

It does not tell you how Greenhouse reads the same file. We have not tested Resumity's templates in Greenhouse, and each employer configures its own setup. The method, limits and raw data are on how we test our templates.