The ATS check
What applicant tracking systems actually do to your file, what the checker tests, and which of its warnings matter for where you are applying.
If your resume did not parse correctly, this is the page. An applicant tracking system is software that reads your file and turns it into fields - name, roles, dates, skills. A human may never see the original, so when the parse goes wrong you are judged on a mangled version of your resume.
The ATS Resume Checker runs that parse and shows you the result. It is free - once a day without an account, four times a day with one. There is no credit price on it, and credits cannot buy extra checks.
What it actually tests#
- Can the text be extracted at all? A resume exported as an image has no text in it. This is rare from our exporter and common from design tools.
- Do the sections come out as sections? Headings the parser recognises, in an order that makes sense.
- Do dates and roles pair correctly? The most common real failure: a job's dates attaching to the wrong employer.
- Do contact details survive? An email or phone in a header or footer is frequently dropped.
Why single column keeps coming up#
Two-column layouts are the single biggest cause of a bad parse. A parser reading left to right can interleave your sidebar with your main content, so a skills list ends up spliced through your job history.
Reading the result#
Look at the extracted output, not the score. The score summarises; the output shows you what a machine believes your resume says. If your last two roles have merged into one, that is the finding
- whatever the number says.
Your ATS score#
Once the check has run, the page offers one more step: an ATS score out of 100 for the same file. It is the number the AI Resume Analyzer gives, across eight weighted dimensions, with the three fixes worth making first. It is free - once a day without an account, four times a day with one.
The check itself involves no AI. The score does: a model reads which skills your bullets demonstrate, with your name, email and phone number removed first, and it never picks the number. That is why the score asks for your consent and the check does not.
No applicant tracking system shows candidates a score, so no outside tool can reproduce a company's own. This one is our published rubric, and the result is stored, so re-checking the same file returns the same score for a given rubric version.
Fixing the common ones#
| Finding | Fix |
|---|---|
| Contact details missing | Move them into the body, out of a header or footer. |
| Sections merged | Use clearer headings and more space between sections. |
| Dates wrong | Use a consistent format. Jan 2021 - Mar 2023 parses; '21-'23 does not. |
| Skills as prose | Make them a list. |
| No text extracted | Re-export as PDF from the builder rather than printing to image. |
You do not have to make these by hand: Fix it in my resume, under your result, pins each finding to the line it is about as an edit to accept or skip, free - see fixing your resume from a report.
The check is not the goal#
A resume that parses perfectly and says nothing gets nowhere. Pass the check, then go back to whether the bullets are any good - that is what the human decides on.
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