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 .

Director of Product

Liminalai · Denver, Colorado

Liminal is building the future of generative AI security, bringing safe and reliable AI to regulated industries. We’re a revenue-generating, well-capitalized startup backed by one of the top-performing venture studios in the U.S.

The Director of Product is a high-impact, hands-on product leadership role at a critical inflection point in the company’s journey. We’ve validated the product and market—now we need a product leader who can bring clarity, structure, and momentum to how we build.

This role owns both product strategy and day-to-day execution. You’ll partner closely with the CEO and CTO to translate company vision into a clear, executable roadmap and ensure the engineering team is building the right things, in the right order, for the right reasons.

This is not a large-team leadership role (yet). You’ll operate as an individual contributor product leader, laying the foundation for scalable product processes and positioning yourself to grow into a broader leadership role as the company scales.

What You’ll Do:

Product Strategy & Vision

  • Define and communicate a clear product vision and roadmap aligned with company goals, customer needs, and market opportunity
  • Translate high-level strategic objectives into prioritized, executable product initiatives
  • Own the “why” behind product decisions and ensure alignment across leadership, engineering, and go-to-market teams
  • Balance near-term delivery with long-term platform and expansion strategy

Product Execution & Delivery

  • Own the end-to-end product development lifecycle from discovery through launch and iteration
  • Lead agile ceremonies including sprint planning, backlog grooming, demos, and retrospectives
  • Write clear user stories, requirements, and acceptance criteria that reduce ambiguity and accelerate delivery
  • Maintain a prioritized backlog that balances customer feedback, business needs, and technical constraints
  • Partner closely with engineering leadership to navigate tradeoffs, feasibility, and technical debt

Stakeholder & Customer Collaboration

  • Serve as the single source of truth for what’s being built and why
  • Synthesize feedback from customers, sales, customer success, and partners into actionable product insights
  • Lead customer-facing product conversations, demos, and roadmap discussions
  • Push back thoughtfully and with data when requests do not align with strategy

Data, Metrics & Market Insight

  • Define success metrics for product initiatives and ensure proper instrumentation and visibility
  • Use data to inform prioritization, measure impact, and iterate on product decisions
  • Stay close to market trends, competitive landscape, and emerging technologies to identify opportunities

Foundation for Scale

  • Establish product processes and artifacts that will scale with the organization
  • Build product discipline without unnecessary bureaucracy
  • Help shape the future product organization and prepare for team growth post-Series A

Requirements: 

Experience & Skills

  • 6–8+ years of product management experience with ownership of both strategy and execution
  • Proven experience operating as a hands-on product leader in an early-stage or fast-moving environment
  • Strong background working with engineering teams in agile development environments
  • Demonstrated ability to lead products from early validation through growth and iteration
  • Experience balancing multiple stakeholders and making tough prioritization decisions

Product Mindset

  • Highly structured thinker who brings order to ambiguity
  • Comfortable operating at multiple levels—from strategic planning to sprint-level execution
  • Strong bias toward action and shipping
  • Data-informed decision maker with the ability to articulate tradeoffs clearly

Communication & Leadership

  • Exceptional written and verbal communication skills
  • Confident, clear, and decisive—able to lead without authority
  • Comfortable engaging directly with customers and executives
  • Strong sense of ownership and accountability

Nice to haves:

  • Experience in AI, security, developer tools, or regulated industries
  • Familiarity with cloud-native architectures and modern SaaS platforms
  • Startup or seed-to-Series A experience
  • Background working on products requiring compliance or security considerations

Compensation:

  • $140k - $155k annual salary based on experience+ equity participation

Our Values:

  • We are kind. We assume positive intent, celebrate co-workers' success, avoid toxic behaviors, and call out bad acting when we see it.
  • We earn trust by being authentic, humble, and empathetic. Empathy is the cornerstone of building trust, and trust is a requirement in a world that is certain to be full of change.
  • We are fearless, bold, honest, direct, and candid. We dare to challenge assumptions and push boundaries, and are not afraid when someone challenges us. If we make mistakes, which we will, they are unique and good opportunities to learn.
  • We value discourse, not dissonance. Constructive discourse is exceptionally healthy and desirable. Expect to be challenged and rise to the occasion! Create space for the best ideas to rise to the top and let data be the ultimate decision-maker, not emotion.
  • We seek understanding, not consensus. As leaders, we stand firm in our informed convictions until data overturns them. It’s healthy to disagree, but we commit to the outcome.
  • We are owners. We empower each other to solve problems and take the initiative to meet our goals. We are purposeful and intentional in our thinking and know that we are individually accountable for our impacts on the company's results.
  • We are curious and passionate about learning and constantly seek opportunities to grow and develop. Our space changes daily, and we adapt and mature with it.

Liminal is an equal-opportunity employer, and we value diversity at our company. We don’t discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.