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 .

Product Designer

Profound · New York City

Profound is on a mission to help companies understand and control their AI presence. As AI-generated experiences shape how brands are discovered, trusted, and chosen, the quality of those experiences matters more and more.

Design is foundational to our product and our company. As a Product Designer at Profound, you will work on our core data visualization and content workflow tools. This is an opportunity to have deep ownership over our product and ship fast and ship often, while continuing to craft the experience for our users.

What you’ll do

  • Design core product experiences end to end, from early exploration through launch and iteration

  • Work closely with product managers and engineers to translate strategy and ambiguous problems into clear, thoughtful solutions

  • Explore multiple directions quickly through sketches, flows, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs

  • Sweat the details and fine tune layout shifts, typography, spacing, motion, and interactions

  • Balance building good product focused on user needs, technical constraints, and business goals while keeping a high bar for craft

  • Use user feedback, qualitative insights, and product intuition to refine and improve the product over time

  • Contribute to and help evolve Profound’s design language, systems, and product vision

  • Participate in Tuesday and Thursday design critiques to give and receive feedback on in-progress design work

Who you are

  • You have 3 or more years of experience designing digital products, ideally in a startup or fast-moving product company

  • You are a strong generalist with taste and are comfortable owning the full stack of design assets, from flows to pixels to final product

  • You care deeply about craft and believe great design is defined by clarity, simplicity, and execution

  • You bring an entrepreneurial and product-thinking mindset to design

  • You like to experiment with AI, new tools, and ways of working, whether through new Figma plugins or tools such as v0, Cursor, or other prototyping tools

  • You are good at collaborating with product managers, engineers, and data scientists to solve problems

  • You have a portfolio that shows thoughtful problem-solving and high-quality visual design

  • Experience working on a data visualization or B2B marketing product

  • Enjoy prototyping directly in code and shipping directly to production using git and GitHub

  • Blur the lines between where design ends and product or engineering work begins

  • You can just do things

Note from our co-founder

In the evolving landscape of product development, exceptional design is not merely a nice-to-have, it is foundational. As software engineering becomes increasingly accessible, it is taste, creativity, and thoughtful execution that differentiate outstanding products from the rest.

I believe deeply that design sits at the core of our success. At Profound, my goal is to build a design team renowned for setting a new standard of excellence, crafting experiences so compelling they become benchmarks in our industry.

If you are someone who believes in the transformative power of great design and wants to create work that genuinely shapes the future, join us. Let’s redefine what’s possible together.

Dylan Babbs, Co-founder & CTO

Location

This is an on-site role based in our NYC, SF or Bueno Aires office, designed for builders who thrive on speed, iteration, and meaningful impact.

For this role, the expected base salary range is $120,000 to $250,000 (NY). Comp may vary by location. Profound’s total compensation package is designed to be competitive and includes base salary, equity, and a full range of benefits and perks. Final compensation will depend on factors such as your skills, experience, qualifications, and location, and will be determined during the interview process. Our recruiting team will share more details about the full compensation package and benefits as you move through hiring.