Why does my resume look blank or empty after I upload it?

The file reached us, but the text inside it did not, because the document stores its words as images or shapes rather than as real text. Hiring software runs into the same wall with that file, which makes this worth fixing before you send it anywhere else.

Most likely cause: the PDF has no text layer

PDFs exported by design tools such as Canva, Figma, and InDesign store their text as artwork, and so do scans or photos of a printed resume. Depending on which of those we detect, you will see Design-Based PDF Detected, Scanned PDF Detected, or Unreadable PDF, along with a panel showing what we found in the file, including No extractable text.

The fix is to get the words back into a real text layer: rebuild the resume in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, export it as a .docx or .pdf, and upload that instead. Pasting the text into a Classic Scan or starting from one of the templates in the builder both get you moving as well.

Image coming soon

But why can I copy and paste the text from the PDF?

Your computer runs text recognition (OCR) behind the scenes, which is what lets you select words that are really part of an image. Most hiring software does no such thing, so what looks like selectable text to you is still a picture to the system reading your application.

The file is a .doc, and the text sits inside shapes

Older .doc files can hold their content inside text boxes and embedded objects, where it cannot be extracted, and that produces Unreadable .doc File. Open the file in Microsoft Word, save it as a .docx, and upload that copy.

The .docx is damaged

Unreadable .docx File means the document either would not open at all or stores its text in a form we cannot read. Open it in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, save it as a new file, and upload that new copy rather than the original.

Check before you upload it a second time

If you saw a message like We could not process your resume in time, open your resume list before doing anything else. A resume sitting in that list means the read finished, and uploading the file again only starts a second one.

Large or graphics-heavy files are what usually take long enough to time out. Stripping the images out and exporting again is worth doing either way, because those are the same elements that trip up an applicant tracking system.

Only some sections are empty

This is a different and much smaller problem. The resume was read, but part of it was laid out in a way that resists parsing, which is precisely what an applicant tracking system struggles with too.

Open the resume in the builder and work down the section list. Anything that came through thin can be filled in directly, and both the preview and your score update as you type. It is worth fixing the layout in your source file as well, since the same structure is costing you with real employers.

Still stuck?

Email support@skillsyncer.com and attach the file you tried to upload. Tell us which of the messages above you saw.