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 .

Solutions Engineer

Avante · Seattle or New York

Ask any employee to explain their benefits, and you'll likely get a confused shrug. Ask any HR leader if their benefits investment is working, and you'll get an honest "I don't know." For employees, benefits are confusing and overwhelming. For HR and finance leaders, benefits are the second-largest expense, but they lack the visibility to know what's working and what's wasted.

At Avante, we're changing that. We're an AI-native benefits intelligence platform built to turn benefits complexity into clarity. For employees, our agent Carly provides personalized, always-on benefits guidance. For benefits leaders, our agent Ava monitors their entire program, surfaces what needs attention, and delivers strategic intelligence on costs, utilization, and outcomes in seconds. Together, these agents create a closed-loop system where employee engagement data informs benefits strategy, and smarter strategy improves the employee experience.

We're based in Seattle and work 4 days a week in the office (one day remote). We've proven the platform with Fortune 2000 customers and we're now scaling our go-to-market motion. We're hiring our first Solutions Engineer to support enterprise deals and strengthen how we show up in technical buying environments.

Ask any employee to explain their benefits, and you'll likely get a confused shrug. Ask any HR leader if their benefits investment is working, and you'll get an honest "I don't know." For employees, benefits are confusing and overwhelming. For HR and finance leaders, benefits are the second-largest expense, but they lack the visibility to know what's working and what's wasted.

At Avante, we're changing that. We're an AI-native benefits intelligence platform built to turn benefits complexity into clarity. For employees, our agent Carly provides personalized, always-on benefits guidance. For benefits leaders, our agent Ava monitors their entire program, surfaces what needs attention, and delivers strategic intelligence on costs, utilization, and outcomes in seconds. Together, these agents create a closed-loop system where employee engagement data informs benefits strategy, and smarter strategy improves the employee experience.

We're based in Seattle and work 4 days a week in the office (one day remote). We've proven the platform with Fortune 2000 customers and we're now scaling our go-to-market motion. We're hiring our first Solutions Engineer to support enterprise deals and strengthen how we show up in technical buying environments.

Avante is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We’re building a diverse, inclusive team and welcome candidates of all backgrounds.

The Role

This is Avante’s first Solutions Engineer hire. You will partner closely with Sales to lead the technical side of the deal across the enterprise sales cycle.

You will be involved from technical discovery through final validation, helping customers understand how Avante works, how it fits into their environment, and why it meets their security and compliance requirements. This includes deep involvement in demos, solution design, and technical diligence with enterprise stakeholders.

Avante sells into complex organizations with multiple stakeholders, including HR, finance, and CIO and security teams. You need to be comfortable navigating those conversations, translating technical concepts clearly, and representing the product with credibility.

This is a highly cross-functional role. You will work closely with Sales, Product, Engineering, and Customer Success to ensure technical accuracy, strong deal execution, and a clear path from evaluation to deployment.

What You'll Own

Technical deal execution
Partner with Account Executives throughout the sales cycle. Lead technical discovery, participate in solution validation, and support deals through final stages including security and compliance review.

Demos and solution design
Prepare and deliver tailored demos based on customer needs. Define the demo path, highlight relevant use cases, and adapt to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Security, data privacy, and AI compliance conversations
Handle technical diligence across InfoSec, data privacy, and AI compliance. Engage confidently with stakeholders evaluating risk, architecture, and regulatory considerations.

Architecture and product understanding
Develop a strong understanding of Avante’s technical architecture, infrastructure, and data model. Translate how the system works into clear, customer-facing explanations.

Partner and channel support
Support broker and partner-led deals. Participate in joint sessions, technical walkthroughs, and customer-facing engagements where partners are involved.

Late-stage deal support
Contribute to RFPs, security questionnaires, and final validation steps. Help ensure technical confidence in Avante as a chosen solution.

Who You'll Partner With

Sales on deal strategy, discovery, and execution
Customer Success on deployment expectations and handoff context
Product and Engineering on technical accuracy and product feedback
Partners including brokers and consultants bringing Avante into enterprise accounts

What We're Looking For

Experience supporting enterprise sales cycles in a customer-facing technical role
Experience selling into CHRO, CFO, or CIO organizations
Experience in HR tech, benefits, healthcare, or insurance

Strong technical foundation with the ability to explain architecture, infrastructure, and data concepts clearly
Familiarity with cloud infrastructure and modern data systems
Working knowledge of modern AI systems and how they are deployed in enterprise environments
Familiarity with security, data privacy, and compliance considerations in enterprise software
Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and business stakeholders
Comfort operating in a fast-moving, early-stage environment
Strong collaboration skills across Sales, Product, and Engineering

 

Nice to Have:

Experience supporting partner or channel-led sales motions
Background in early-stage or category-creating companies 

How We Work

Our four values aren't aspirational. They translate into concrete operating tenets that shape how we make decisions every day.

Beat Yesterday. We re-evaluate our own toolkit every quarter, because the workflows that made you effective three months ago may already be outdated. We act on 70% of the information rather than waiting for certainty. We timebox, execute, and iterate, getting work in front of real people quickly instead of polishing in isolation. And we own our output regardless of how we produced it. AI can get you 80% of the way there. Everything that goes out with your name on it is your responsibility to review, refine, and stand behind.

Embrace Type 2 Fun. We take on hard problems and find meaning in the work, even when it's uncomfortable. We assume good intent and follow up directly rather than venting in side channels. We celebrate wins loudly and specifically, naming the actual behavior so the whole team learns what great looks like. We are on by default, because we owe it to each other and to our customers to be available beyond what a regular corporate job would demand. And we do unscalable things today that build scalable advantages tomorrow: every white-glove implementation, every hand-built QBR deck, every late-night RFP turnaround earns us the right to scale later.

Stay Hungry, Stay Curious. We expect everyone to be the expert on AI in their function before anyone asks them to be. The landscape changes weekly. When you learn something, teach it. Learn enough about adjacent functions to ask good questions. Ask the question you think is too basic, because in complex domains like benefits, the cost of a wrong assumption can be a lost account. And remember: curiosity without urgency is a hobby. Learning has to translate into action on a timeline that matches the opportunity.

Act Like an Owner. We say the uncomfortable thing early, raising missed commitments or quality gaps directly with the person within 48 hours. We surface problems when they're small, not the week they become a crisis. Customer-facing work gets priority, always. And we close the loop every time, because over-communication is a feature at our stage, not a bug.