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 .

SEO Manager

Baselane · Toronto

About Baselane

At Baselane, our mission is to empower landlords with tools and insights to help them save time, increase their returns, and grow their investment portfolios. Traditional financial institutions have been a growth limiter for landlords - we are looking to change that. We are building the future of financial services for the 12+ million landlords and real estate investors who own over 25 million homes in the United States. 

We are a rapidly growing banking and financial management platform for individual landlords and real estate investors. Backed by leading FinTech investors, including Matrix Partners, Activant Capital, Collaborative Fund, Conversion Capital, Diagram Ventures, ThomVest, and many FinTech leaders from PayPal, eBay, Google, and more.

About The Role

The SEO Manager sits on the Growth Marketing team and is responsible for owning Baselane’s organic search strategy including content and technical SEO infrastructure. You will own infrastructure across baselane.com - ensuring our products are discoverable, performance and well-positioned in an evolving search landscape. This role is extremely collaborative and will work across various teams including Growth, Brand, Content and Operations.

You will have the opportunity to own Baselane’s organic search strategy and drive initiatives that impact core company metrics. You’ll be given bandwidth to dive deep into AI infrastructure and build systems to automate repetitive tasks. You’ll maintain the voice of the customer in our communication while holding a high bar for performance attainment. If you thrive in a fast-paced environment, can manage several complex projects, are excited to tinker with AI agents and want to play a pivotal role in shaping the next phase of our growth journey, then Baselane is the place for you. 

About Baselane

At Baselane, our mission is to empower landlords with tools and insights to help them save time, increase their returns, and grow their investment portfolios. Traditional financial institutions have been a growth limiter for landlords - we are looking to change that. We are building the future of financial services for the 12+ million landlords and real estate investors who own over 25 million homes in the United States. 

We are a rapidly growing banking and financial management platform for individual landlords and real estate investors. Backed by leading FinTech investors, including Matrix Partners, Activant Capital, Collaborative Fund, Conversion Capital, Diagram Ventures, ThomVest, and many FinTech leaders from PayPal, eBay, Google, and more.

About The Role

The SEO Manager sits on the Growth Marketing team and is responsible for owning Baselane’s organic search strategy including content and technical SEO infrastructure. You will own infrastructure across baselane.com - ensuring our products are discoverable, performance and well-positioned in an evolving search landscape. This role is extremely collaborative and will work across various teams including Growth, Brand, Content and Operations.

You will have the opportunity to own Baselane’s organic search strategy and drive initiatives that impact core company metrics. You’ll be given bandwidth to dive deep into AI infrastructure and build systems to automate repetitive tasks. You’ll maintain the voice of the customer in our communication while holding a high bar for performance attainment. If you thrive in a fast-paced environment, can manage several complex projects, are excited to tinker with AI agents and want to play a pivotal role in shaping the next phase of our growth journey, then Baselane is the place for you. 

What You'll Be Doing

  • Define and own the vision, strategy, and roadmap for SEO/GEO growth tools, identifying and scaling new organic opportunities to drive new user acquisition and expansion.

  • Evolve continuously by leveraging AI tools, in-depth data insights, user research, and competitive intelligence to deliver impactful solutions quickly and at scale.

  • Define ambitious growth goals, own performance against key metrics, and leverage data/user insights to proactively identify optimization opportunities for growth tools and features.

  • Partner closely with product team to stay on top of the latest product explorations, and champion our users’ needs

  • Develop content briefs and strategy to hit your monthly targets with support from AI agents and the content team

  • Collaborate effectively with operations, design, content, and marketing teams, ensuring seamless technical execution aligned with user needs and business goals.

  • Proactively monitor industry trends, search algorithm updates, emerging technologies, and competitor strategies to ensure our growth engine remains at the cutting edge.

Who You Are

  • You bring 5+ years of experience in SEO/GEO

  • You’ve tinkered with AI agents via Claude Managed Agents, Openclaw, N8N, etc and have gone deep in experimentation

  • Deep understanding of SEO/GEO best practices, search engine algorithms, and digital marketing trends, with a strong grasp of the ever-evolving search landscape.

  • Experience working with and/or managing a team of content/copy writers to achieve a content SEO strategy that you built

  • Experience with web and mobile app architecture optimization and its intersection with SEO

  • Proficient in using SEO analytics tools, including Google Search Console, Looker, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, and Google Analytics, among other industry-standard platforms.

  • Highly impact-focused, with a demonstrated history of delivering concrete results

  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams and clearly convey complex topics to a diverse array of stakeholders

  • Extremely proactive with the ability to initiate and execute complex projects independently.

  • Have partnered with product, design, data science, and engineering teams to enhance web experiences and ensure seamless marketing-to-product integration

  • Ability to inspire and get buy-in to influence the roadmap.

  • Creative thinker with system-level problem-solving skills and an AI-first mindset.

Nice to Have

  • Familiarity with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other front-end web programming language