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 Solutions Engineer

Circleci · San Francisco

As a Senior Solutions Engineer at CircleCI you will be the customer’s trusted technical advisor throughout the sales and retention lifecycle. You’ll provide hands-on advice for cloud-based and single tenant deployment and product guidance with CircleCI’s largest prospects and customers. You will serve as the technical expert and owner of deal validation strategy, collaborating with account executives and success managers to identify customer business goals, needs, and pains and showing how CircleCI can address them.

What You’ll Do

  • Lead the technical implementation and day-to-day management of CircleCI Demonstrations and proof-of-concepts.
  • Demonstrate the technical feasibility , integrated into our customer’s technology stack, ensuring early customer success and a long-term business relationship.
  • Serve as a technical advisor and subject matter expert for customers, offering guidance on product implementation, adoption, and best practices.
  • Conduct in-depth analysis of customer use cases, identify opportunities for product optimization, and provide feedback to internal teams for improvements.
  • Support strategic planning conversations with customer executives; connecting software delivery challenges with corporate objectives, articulating their full business impact.
  • Lead technical discussions with enterprise clients,  addressing complex issues, customizations, and integrations to meet customer-specific requirements.
  • Develop and deliver technical training sessions, workshops, and documentation to empower customers to maximize the value of CircleCI products.
  • Stay up-to-date on industry trends, product updates, and emerging technologies to continuously enhance your technical knowledge and customer support capabilities.

 

What We’re Looking For

  • 5-10 years experience as an engineer in the application development, devops, or CI/CD space.
  • Extensive experience with solutions selling in a technical customer-facing role, such as Sales Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Customer Success Engineer, or similar position, preferably in a SaaS or software development environment.
  • Strong proficiency in CI/CD concepts, DevOps practices, software configuration, and scripting languages like Python, Shell, etc..
  • Knowledge of Docker or Linux containers in general.
  • Outstanding presentation skills. You feel comfortable leading presentations and demos of our platform to groups, both technical and non-technical, in-person and virtually.
  • Proven track record of engaging with enterprise clients, understanding their technical requirements, and delivering solutions that drive customer success.
  • Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams, Sales, Product, and Engineering, to advocate for customer needs and provide valuable insights for product enhancement.

Ideal Candidates might also have:

  • Experience developing mobile applications across iOS and Android devices. 
  • Strong ops/infrastructure knowledge, especially networking and security.

About CircleCI

CircleCI is the world’s largest shared continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform, and the hub where code moves from idea to delivery. As one of the most-used DevOps tools - processing more than 1 million builds a day - CircleCI has unique access to data on how engineering teams work, and how their code runs. Companies like Spotify, Coinbase, and BuzzFeed use us to improve engineering team productivity, release better products, and get to market faster.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in downtown San Francisco with a global, remote workforce, CircleCI is venture-backed by Base10, Greenspring Associates, Eleven Prime, IVP, Sapphire Ventures, Top Tier Capital Partners, Baseline Ventures, Threshold Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Owl Rock Capital, Next Equity Partners, Heavybit and Harrison Metal Capital.

CircleCI is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law.

 

United States Base Pay Range
$153,000—$191,000 USD

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

About CircleCI

CircleCI is the world’s largest continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform, and the hub where code moves from idea to delivery. As one of the most-used DevOps tools - processing more than 3 million jobs a day - CircleCI has unique access to data on how the most effective engineering teams work, and the tools to help software companies successfully leverage the power of AI into their commercial applications. Companies like Hinge, HuggingFace, and Samsung use us to improve engineering team productivity, release better products, and get to market faster.


Founded in 2011 and headquartered in downtown San Francisco with a global, remote workforce, CircleCI is venture-backed by Base10, Greenspring Associates, Eleven Prime, IVP, Sapphire Ventures, Top Tier Capital Partners, Baseline Ventures, Threshold
Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Owl Rock Capital, Next Equity Partners, Heavybit, and Harrison Metal Capital. 

CircleCI is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

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