What hiring teams look for
Technical Writers win ATS screens by front-loading the highest-frequency job-description keywords (Technical Writing, API Documentation, DITA, MadCap Flare, Docs-as-Code) in the summary and skills blocks, then proving each in quantified bullets that show scope, method, and business outcome.
Top ATS keywords for a technical writer resume
Frequencies reflect how often each keyword appears in current technical writer job descriptions. Higher-frequency terms belong in your summary and Skills block.
| Keyword | JD frequency | Where to place it |
|---|---|---|
| Technical Writing | >90% | Summary (1.5x), Skills, Experience bullets |
| API Documentation | >80% | Summary (1.5x), Skills, top bullets (1.2x) |
| DITA | >80% | Summary (1.5x), Skills, Experience bullets |
| MadCap Flare | ~75% | Skills, Experience bullets (top 3 per role) |
| Docs-as-Code | ~75% | Summary (1.5x), Skills |
| Markdown | ~75% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| Git | ~70% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| Confluence | ~70% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| Technical Documentation | ~70% | Summary (1.5x), Experience bullets |
| Information Architecture | ~65% | Summary (1.5x), Experience bullets |
| User Guides | ~60% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| Content Management | ~60% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| Adobe FrameMaker | ~60% | Skills |
| XML | ~55% | Skills |
| SharePoint | ~55% | Skills |
| REST API | ~50% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| OpenAPI/Swagger | ~50% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| Software Documentation | ~50% | Summary (1.5x), Skills |
| Structured Authoring | ~45% | Summary (1.5x), Skills |
| Single-Sourcing | ~45% | Skills |
| Release Notes | ~45% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| Knowledge Base | ~45% | Experience bullets |
| Agile/Scrum | ~45% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| RoboHelp | ~40% | Skills |
| HTML | ~40% | Skills |
| Jira | ~40% | Skills |
| SDK Documentation | ~35% | Skills, Experience bullets |
| ReadMe / GitBook | ~35% | Skills |
| Paligo | ~30% | Skills |
| Oxygen XML Editor | ~30% | Skills |
Section order that scores
The order matters. ATS parsers weight content closer to the top, so leading with the right sections lifts your keyword score before the parser ever reaches your work history.
- 1
Contact block (name, title, email, phone
Contact block (name, title, email, phone, city/state, portfolio URL, LinkedIn URL)
- 2
Professional Summary
Professional Summary
- 3
Work Experience (reverse-chronological)
Work Experience (reverse-chronological)
- 4
Technical Skills
Technical Skills
- 5
Education
Education
- 6
Certifications (CPTC, Google Technical Writing Certificate, API Documentation cert
include if held)
Bullet examples that work
Each follows the STAR-with-stack pattern: action verb, tool or method, business outcome, and a hard number.
Authored 12,000-word API reference for 3 REST endpoints using OpenAPI/Swagger, reducing developer onboarding time by 40%.
Migrated 200+ legacy Word documents to DITA-structured XML in MadCap Flare, cutting localization costs by $18,000/year.
Built Confluence knowledge base of 150 articles across 4 product lines; support ticket volume dropped 35% within 90 days of launch.
Collaborated with 6 engineers and 2 PMs across Agile sprints to ship release notes and user guides for 8 consecutive quarterly releases on time.
Implemented Docs-as-Code pipeline (Markdown + Git + Docusaurus), reducing documentation deployment time from 3 days to 2 hours.
ATS killers to avoid
Each of these is documented to break parsing across major ATS platforms. Avoid them and your score climbs even without rewriting a single bullet.
- Two-column layout built in Canva, Illustrator, or Figma — merges text linearly, produces word salad
- Icons before email, phone, and location fields — ATS drops or garbles icon-adjacent text
- Contact info placed in document header or footer — many ATS parsers skip header/footer regions entirely
- Skill bars, star ratings, or percentage meters — ATS cannot parse visual proficiency indicators
- Tables used for layout (not data) — cell order collapses into unreadable strings Profession-specific killers:
- Missing portfolio URL — 60% of TW JDs ask for writing samples; absence is an immediate risk
- No tool names in the skills section — ATS strict-matches "MadCap Flare" not "authoring tool"; generic labels fail
- Documentation" without a type qualifier — "API Documentation" or "User Guides" matches JD keywords; bare "Documentation" often does not
- Creative section headers ("My Work," "What I Write") — ATS will not recognize these as Work Experience
- Listing a portfolio as a hyperlinked word ("click here") rather than a visible URL — ATS parsers extract text, not href attributes Competitor patterns NOT to copy:
Frequently asked questions
What ATS score should a technical writer resume target?
Aim for 95 or higher. The structure on this page combines a single-column layout, the section order recommended for technical writer roles, and 15-25 validated keywords placed in the summary and top bullets so the resume earns location-weighted points where ATS parsers look first.
How long should a technical writer resume be?
One page for 0-5 years of experience and two pages for 6+ years. Never truncate quantified achievements to fit a single page — let the document flow cleanly to page 2 rather than dropping metrics that prove impact.
What are the most important keywords on a technical writer resume?
The highest-frequency keywords for technical writer job descriptions are Technical Writing, API Documentation, DITA, MadCap Flare, Docs-as-Code. Place the top three in your summary (1.5x ATS weight) and repeat each in the top bullet of the role where you used it.
Where should skills go on a technical writer resume?
Technical Skills Group skills with inline category labels rather than rendering them in tables or visual grids — ATS parsers drop or scramble table cell contents.
What's the biggest formatting mistake on technical writer resumes?
Two-column layout built in Canva, Illustrator, or Figma — merges text linearly, produces word salad Single-column layouts with plain text section headers parse reliably across every major ATS, while creative templates with sidebars, icons, or skill bars routinely lose data during parsing.
Should I include a photo or objective on a technical writer resume?
No photo on US resumes — most ATS platforms either reject embedded images or strip them, and some companies discard photo resumes for compliance reasons. Replace any objective statement with a 3-4 sentence professional summary that includes your top keywords.
Free tools for technical writers
Use the same scoring engine and AI tailoring that built this example on your own resume — both tools run free without an account.
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Free ATS scan against any technical writer job description. See your match score, missing keywords, and ghost skills in 30 seconds.
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