Fitread guide, by ContractorUK
How UK agency systems and CV databases read your CV
What happens to your CV after you press Apply: which systems UK agencies and employers use, how they turn a file into a searchable record, how recruiters search, which questions filter you out, and what that means for contract, temp and permanent work in every kind of job.
What makes this guide different. Most "applicant tracking system" advice is American, written for direct employer applications, and leans on numbers nobody can trace. This guide is written for the UK, where contract and temp work is largely placed through agencies and their databases (our view). Every claim links to a source you can read, or is labelled as our own measurement (with its sample and date) or our own view. Where nobody publishes the answer, we say so.
How to read the labels
- A small link such as B3 points to the source list. Vendor documentation is the vendor describing its own product; marketing and search-snippet sources are marked as weaker.
- Our measurement is a figure ContractorUK computed from adverts on its own jobs board, always with how many adverts and when, and a link to how it was measured, such as CUK1.
- Our view is advice or a reasonable inference that no source states outright.
- Not documented means we looked and the vendor does not say publicly. It does not mean "no".
- Unsourced claim marks a popular claim with no traceable evidence. We name it only to tell you not to rely on it.
Five things to know first
- Recruiters find CVs by searching records. Your CV becomes a record in the agency's system, and recruiters find people by title, skill words, location, pay and how recently the record was updated CV1 CV2 B3.
- Every automatic rejection documented by the vendors we read is driven by answers to screening questions, not by words in your CV FP2 FP7 FP11 FP17; one employer survey adds that some systems screen out CVs with a gap of more than six months FP27. The famous "75% of CVs are rejected by software" figure has no published study behind it FP30.
- Layout can lose information. Vendor guidance for a common UK parser asks for no tables, headers, text boxes, graphics or image files M1.
- AI screeners mark a requirement "unknown" when your CV does not state it plainly WK2 AS1 TT1. Say what you have, in the advert's words, if it is true.
- Adverts outside IT ask for cards, licences and registrations more than named skills. Our measurement DBS appears in 4,259 of 22,518 adverts on our board, CSCS in 2,978, QTS in 1,790, HGV or C+E in 786 (September 2026) CUK4.
Chapters
- 1. How your CV reaches an agencyJob boards, multiposters, CV databases, the agency's own system, employer systems and public-sector forms.
- 2. How a CV becomes a record, and what breaksColumns, tables, headers, text boxes, images, headings, dates and file types.
- 3. How recruiters searchKeywords, Boolean, titles, location, pay filters, recency and AI ranking.
- 4. Screening questions, and what really rejects youRight to work, clearance, DBS, availability, IR35; the evidence on automatic rejection.
- 5. Contract rolesDay rates, IR35, clearance, availability and the contract CV.
- 6. Temp rolesShifts, hourly pay, tickets and cards, and being easy to place quickly.
- 7. Permanent rolesEmployer systems, salary and notice, and public-sector applications.
- 8. Every kind of workWhat adverts ask for in education, care, construction, trades, driving, finance, legal, office work, IT and more.
- 9. The checklist, and how Fitread checks each pointOne list to run before you apply, with what Fitread checks today and what it does not.
- SourcesEvery source, what kind it is, and when we read it.