Originally posted by Adam_PoE
Do you have an example of a properly SEO-optimized résumé format or a link to a similar resource?

Since the systems vary, there isn't "one" format, per se. But I found a lot of common tips for handling various ATS systems, and I've included one excellent resource below.

For example, some older systems can't properly read .docx files, so saving your Word files as .doc files is preferable. Another is to remove superfluous style, like italics and underlining. These things are good for resumes that you hand to a person directly, because style matters more in those situations. But not online, where it's just being dumped into a database. And specific header names for each section of your resume is important, so that the info is stored correctly. So, for example, your work experience should literally be called "Work Experience" in the document, not "Previous Employment" or something else.

Another good resource is the following:
http://www.jobscan.co/
...the gist of most ATS systems is that they're having to analyze and categorize resumes based on their probable relevance to the job. This is done through keyword searches. But rather than a master set of keywords, the keywords are usually those found in the job description itself. So the website allows you to copy/paste your resume and a job description, and lets you know what kind of overlap you've achieved, and what words you might want to include.

So what I did was compare my resume to about 20 jobs I was interested in, and I dumped the "missing" words into an Excel file and did a count. Then I identified the 5-10 words or phrases that appeared the most often in the missing list, and I created a "Summary" section of my resume near the top. In this way, I was able to include many of the words that would get me greater "hits" in online ATS systems, but without including so many that it seemed like word soup.