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 .

SDET / QA Lead

Saris Ai · San Francisco

The Role

We're a San Francisco & Montreal based applied AI startup that's building the future of work in the banking industry. We are tackling a $100 billion/yr problem, doubling every quarter and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with multi-turn AI agentic systems.

Our goal is to tackle the type of automation problems that require long-context reasoning, tool orchestration across legacy systems, and strict compliance loops: the ones without known answers.

We’ve shipped real agents that handle real customer workflows in production. With a growing customer base and live deployments, we’re scaling up fast and looking for deeply technical builders who want to have outsized impact early.

We’re hiring an SDET / QA Lead to build and scale how quality works across our AI-powered products. At Saris, quality isn’t something we test at the end — it’s something we build into the system from day one. This role is about creating the infrastructure, strategy, and culture that allows engineers to move fast while maintaining high reliability.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You’ll write code, design systems, and lead how quality is done across the company.

What You’ll Do

  • You’ll own quality end-to-end. That includes defining our testing strategy across product, infrastructure, and AI workflows, and building the systems that support it.

  • You’ll design and implement automated testing frameworks across the stack — from UI to APIs to backend systems — and ensure they are fast, reliable, and deeply integrated into our CI/CD pipelines.

  • You’ll also lead and grow the QA function, mentoring engineers and setting clear standards for how quality is owned across teams.

  • A key part of this role is working closely with product and engineering to focus testing efforts on what actually matters, and building fast, trusted feedback loops.

  • Collaborating with our ML team, you’ll also help define how we test AI systems — including LLM and agent-based workflows — ensuring accuracy, consistency, and protection against regressions.

Technology

  • We primarily work with Python and TypeScript

  • Our testing stack includes tools like Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, pytest, and Jest.

  • We run on modern CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions), containerized environments (Docker/ECS), and cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP).

  • Experience with testing distributed systems, APIs, and AI/ML systems is especially valuable.

What We’re Looking For

  • You have strong engineering fundamentals and are comfortable writing production-quality code.

  • You’ve built or significantly improved automated testing systems, and understand how to balance speed, coverage, and reliability.

  • You’ve worked on complex systems (APIs, microservices, async workflows), and know how to identify real risk rather than just increasing test count.

  • You have leadership experience — either managing or mentoring — and care about raising the bar for the entire team.

  • Experience with AI or LLM-based systems, both as tools in your day-to-day work as well as to test.

Why Join Saris AI?

  • 🏦 Join us in building the future of work for the trillion-dollar banking industry using cutting edge AI technology.

  • ⚡Tackle ambiguous technical challenges with no clear answers.

  • 💲Competitive compensation with premium benefits and equity package.

  • 🤝Work with a stellar team of engineers, builders, and leaders; including repeat YC founders with a successful exit (Ready Education).

  • 📈We already have production agents live with revenue-generating customers

  • 🐦 🔥Our team is backed by Tier 1 Silicon Valley VCs