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 .

Lead Full Stack Engineer, Partner Ecosystem

Alloy · New York City

Alloy is where you belong!

Alloy helps solve the identity risk problem for companies that offer financial products by enabling them to outpace fraud and confidently serve more people around the world. Over 800 of the world’s largest financial institutions and fintechs turn to Alloy to take control of fraud, credit, and compliance risk, and grow with the clearest picture of their customers.

Through our values: Be Bold, Get Scrappy, Collaborate, and Celebrate Our Differences, we are creating a workplace where you can grow, thrive, and belong. See how we’ve been continuously recognized and named one of Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces, Forbes America’s Best Startup Employers, Best Fintech to Work for by American Banker, year after year.

Check out our investors and read more about us here.

About the team

Alloy is actively hiring experienced full stack engineers to join the Partner Ecosystem Platform Engineering team to design and build a future data provider integration platform. Alloy partners with hundreds of data vendors that perform work across identity verification, fraud mitigation and many others. To scale this out Alloy is building the next generation integration platform, which will make it easy to build, operate and maintain data integrations. Alloy is hiring experienced engineers who can lead this effort, creating a new platform that enables the new stage of Alloy’s growth.

Alloy operates in a hybrid-work environment. We look to foster collaboration and community by having our local employees onsite twice a week.

What you'll be doing

Reporting to the Head of Engineering, you will:

  • Design and build a scalable platform that simplifies the creation/operation of hundreds of data partner integrations. 
  • Collaborate with engineers, designers, and product managers to translate our product and technical vision into a concrete roadmap, guiding the team towards success.
  • Partner with third-party vendors & our clients to gather requirements and co-create solutions, ensuring seamless integration of their data within the core product and the evolving marketplace experience. 
  • Architect, develop, test, and deploy significant customer-facing features and projects using cutting-edge tools and technologies. Our tech stack includes TypeScript, JavaScript (ES6/React), Python (Django), Node.js, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and AWS.
  • Craft high-quality, thoroughly-tested code that meets the unique requirements of our clients, ensuring robustness and reliability.
  • Provide technical mentorship and guidance to fellow engineers, fostering a culture of learning and growth within our rapidly expanding team.

In summary, you will play a pivotal role in building out the next generation of partner ecosystem platform at Alloy, driving the development of integrations with our data partner APIs and SDKs, leveraging your technical expertise to build solutions that have a significant market impact while fostering a collaborative and high-performance team environment.

Who we're looking for

  • 10+ years of hands-on experience in developing production-ready software, demonstrating a proven track record of delivering robust and scalable solutions.
  • Experience maintaining and working with data integrations / external API sources
  • Expertise in steering technical projects (fullstack or backend), adept at prioritizing tasks, defining requirements, and facilitating productive discussions within the team to drive informed technical decisions.
  • Collaborative mindset, experience leading engineering teams in collective pursuits, fostering an environment of cooperation and shared success.
  • Remarkable ability to adapt swiftly to the evolving needs of our growing organization and dynamic product landscape, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives.
  • Proficiency in client-side technologies such as TypeScript, JavaScript (ES6/React), HTML/CSS, as well as server-side proficiency in Python (Django), enabling seamless development across the entire stack.
  • Practical experience in managing relational databases, with a strong command over PostgreSQL and its intricacies, ensuring efficient data management and retrieval.

Nice to have:

  • Experience working in developer productivity domain and/or SDKs
  • Experience working in Fintech or the financial services industry.

We're a lean team, so your impact will be felt immediately, and opportunities will grow as the company scales up. If this all sounds like a good fit for you, why not join us?

Alloy is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. In addition to a competitive base salary, this position is also eligible for equity awards in the form of stock options (ISOs) as well as a competitive total benefits package. Your recruiter will be happy to walk you through the details and what compensation could look like for you specifically!

This position has a salary range of $198,000 to $250,000. Offers are determined by experience, skills, and interview performance as indicators of expected contribution, with movement through the range tied to demonstrated impact in the role.

Benefits and Perks 

  • Unlimited PTO and flexible work policy
  • Employee stock options
  • Medical, dental, vision plans with HSA (monthly employer contribution) and FSA options
  • 401k with 100% match up to 4% of annual employee compensation 
  • Eligible new parents receive 16 weeks of paid parental leave 
  • Home office stipend for new employees
  • Annual Learning & Development annual stipend
  • Well-being benefits include access to ClassPass, OneMedical, UrbanSitter, and Spring Health 
  • Hybrid work environment: employees are expected to work Tuesdays and Thursdays from our HQ in Union Square, Manhattan. Tasty lunches catered from a variety of local restaurants and frequent employee-organized cultural events contribute to our positive office energy. On Monday/Wednesday/Friday most employees Zoom into work from home while some take advantage of the quieter office.

How to apply

Apply right here! You've found the application!

Alloy is proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace and employer. We’re committed to equal opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, gender, gender identity, parental or pregnancy status, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status. We are committed to an inclusive interview experience and provide reasonable accommodations to applicants with visible and invisible disabilities. We encourage applicants to share needed accommodations with their recruiter.

All Alloy jobs are listed on our careers page. Any communication during the recruitment process, including interview requests or job offers, will come directly from a recruiting team member with an alloy.com email address. We do not use outside applications or automated text messaging in our recruiting process. We will not ask for any sensitive financial or identification information during the recruiting process. If you’re ever unsure, please contact us directly via our website before sharing personal information.

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