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 .

Senior Product Engineer

Aurelian · Seattle

About Aurelian

Aurelian automates non-emergency calls for 9-1-1 centers. We do this through an AI-powered operator that routes, triages, and resolves calls without the need for human intervention. By doing this, we let 9-1-1 dispatchers focus their time and energy where it’s needed most: actual emergencies.

Nationwide, the average emergency communications center (ECC) is 30% understaffed. Staffing shortages have lead to call-taker burnout and attrition, which is exacerbating the problem even more. Post COVID, wait times for 9-1-1 calls have reached a boiling point; imagine, in the most stressful situation of your life, waiting on hold for over a minute.

But what’s most shocking is 60-80% of the calls 9-1-1 operators take aren’t even emergencies. They’re administrative calls that have been punted to ECCs: noise complaints, lost dogs, paying parking tickets, etc. Our conversational AI answers these administrative calls, reducing hold times, and freeing up human operators to deal with emergent situations.

Aurelian is currently live in centers across the country, and answers thousands of non-emergency calls every day. We are hiring people to help us continue to scale and make real positive impact on public safety infrastructure in the US.

Why Join Us

We're hiring a Senior Product Engineer to own product outcomes end-to-end. We don't have product managers at Aurelian — our engineers talk to customers, decide what to build, and ship it.

This role is for someone who is as excited about why we're building something as how. You'll write code every week, but the thing that makes you exceptional is your ability to deeply understand a problem, make smart product decisions, and own the outcome.

What You’ll Be Doing

  • Own product outcomes, not just features: You won't be handed a spec. You'll talk to customers, identify the highest-leverage problems, figure out what to build, and build it.

  • Be the PM for your area: You'll define the roadmap, make prioritization tradeoffs, and communicate progress across the company.

  • Ship fast and iterate: Build and ship features across our platform — from AI call handling, to dispatcher-facing tools, to analytics and integrations. Get things into customers' hands, learn, and iterate.

  • Work directly with customers: Our users are 9-1-1 dispatchers and PSAP administrators. You'll visit dispatch centers, watch how they use the product, and use that context to drive what you build next.

Who We’re Looking For

  • Product thinker first, engineer second: You've owned products or features end-to-end — not just built what someone else decided. You think in terms of user problems and outcomes, not just technical solutions.

  • Comfortable across the stack: 4+ years of software engineering experience. You can build what needs building — frontend, backend, or both. You don't need to be the deepest technical expert on the team, but you're a capable, confident engineer.

  • High ownership: You see a problem, figure out the right thing to build, and drive it to completion. You take responsibility for outcomes, not just your code.

  • Customer empathy: You genuinely like understanding how people use software. You're energized by customer conversations, not drained by them.

To learn more about what it's like to work at Aurelian, visit our About Us page and follow us on LinkedIn to stay up to date!

We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every qualification listed above. We believe exceptional people come from many different backgrounds, and we’d rather connect with you than miss the opportunity.

Come do the best work of your life and join us in shaping the future of critical technology that truly matters.

For Full-Time roles, Aurelian offers a variety of benefits, including:

  • Comprehensive Medical, Dental, Vision & Life insurance

  • 401(k)

  • Unlimited PTO

  • Company-wide offsites

  • Equipment stipend

  • Relocation assistance

  • Daily delivered lunches (on us)

  • Office in Seattle

  • Start-up Equity