Check your CV free and see your ATS score

An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is the software an employer uses to receive, sort and filter applications. When you apply through a job board or a company careers form, the first thing that happens is not a human reading: the system opens the file, converts it to plain text and distributes that text into fields — name, email, phone, employers, dates, qualifications, skills. That step is called parsing.

When parsing fails, your application is not rejected outright: it arrives incomplete. The recruiter sees a profile with gaps, with the work history out of order or the job title blank, and that profile loses to someone whose CV parsed cleanly, even with less experience. So the first job is not to write better — it is to make sure what you wrote can be read at all.

What breaks parsing is almost always the layout, not the words: tables used to build columns, text boxes, icons standing in for the word «Phone», side-by-side columns read as one continuous line, or a name locked inside an image. A CV that looks beautiful on screen can arrive as one shapeless paragraph.

The report is not a verdict on taste. It checks verifiable criteria, each with its own weight, and tells you whether you pass and how to fix it. They fall into four groups: ATS readability, match to the target role, quality of your achievements and document structure.

Readability checks that the file has extractable text, that your contact details can be located, that nothing breaks the reading order and that sections carry recognisable names. It carries the most weight: without it, nothing else gets assessed.

Role match compares your CV against the target job title you entered. This is not about repeating the advert word for word; it is about the terms recruiters search with appearing where they count — in the headline, in the profile summary and inside the real duties of each role.

Achievements looks at whether you describe duties or results. «Customer service» is a duty; «served 120 covers a night across a 90-seat floor, holding a 4.8 average rating» is a result. Structure reviews length, reverse-chronological order, date consistency and unexplained employment gaps.

The score is a compass, not an exam grade. What matters is which criteria you failed, because they do not cost the same. One readability failure sinks the whole application; an extra hobbies section merely blunts your focus.

Below 60 the problem is usually formatting: the document does not read cleanly and needs rebuilding on a linear template. Between 60 and 80 parsing works and the headroom is in the content — missing role keywords and missing numbers in your achievements. Above 80 your CV competes, and the gains come from precision: tailoring the headline to each advert, reordering so the strongest material sits in the top third of page one, and cutting whatever no longer earns its space.

Always run the check with a target job title. The same CV can score 78 for «waiter» and 54 for «restaurant manager», and that gap is exactly the information you need to decide whether to tailor the document or pick a different advert.

If you only have one sitting, one order of work pays better than any other. First, move the content onto a single-column template with standard sections: that clears nearly every readability failure at once. Second, write a headline using the exact job title you are targeting, as it appears in adverts.

Third, rewrite the summary in three lines: who you are professionally, how much experience you have, what you are looking for. Fourth, open your two most recent roles and turn each duty into an achievement with a number: how many people, how much volume, how much time, how much saved, how much improved. You do not need audited figures; you need honest, real magnitudes.

Fifth, delete anything that does not defend your application: an old unserious email address, the generic availability statement, the list of office software now taken for granted, and any stock phrase that could sit on anyone's CV. Run the check again and compare: you will see the exact criteria you touched move.

«The ATS scores my CV and decides.» In most companies the system does not score: it stores, searches and filters according to what the recruiter types. Your aim is not to trick an algorithm, it is to appear in the right search and then convince in the ten-second read that follows.

«More keywords is better.» Stacking terms into a list at the end works against you: recruiters spot it instantly and you lose credibility. Keywords have to sit inside sentences describing what you genuinely did.

«PDFs can't be read.» A PDF generated from text reads perfectly and keeps your layout; the one that fails is the PDF that is really a scanned image. The test takes a second: if you can select the text with your mouse, the system can too.

«A photo and strong design make me stand out.» Design differentiates once the content is right; when it replaces content, it only advertises that there is nothing to tell. In the UK and Ireland, leave the photo off.