19th May 2026
Practical Guide for In-House Lawyers to Draft CVs to be read by AI
Many mid- to large-sized employers now use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to manage recruitment. These systems don’t just store your CV—they may determine if a recruiter ever sees it. A recent survey of 630 recruiters found that 92% say their ATS does NOT auto-reject based on content. Instead, recruiters search the ATS like a database: by keywords, job titles, and experience filters; if your CV doesn’t match, you’re not rejected—you’re invisible.
This guide draws on findings from extensive testing across major ATS platforms into practical steps for in-house lawyers preparing a CV that will be reviewed by AI screening tools.
Remember: The bar for a technically optimised CV is surprisingly low because most candidates don’t know these rules exist. You don’t have to be the best candidate—you just have to be visible.
Column layouts get scrambled by ATS parsers – your job title from column A could merge with a skill from column B. Stick to a clean, single-column format with no tables, graphics, or decorative elements.
Most ATS platforms ignore content placed in headers and footers. Hundreds of CVs were found where the candidate’s name, email, and phone number were in the document header—meaning the system had no idea who they were. Place all contact details at the top of the document body.
ATS expects conventional section labels. Use the following:
CVs need 25–35 role-specific keywords to consistently score above 80% in ATS matching. Below 25 keywords, you don’t surface in enough searches. Above 35, you risk tripping keyword-stuffing detectors. 83% of companies now use AI-assisted screening, so the old trick of pasting the job description in white text doesn’t just fail – it gets your CV penalised.
Use the exact terms from the posting. “Adobe Creative Cloud” and “Adobe Creative Suite” are different strings to AI. For lawyers, “Commercial Contracts” and “Commercial Agreements” may be treated differently—match what the role description says.
Inconsistent date formats cause ATS to miscalculate your total experience. Mixing “Jan 2019,” “2019-01,” and “January ’19” across different roles can make 8 years look like 3. Use “Month Year” format consistently (e.g., “January 2020 – March 2023”).
Word documents are reliably reviewed across every ATS tested. PDFs contained errors due to scanned documents, certain export settings, and embedded fonts, resulting in review failures. Keep a .docx master version and only use PDF when the application specifically requests it.
A phone icon next to your number? The ATS sees U+260E or a blank. Your contact info becomes noise. Strip out all icons, emojis, rating bars, and graphics.
ATS keyword searches are often run by HR or recruitment teams, not lawyers. Where the posting uses business-oriented language (“stakeholder management,” “cross-functional collaboration,” “risk mitigation”), mirror it. Layer in the legal terms alongside the commercial language rather than relying on technical legal vocabulary alone.
In-house lawyers often understate their commercial contribution. Where possible, include measurable outcomes: the value of deals closed, percentage reduction in external legal spend, number of contracts reviewed per quarter, size of teams managed, or revenue of the business unit supported. Concrete numbers help both ATS scoring and human reviewers.
If the role is in a regulated industry (financial services, healthcare, energy), include specific regulatory frameworks you’ve worked with: APRA, ASIC, ACCC, Privacy Act, GDPR, SOX, NER, etc. These are high-value search terms that recruiters filter on. Spell out acronyms on first use, then include the abbreviation—this covers both search patterns.
Recruiters searching for in-house candidates often filter by job title. Ensure your in-house roles are clearly labelled with recognisable titles (e.g., “Legal Counsel,” “Senior Legal Counsel,” “General Counsel”). If you held a dual role (e.g., Company Secretary and General Counsel), include both titles so you surface in searches for either.
Rather than burying practice areas in prose descriptions, list them explicitly in a Skills or Core Competencies section. For example: “Employment Law, M&A, Commercial Contracts, Data Privacy, Corporate Governance, Regulatory Compliance, Dispute Resolution.” This ensures each area is individually searchable.
Legal operations is a growing search category. If you have experience with contract lifecycle management tools, legal project management, e-billing platforms, or AI-assisted review tools, list them. These are increasingly common ATS search terms for in-house roles.
Keep a detailed master CV and create a tailored version for each application. Review the job advertisement and mirror its language, priorities, and structure. A few minutes of tailoring per application significantly increases your visibility in ATS searches.
For senior roles, recruiters often search for governance experience. If you’ve served on or reported to boards, audit committees, or risk committees, include this prominently. Use terms the posting uses: “board reporting,” “corporate governance,” “board advisory.”
Recruiters routinely cross-reference CVs with LinkedIn profiles. Inconsistencies in job titles, dates, or employer names raise immediate red flags. Ensure your LinkedIn matches your CV exactly—same titles, same date ranges, same company names. Your LinkedIn headline should also mirror the target role title, just as your CV header does.
Stick to standard, widely supported fonts: Arial, Calibri, Garamond, or Times New Roman. Custom or decorative fonts can render as gibberish when parsed by an ATS. If in doubt, Arial or Calibri in 10–12pt is the safest choice.
Some ATS platforms index the filename itself, and recruiters manually browsing submissions will see it. Use a clear, professional format: “FirstName_LastName_CV.docx” or “FirstName_LastName_[Target Role].docx.” Avoid generic names like “CV_final_v3.docx” or “Document1.docx.”
ATS parsers cannot read content placed inside Word text boxes, shapes, or SmartArt. If your CV uses a text box for a sidebar, summary panel, or contact block, that content is invisible to the system. All text must sit in the main document body flow.
Secondments to business units, regulators, or clients are highly valued for in-house roles but often buried in role descriptions. List each secondment as a distinct entry or sub-entry under the relevant employer, naming the host organisation and skills gained. Recruiters searching for commercial or regulatory immersion will surface your CV if these are clearly labelled.
ATS does not penalise length, but recruiters scan quickly. For senior in-house roles (10+ years), aim for 2 pages. Three pages is acceptable for General Counsel or executive-level candidates with 15+ years of experience. Prioritise the most recent 10 years in detail; summarise older roles in 1–2 lines. Every line should earn its place – if it doesn’t contain a searchable keyword or demonstrate impact, cut it.
Before sending your CV, run it through a free ATS simulator (such as Jobscan or Resume Worded) against the specific job posting. These tools show your keyword match score and flag formatting issues that a human eye would miss. Aim for a match score above 80%. This takes five minutes and gives you a concrete measure of whether your tailoring has worked.
ATS can’t match misspelled keywords. If the posting says “regulatory compliance” and your CV says “regulatroy compliance,” you won’t surface in that search. Run a spell check, but also manually review for errors a spell checker won’t catch: incorrect company names, wrong dates, inconsistent formatting, and missing words. Have a trusted colleague review the final version before submitting.
Before submitting any application, run through this checklist:
Remember: The bar for a technically optimised CV is surprisingly low because most candidates don’t know these rules exist. You don’t have to be the best candidate—you just have to be visible.
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