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 .

AI & Data Science Director

Clarityai · Remote

About Clarity AI 🪴

Clarity AI is a global tech company founded in 2017 with a unique mission: bringing societal impact to markets.

We leverage AI and machine learning technologies to provide top international investors, governments, companies, and consumers with the right data, methodologies, and tools to make more informed decisions. 

We are now a team of more than 300 highly passionate and curious individuals from all over the world, with offices in New York, Madrid, London, Paris, and Abu Dhabi. Together, we have established Clarity AI as a leading sustainability tech AI company backed by investors and strategic partners such as BlackRock, SoftBank, and Deutsche Börse, who believe in us and share our goals. 

We are dedicated to cultivating an exceptional workplace environment, and we take pride in our culture, defined by our commitment to being fact-based, diverse, transparent, meritocratic, and flexible. 

We have plans to continue growing our teams globally, so if you would like to join us on this rocket ship, keep reading! Your work will shape and guide the sustainable decisions of investors, companies and consumers worldwide.

About The Role 💻

We are looking for a senior, hands-on AI & Data Science Director to lead the next phase of Clarity AI’s applied AI evolution. This role sits at the intersection of data science, generative AI, platform thinking, and organizational leadership.

You will provide senior technical and people leadership to a team that must continue delivering on classical data science priorities while increasingly incorporating LLM-based and generative AI capabilities into products and internal workflows.

This is a high-impact role for someone who combines strong machine learning fundamentals with current, practical experience in GenAI, and who can translate that expertise into team structure, execution discipline, and business outcomes.

What You’ll Be Doing 🚀

As AI & Data Science Director, you will be responsible for:

  • AI & Data Science Strategy: Defining and evolving the company’s AI strategy across traditional machine learning, experimentation, evaluation, and generative AI applications.
  • Technical Leadership: Acting as the senior technical anchor for the function, ensuring the team applies strong scientific thinking, robust experimentation practices, and sound engineering judgment.
  • GenAI Adoption: Identifying where LLMs, agents, and related tooling can materially improve products, workflows, and team leverage, while avoiding hype-driven decisions.
  • Ecosystem Building: Creating the environment, tooling patterns, and ways of working that allow teams with mixed seniority to build and operate AI solutions effectively.
  • Team Leadership & Development: Coaching and developing emerging leaders and strong individual contributors, while helping define the right long-term organizational structure.
  • Cross-functional Translation: Bridging product, engineering, platform, and executive stakeholders to ensure AI initiatives are actionable, aligned, and well-prioritized.
  • Organizational Stabilization: Providing the seniority and leadership depth needed during a period of team transition and leadership change.
  • Selective Hiring: Helping calibrate and attract senior profiles who combine machine learning depth, strong judgment, and practical exposure to modern GenAI systems.

Location 🌍

The role is based in our tech hub in Madrid, Spain, but we are remote-friendly and open to the CET timezone +/- 2 hours.

Way of Working: Remote/Hybrid 

What You’ll Need 👀

  • Strong ML Foundation: Deep grounding in classical machine learning, experimentation, modeling, and scientific reasoning. This is not a GenAI-only profile.
  • Practical GenAI Experience: Hands-on familiarity with LLMs, agentic patterns, evaluation approaches, and the rapidly evolving GenAI tooling ecosystem.
  • Senior Leadership Experience: Proven experience leading senior technical teams, shaping organizations, and operating as a trusted partner to executive leadership.
  • System-Building Mindset: Ability to create the ecosystem, processes, and technical direction that enable more junior team members to execute effectively.
  • Product & Business Judgment: Strong ability to connect technical decisions with business priorities, product constraints, and execution realities.
  • People Skills: Ability to build trust, challenge constructively, and lead both upwards and downwards in a demanding environment.
  • High Adaptability: Comfort operating in fast-changing, ambiguous environments with high expectations and evolving priorities.
  • Excellent Communication: Strong written and verbal English, with the ability to communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

What We Offer 🥁

  • Competitive compensation, including base salary and equity.
  • Flexibility in ways of working, including remote and hybrid options.
  • The opportunity to shape a strategically critical AI function at a pivotal moment for the company.
  • High ownership, high impact, and close collaboration with senior leadership.
  • A mission-driven environment where your work will influence how sustainability intelligence is delivered at scale.

More About Clarity AI

Clarity AI’s Founder and CEO, Rebeca Minguela, is a successful entrepreneur who has been recognised by prestigious institutions like the World Economic Forum as one of the most distinguished leaders under 40.

The leadership team has an international presence and is composed of professionals from leading tech, consulting, and banking firms, entrepreneurs, PhDs from top research institutions, and MBA graduates from top business schools.

Clarity AI has received several awards: 

  • The Forrester New Wave - ESG Ratings, Data, and Analytics - Leaders for 2022-2024 
  • Investment Week - Best Sustainable Investment Research & Ratings Provider 2023
  • Fast Company - Most Innovative Companies 2023
  • European Commission | EU Seal of Excellence 2020
  • World Economic Forum - Technology Pioneer 2020
  • World Economic Forum, Young Global Leader - Rebeca Minguela

Clarity AI believes diversity, inclusion, and belonging are essential for creating an innovative and successful workplace. By actively promoting and engaging in sustainability efforts, we can help create a more equitable and resilient future for our planet and all its inhabitants.