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 Software Engineer, AI/LLM

Bubble · NYC, New York

We built Bubble with a clear mission in mind: to empower everyone to create software. We believe anyone with an idea should be able to build it, so we’re making software creation accessible to everyone. Our AI visual development platform enables anyone, whether they’re first-time entrepreneurs or enterprise teams, to take an idea from prompt to fully-functional, scalable reality across web, iOS, and Android — all on one platform, all without writing or managing a single line of code. 

As the only full-stack, cross-device no-code platform on the market with over 5 million users in over 100 countries, Bubble is breaking down the barriers to entrepreneurship and innovation across the globe.

What we’ve achieved:

Our product is working, and we are thriving. Entire VC-backed companies have been built entirely on Bubble. After finding product market fit and 8 years of bootstrapping, we raised a $100 million Series A and we’re one of the fastest-growing companies in the New York tech ecosystem.

You can build just about anything on Bubble - and our community is living proof. More than just launching products, people are turning their ideas into real businesses. Mailead grew a $10k investment in a Bubble product into a $2M valuation, while Faceless.video went from 0 to $1M+ ARR in less than a year, among many other examples.

About the team:

We are expanding our AI Engineering Team to build next-generation AI-powered development workflows. Our goal is to enable AI-assisted full-stack development, allowing users to describe their applications in natural language and have AI generate, modify, and enhance their apps seamlessly.

As a Senior Software Engineer, AI/LLM, you will help define and build the future of AI-powered development at Bubble. You’ll work on LLM-driven product features, design Agentic workflows, and develop private models trained on proprietary Bubble datasets. You will collaborate closely with Product, Infrastructure, and Research teams to push the limits of AI-driven development.

In this role you'll:

  • Improve LLM reasoning & retrieval techniques to enhance Bubble’s AI-powered development tools.

  • Design and build agentic workflows to enable multi-step AI-driven app generation.

  • Fine-tune & optimize LLMs for AI-assisted app-building workflows.

  • Build and optimize proprietary AI models trained on domain-specific datasets.

  • Work closely with the AI team to scale AI research into production.

  • Optimize LLM performance and accuracy when interpreting and modifying applications.

About you:

  • Master’s or PhD in AI, ML, NLP, or a related field, and 2+ years of industry experience working with LLMs, AI model optimization, and NLP pipelines.

    • OR 5+ years of industry experience as a Machine Learning or Software Engineer.

  • Strong experience with transformer models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and dataset curation.

  • Experience with agentic AI workflows and chatbot-style LLM interactions.

  • Understanding of embeddings, vector search, and AI model evaluation.

  • Proficient in relevant languages and tools like Python, Typescript, Hugging Face, LangChain, and Mastra.

  • Excellent communication skills and a collaborative mindset.

  • Alignment with our values: a desire to empower others, a focus on team and user success, and a willingness to experiment and learn from failures.

Our tech stack:

  • Frontend: Typescript, SolidJS

  • Backend: Typescript, Node.js

  • AI/ML: Python, LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.), LangChain

  • Infrastructure: AWS, CDK / Terraform, ECS, Redis, Postgres

  • Data & AI Workflows: JSON-based app representations, proprietary datasets

Compensation:

We offer competitive compensation aligned to tier one markets. Our estimated salary for this role at Bubble ranges from $201,000 to $261,000. Actual pay is determined by multiple factors such as skills, qualifications, experience and market demand.

Benefits:

In addition to cash and equity compensation, Bubble offers a robust benefits package equating to roughly twenty thousand in additional annual compensation:

Our benefits include, but are not limited to:

  • Comprehensive health coverage

  • 401(k) matching

  • Wellness and work enablement stipends

  • Flexible PTO

  • A Sabbatical program

Location: 

For this role, Bubble is currently only considering candidates who are authorized to work in the US and are within the New York City metro area.

We prefer hiring people within commuting distance of our NYC office because we value getting together in person regularly. For those who enjoy working from our Manhattan office on a more regular basis, we offer catered lunches, and happy hours, among other fun perks.

Benefits:

In addition to cash and equity compensation, Bubble offers a robust benefits package equating to roughly twenty thousand in additional annual compensation:

Our benefits include, but are not limited to:

  • Comprehensive health coverage

  • 401(k) matching

  • Wellness and work enablement stipends

  • Generous PTO

  • A Sabbatical program

Join us!

Let’s democratize access to technology together! If this sounds like you, apply! If you don’t meet all of the qualifications but think you could be a match, we’d still love the chance to review your application. At Bubble, we encourage people from all ages, abilities, and experiences to apply. Bubble does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or family status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, pregnancy or caregiver status, veteran status, or any other legally protected status. Perhaps this job doesn't fit your background? Join our talent community!