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 .

Engineering Manager - Growth

Nextdoor · San Francisco, CA

#TeamNextdoor

Nextdoor (NYSE: NXDR) is the essential neighborhood network. Neighbors, public agencies, and businesses use Nextdoor to connect around local information that matters in more than 340,000 neighborhoods across 11 countries. Nextdoor builds innovative technology to foster local community, share important news, and create neighborhood connections at scale. Download the app and join the neighborhood at nextdoor.com.

Meet Your Future Neighbors

We’re looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our Traffic team at Nextdoor. This team plays a key role in attracting new users by improving how people first discover and engage with Nextdoor.  We work across SEO, content sharing, invites, and other surfaces that drive organic growth and intentional traffic to our platform.

As a manager on the Traffic team, you’ll lead a small, talented group of engineers focused on building and optimizing key growth surfaces - both on Nextdoor and across third-party platforms.  You’ll help the team scale technical solutions and work cross-functionally with product, data science, and marketing partners to grow our user base in thoughtful, measurable ways.

This is a great opportunity for someone at the Staff or Tech Lead level who has strong mentorship experience and is looking to take on formal people management, or for an Engineering Manager with up to 3 years of leadership experience who’s excited to go deeper on growth strategy, team building, and user acquisition at scale.

At Nextdoor, we offer a warm and inclusive work environment that embraces a hybrid employment experience, providing a flexible experience for our valued employees.  

The Impact You’ll Make

Your responsibilities will include: 

  • Lead and support a small team of engineers focused on organic traffic growth
  • Partner with Product, Marketing, and Data Science to build engaging, traffic-driving features - like SEO, content sharing, and user invites - and to measure their impact using insights from data
  • Oversee the development of scalable and reliable full stack technologies with a focus on performance that drives millions of interactions each week
  • You’ll be involved in all aspects of the product development for a major product area; from strategy, research, prototyping, concept to interaction design, to final QA and code tweaks right before launch
  • You’ll own and drive operational metrics of the Traffic team
  • Participate in hiring outstanding talent and develop the engineering resources in the organization
  • Participate in in-person Nextdoor events, trainings, off-sites, volunteer days, and other team building exercises

What You’ll Bring To The Team

  • 1–3 years of people management experience or Staff/Technical Lead level experience with a strong track record of mentorship and technical leadership
  • Proven ability to mentor high-performing engineering teams
  • Experience working on growth-related features such as SEO, user-generated content, high traffic, acquisition flows, or sharing surfaces
  • Empathy for user needs and a strong grasp of the business problems we’re solving
  • Experience building or integrating experimentation frameworks and using A/B testing to inform product direction and drive measurable impact
  • Comfort working across the product development spectrum: strategy, ideation, concept work, up to the delivery of the consumption experience
  • Strong technical judgment and a track record of engineering excellence, including operational rigor (monitoring, alerting, incident response, post-mortems, etc.)

Bonus Points:

  • Experience with Django Python, React, and Next.js hosted on AWS
  • Experience with observability using Datadog and/or Sentry
  • Experience with Server Side Rendering

Rewards

Compensation, benefits, perks, and recognition programs at Nextdoor come together to create one overall rewards package.

The starting salary for this role is expected to range from $200,000 - $250,000 on an annualized basis, or potentially greater in the event that your 'level' of proficiency exceeds the level expected for the role. Compensation may also vary by geography.

We also expect to award a meaningful equity grant for this role. With quarterly vesting, your first vest date would be within the first 3 months of your start date.

Overall, total compensation will vary depending on your relevant skills, experience, and qualifications.

When it comes to benefits, we have you covered! Nextdoor employees can choose between a variety of health plans, including a 100% covered employee only plan option, and we also provide a OneMedical membership for concierge care.    

At Nextdoor, we empower our employees to build stronger local communities. To create a platform where all feel welcome, we want our workforce to reflect the diversity of the neighbors we seek to serve. We encourage everyone interested in our purpose to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, or any other trait that unfairly targets a group of people. In accordance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we always consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

For information about our collection and use of applicants’ personal information, please see Nextdoor's Personnel Privacy Notice, found here.