Quick answer
Our checker scores five areas worth 34 points together: contact information (7), format & structure (7), keywords & skills (6), action verbs & impact (7), ats compatibility (7). If you paste a job posting it adds a job description match worth up to 10 more points, showing which of the posting's key terms your resume contains.
| Area | Points | What is checked |
|---|---|---|
| Contact Information | 7 | An email address, a phone number and a professional link such as LinkedIn or GitHub |
| Format & Structure | 7 | At least three standard sections (experience, education, skills, summary and similar), enough content and enough lines |
| Keywords & Skills | 6 | Several relevant skill terms, and words that show proficiency |
| Action Verbs & Impact | 7 | Strong action verbs and numbers that quantify results |
| ATS Compatibility | 7 | A word count of 200 to 800, no decorative symbols or emoji, and no tab characters |
| Job description match (optional) | 10 | How many of the posting's key terms appear in your resume |
These figures are computed with the same formulas as the Resume ATS Checker above. Change the inputs in the tool to see your own result.
Resume ATS Checker scans the text of your resume and scores how well it is likely to be read by an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), the software many employers use to collect and search applications. You can upload a PDF, DOCX or TXT file (the text is read in your browser) or paste it. It scores five areas: contact information, format and structure, keywords and skills, action verbs and impact, and general ATS compatibility, and lists specific fixes. Paste a job description as well and it adds a Job Description Match score that shows which of the posting's key terms your resume contains and which are missing. It runs in your browser and nothing is stored.
Made for writers and job seekers. Typical uses:
A resume with an email, phone number and LinkedIn link, sections for Summary, Experience, Education and Skills, bullets such as "Reduced reporting time from 10 hours to 3 by automating spreadsheets" and about 450 words scores well. A resume with no contact details, few action verbs and no numbers gets specific warnings for each.
The built-in skills list is general and leans towards technology, business and marketing terms, so resumes from other fields may score low on keywords. The tool reads only the text of your file, so it cannot see layout, fonts, columns or images. The job match is a keyword comparison, not a judgement of fit: it finds repeated terms and tool names in the posting and checks whether your resume uses them.
Accuracy: These tools use rules, heuristics or established open-source models (such as Tesseract for OCR) running in your browser, not a generative AI service or a human editor. Treat results as guidance and review them yourself.
Expert Tip
Tailor for every application: use the exact skills and phrases from the job posting wherever they truthfully describe your experience.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is software that employers use to collect applications, organise candidates and, in many companies, to search and filter them. When you apply online, your resume is usually converted to text and stored in a database. Recruiters then search for keywords, job titles and skills, or the system ranks applications against the job description. If the software cannot read your resume properly, the details it needs may be missing or scrambled.
It is worth being clear about what this means. Most systems do not automatically "reject" resumes for formatting, but a resume that is parsed badly can appear incomplete, with missing contact details, jumbled dates or absent skills. That is the problem to avoid.
The checker scores your pasted resume text in five areas and lists specific issues under each.
The most important ATS factor is how well your resume matches a specific job. Without a posting, the tool can only apply general rules and a general list of skills, so a high score means the resume is well formed, not that it fits a role. Paste the job description into the optional box and it adds a Job Description Match score: it picks out the terms the posting repeats, such as tools, skills and phrases, and shows which ones your resume already contains and which are missing. The built-in skills list also leans towards technology, business and marketing terms, so a strong resume in a field such as nursing or teaching may score low on keywords; treat that section as a reminder to use the vocabulary of your own field. To tailor it, read the posting, note the required skills and phrases, and use the same wording where it truthfully describes your experience.
It also reads only the text you paste. It cannot see fonts, columns, images, headers, footers or text boxes in your original file, which are exactly the elements that cause parsing problems. Test the real file by copying its text out of the PDF or document and pasting it into a plain text editor: if the order or content is garbled, a parser will struggle too.
A few habits make a resume easy for both software and people to read.
Both software and recruiters respond to specific, measurable achievements. Begin with an action verb, say what you did, and add the result: "Reduced monthly reporting time from 10 hours to 3 by automating spreadsheets" reads far better than "Responsible for reports". Use numbers where you honestly can: percentages, money, team sizes, time saved. Do not stuff keywords or hide invisible text in white; modern systems and reviewers detect it, and it can get an application rejected.
Keep the resume focused. One page for early-career candidates and up to two for experienced ones is typical, and the most relevant experience should come first. A short summary at the top can state your target role and main strengths in two lines.
Run the checker, fix the flagged items, then proofread with the Grammar Checker and check length with the Word Counter. If you are creating a PDF from a document, Word to PDF produces a text-based file, and you can lock or resize it with the other PDF tools. Remember that people read your resume after the software: the best result is one that parses cleanly and is compelling to read. Your resume is checked in your browser and is not uploaded or stored.
What ATS software actually does, which resume habits help or hurt, the five areas our checker scores, and how to match your resume to a job posting honestly.
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