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 .

Customer Strategist

Conductorai · Washington, DC

Introduction

We value candidates who have significant experience with managing complexity, working independently, and are motivated by hard problems.

What We Offer

  • The ability to have real impact on mission-critical workflows

  • The chance to use SOTA tech to solve novel problems with mission partners

  • The opportunity to define your role through time as we grow

  • Competitive salary and equity upside

  • Comprehensive health care, unlimited PTO, and 401k

  • Reimbursement for home internet and cell phone up to $150/month

  • Four months parental leave for birthing parent, three months for non-birthing

  • $100/month wellness stipend

  • Quarterly in-person meetups

  • WeWork membership

Position Overview


This multi-faceted role involves a combination of strategy, sales, and relationship management, requiring a highly organized and self-motivated individual. You'll be on the forefront of building and deploying our software to mission users, working closely with engineers to develop new features and capabilities, and scaling the team over time. You need to have sharp user and product acumen, experience with intense customers (mission environments or critical industry companies), be adept at learning about new problems and technologies, and have a nose for valuable use cases. You should be a strategic thinker who can identify new opportunities, build strong client and partner relationships, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to achieve business objectives.

You will play a large role in defining the product direction and tone of our platform - as such, you should want to measure your work based on impact, not pats on the back, and you need to have a maniacal focus on delivering value to users. You will be responsible for determining how we work with customers and, in turn, help steer the strategy of our company.

Finally, you need to be comfortable working on a tight-knit team, including a history of highly productive relationships with engineers and a willingness and ability to take ownership of hard problems. As we scale, you should also be comfortable with defining processes to work smarter, not harder, and to support additional team members.

Unlike other roles at the company, this role would need to be based in New York or Washington, DC.

Key Responsibilities

  • Go onsite and work closely with customers to execute on various products, including scoping, product feedback sessions, trainings, data analysis, key presentations, and user support

  • Build and deliver demos to new customers

  • Drive increased revenue with customers through shaping new opportunities for expansion via feature sets, use cases, or value creation

  • Develop and grow relationships with executive-level stakeholders at our customer organizations and conferences

  • Embody the voice of the user to drive our product roadmap and ensure engineers have access to key customer insights

  • Identifying opportunities to scale customer and contract operations as we grow, including project management, planning, and forecasting

  • As a core member of our team, contribute to company strategy, nurture and shape our budding culture, and take on diverse responsibilities as we evolve.

Qualifications

  • 2-5 years experience embedding in technical customer workflows, understanding customer data, and driving new product features

  • A bias for action and distinct aptitude for problem solving in ambiguous environments

  • Technical fluency, competency, and curiosity

  • Ability to travel (up to 50%) domestically and OCONUS.

The base salary range for this role is $180-250k with the opportunity for significant equity. However, this is just an estimate - starting pay will be based on a number of factors, including qualifications & experience.