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 Account Manager

Goswift · United States

Company Description Swiftly is on a mission to help cities move more efficiently. We are the leading transit data platform for agencies to share real-time passenger information, manage day-to-day operations, and improve service performance. Today, over 200 transit agencies in 12 countries – including LA Metro, MARTA, SEPTA, and MBTA – rely on Swiftly to improve on-time performance by up to 40% and increase passenger information accuracy by up to 50%. The result is better service reliability, increased ridership, and more efficient transit operations. Even though Swiftly's HQ office is located in San Francisco, CA, we are open to candidates in most locations across the U.S. as well as Ontario and British Columbia, Canada. At this time we are unable to provide Visa sponsorship. Customer Success at Swiftly The Account Management team is part of the Customer Success organization at Swiftly and engages with our customers to understand their core challenges and act as a partner in creating the solution. The Account Management team has two north star objectives: retain our customers’ business and grow opportunities within the customer base. The team cares deeply about the problem we’re solving, so we empathize with and listen to our customers to build partnerships and deepen our value proposition.  We thrive with constraints, getting creative to execute on a variety of deliverables in collaboration with other teams. Lastly, while we love to win, we know that the best means to that end on a broad scale is to support our colleagues and win as a team. The Account Management team is guided by Swiftly values – team, communication, feedback, growth, diversity, impact – and often combines several values to solve problems and deliver value to our customers. The Role The Senior Account Managers own the commercial aspects of renewals along with the end-to-end sales cycle for upsells in our existing mid-sized to large strategic customers. They are responsible for working closely with Solutions Engineering, Technical Support, Marketing, Partnerships, and Product teams to increase the ‘stickiness’ of Swiftly amongst our customers. AMs help ensure our customers find continued success and measured value in their partnership with Swiftly by expanding their product portfolio.  Account Managers own their own territory of existing customers and are responsible for retention, lead generation for upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and increasing revenue from the customer base. Swiftly has aggressive upsell goals, and we are looking for dedicated professionals who can empathize with the needs of mid-sized to large complex agencies and are committed to the success of the transit industry.