Careers portals often cap each attachment at 1 or 2 MB, and some at a few hundred KB. A typical application has a CV, a cover letter and one or more certificates, transcripts or ID documents. The scanned ones are usually the problem.
The CV and cover letter
A CV exported from Word, Google Docs or a CV builder is mostly text and is usually well under 1 MB. If yours is larger, a photo or a decorative background image is the likely cause.
- Export again from the original if you can. A direct export is cleaner than a scan of a printout.
- If the file is still too large, compress it with a target a little below the portal’s limit.
- Keep the original: depending on the document, a compressed copy may turn pages into images, so the text may no longer be selectable. Some recruiters’ systems read CV text automatically, so a text-based CV under the limit is better than an image-based one. If your CV fits without compression, don’t compress it.
Certificates, diplomas, transcripts and ID
These are often phone scans, and a few pages can be several megabytes.
- In PDFTuck, tap Select PDF and choose the scan.
- Type the portal’s limit for one file, for example 1 MB or 500 KB.
- Tap Compress PDF. PDFTuck keeps the best-looking result under the limit, and says so clearly if it can’t get there.
- Open Preview and zoom in on names, dates, grades and stamps. These must stay readable.
- Save the file with a clear name. PDFTuck suggests one like
diploma_1MB.pdf; you can rename it in the save dialog.
If the portal wants everything in one PDF
Some forms take a single file for all documents. Combine them first with a tool you trust (PDFTuck doesn’t merge files), then compress the combined PDF to the limit. If the result isn’t readable, ask the employer whether you can send the documents separately. Hiring teams prefer a readable diploma to a blurry one that fits.
A few things to avoid
- Don’t compress a document that is already under the limit. It can only lose quality.
- Don’t rely on a compressed copy for a digital signature: signatures are not valid after compression.
- Don’t upload ID scans to random websites to shrink them. PDFTuck compresses on your phone and doesn’t upload the file.