This is one of the most misunderstood aspects of resume building. Many candidates believe they must choose between a beautiful resume and an ATS-friendly one. The truth is more nuanced: ATS doesn't 'see' design at all — it processes text and structure. So design doesn't help you pass ATS, but poor design choices can definitely prevent you from passing it.
What ATS cares about: plain text content, keyword presence, section structure and headings, date formats, and file format. What ATS completely ignores: colors, font styling (beyond basic bold/italic), white space, alignment aesthetics, and visual hierarchy. This means a visually stunning resume and a plain text document can score identically in ATS — as long as the content and structure are the same.
But here's the catch: after your resume passes ATS, a human recruiter reviews it. And humans absolutely care about design. A cluttered, poorly formatted resume with inconsistent spacing and font sizes creates a negative impression, even if the content is strong. The sweet spot is a clean, professional design: consistent fonts, good spacing, subtle section dividers, and a clear visual hierarchy — all achieved without graphics, tables, or text boxes that would break ATS.
When design matters more: For creative roles (graphic design, UX/UI, marketing), a visually distinctive resume can demonstrate your design skills. In these cases, consider submitting two versions — a designed portfolio version and a clean ATS version. For all other roles in India (engineering, finance, operations, management), clean and professional always beats creative and risky.