Key Takeaways

  • 75% of U.S. employers use automated applicant tracking systems to screen resumes before a human reviews them (Harvard Business School & Accenture, 2021)
  • The most common ATS failures are missing keywords, incompatible formatting, and incorrect file types
  • ResumeGeni scores your resume across 8 parsing layers — modeled on the same steps enterprise ATS platforms like Workday, Greenhouse, and Taleo use to evaluate candidates

How ATS Resume Scoring Works

Applicant tracking systems parse your resume into structured data — extracting your name, contact info, work history, skills, and education — then score how well that data matches the job requirements. Many ATS rejections happen because the parser couldn't extract critical fields, not because the candidate wasn't qualified.

LayerWhat It ChecksWhy It Matters
Document extractionFile format, encoding, readabilityCorrupted or image-only PDFs fail immediately
Layout analysisTables, columns, headers, footersMulti-column layouts break field extraction
Section detectionExperience, education, skills headingsNon-standard headings cause sections to be missed
Field mappingName, email, phone, dates, titlesMissing contact info is a common cause of immediate rejection
Keyword matchingJob-specific terms, skills, certificationsKeyword overlap affects recruiter search visibility and ATS scoring
Chronology checkDate ordering, gap detectionReverse-chronological order is expected by most ATS
QuantificationMetrics, numbers, measurable outcomesQuantified achievements help human reviewers and some scoring models
Confidence scoringOverall parse quality and completenessLow-confidence parses get deprioritized in results

Frequently Asked Questions

Is ResumeGeni free?
Yes. ResumeGeni is currently in beta — ATS analysis, scoring, and initial improvement suggestions are free with no signup required. Full guidance and saved reports may require a free account.
What file formats are supported?
PDF, DOCX, DOC, TXT, RTF, ODT, and Apple Pages. PDF and DOCX are recommended for best ATS compatibility.
How is the ATS score calculated?
Your resume is processed through an 8-layer parsing pipeline that extracts structured data the same way enterprise ATS platforms do. The score reflects how completely and accurately your resume can be parsed, plus how well your content matches common ATS ranking criteria.
Can ATS read PDF resumes?
Yes, but not all PDFs are equal. Text-based PDFs parse well. Image-only PDFs (scanned documents) and PDFs with complex tables or multi-column layouts often fail ATS parsing. Our analyzer will flag these issues.
How do I improve my ATS score?
Focus on three areas: use a clean single-column format, include keywords from the job description naturally in your experience bullets, and ensure all sections (contact, experience, education, skills) use standard headings.

ATS Guides & Resources

Built by engineers with 12 years of experience building enterprise hiring technology at ZipRecruiter. Last updated .

Experience Practice - Talent Network Application

A1Msolutions · US-based remote

Join our talent network

We’re always looking to connect with talented professionals who share our mission and values. If you're interested in being considered for future opportunities, we encourage you to submit your resume and a brief cover letter outlining your interests, experience, and the type of role you’re seeking. While we may not have an open position that aligns with your background at this moment, our hiring team regularly reviews submissions and will reach out if a suitable position becomes available.

About A1M

A1M Solutions is a woman-owned small business driven by the aspiration to provide value to our customers, employees, partners, and community while remaining aligned to our guiding principles of foundational values, deliberate focus, and empathetic connection.

A1M’s mission is to preserve and improve government healthcare programs that are lifelines for underserved people in the United States, including people in poverty, elderly people, members of ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, and refugees. We look for projects with nation-wide impact at the intersection of policy, data, and user experience design.

Besides building useful and usable digital services, A1M helps teams improve their agile, user-centered design practices – or helps them get started. Our goal is not just to build sustainable public services, but also to leave our teaming partners and customers more skilled and more confident in the future.

Experience at A1M

A1M’s experience practice includes Content Strategy, Service Design, UX Design, UX Research disciplines. All members of the design practice work in cross-functional, cross-organizational teams, often with policy experts and data specialists, as well as developers and product managers. It’s wonderful if you’ve got a background in policy or data – but you don’t need to have deep knowledge. What we do expect is that you are fascinated with complex problems, open to the creative application of your skills and treat cross-functional collaboration as crucial to the overall success of government digital services.

Applicant requirements

  • Our contracts require employees to work from the United States. That includes all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and all US territories.
  • A1M employees must have been residents in the United States for 3 of the past 5 years.
  • Due to tax reasons, A1M employees cannot reside in New York state.
  • You must already have legal authorization to work within the US and not require ongoing visa sponsorship to maintain legal authorization to work.
  • You must be a permanent US resident.
  • Because A1M employees have access to government data and systems, new hires will need to complete a Public Trust form. Public Trust is a type of background investigation, but it is not a security clearance. Depending on the role, you must complete either the Standard Form 85 (SF85) or 85P (SF85P) questionnaire. You will at the very least get asked questions about where you’ve lived, worked, went to school, military history, police records, and substance use. You’ll also need to have your fingerprints taken.
  • Our partners primarily work on Eastern Standard Time (EST), and will require flexibility in your hours if you reside outside of EST. We do offer flexibility for non-work-related life responsibilities during the day.
  • Active participation in client virtual meetings, including being on camera, is an essential function that helps strengthen trust and open communication.

Equal Employment Opportunity

A1M Solutions is building a culturally diverse and pluralistic organization committed to working in a multicultural environment where differences are valued and respected.  Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.

A1M Solutions is an equal-opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.

As a federal contractor and subcontractor, we certify that we do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.

EEOC: Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal - Optimized for Screen Readers

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