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 .

Data Analyst

Share Local Media · New York City, NY, US

About us

Share Local Media, or SLM, is a rapidly growing startup reimagining the world of offline marketing for tech and e-commerce companies. We started as e-commerce marketers ourselves, and launched SLM with a goal of transforming offline marketing channels, starting with direct mail and now OOH, by turning them into high performing, scalable channels for a digitally native client set. To do so, we’ve taken an inputs based-approach to the space, and re-engineered the channels from the ground up to make it easier to test, faster to execute, more measurable, and ultimately, more effective for e-commerce and tech clients of all types.

So what does SLM actually do? We’re a full-service direct mail & OOH agency, media program operator, and technology platform, serving some of your favorite e-commerce and tech brands (think Casper, Away, Grubhub, etc.). We live and breathe direct response marketing, and strive to delight clients with high performing campaigns built around fast, data-driven client service, and premium, unique branding.

What are we like at SLM? We’re passionate, humble, and kind. We value data-driven thinking, speed, persistence, creativity, and teamwork. We love helping clients grow and scale through a tactile medium that has long term brand value. And finally, we get excited about transforming old-school channels into something new through data, product, technology, and a service-driven mentality.

Share our excitement? Great - We’d love to hear from you!

The Role

You will be working as part of our data team on a wide range of tasks, which will run from everyday data management and analysis to long term projects to deliver extra value to the business, with plenty of opportunity to contribute and learn. Analyze large data sets and develop custom models/algorithms to uncover trends, patterns, and insights in customer and business data. We frequently work with more data than Excel can handle - you’ll select the appropriate tools for the job.

Evaluate current practices, automate common processes, and take initiative to improve business and finance operations. Collaborate and work cross-functionally with data partners to understand and elevate the analytics functions of experience development, business development, consumer marketing strategy, margin optimization, etc.

Maintain and improve data-driven targeting models to improve reach and conversion. Supporting our mail teams with day-to-day tasks such as creating mailing lists and providing performance analysis to clients.

Qualifications

  • Passionate about data, and always excited to find new ways to use it to solve practical business problems.
  • Bachelor’s degree in a STEM or quantitative field.
  • 1-3 years of relevant experience in an analytical role or ability to demonstrate high-quality relevant project work.
  • Experienced in Excel.
  • Strong foundation in SQL and at least intermediate level proficiency in a scripting language such as Python or R.
  • Excellent communication skills and a flair for making complex technical explanations easy for non-technical people to understand.
  • Skills in creating visualizations for us to explore and to help stake-holders understand the data and takeaways.
  • Self-starter who is confident in approaching unstructured and open-ended tasks, with great creative problem solving skills.
  • Comfortable working both independently and as part of a collaborative group, as required by the scope of a project.

Would be great to see:

  • Exposure to common tools (CRMs, Analytics Tools, Customer Data Platforms etc.) Experience using a BI tool (i.e. Looker and Tableau), setting up dashboards, and an interest in visualizing and exploring data. Using a big data platform for data analysis (Spark, Hadoop etc.) Working with tools such as Jupyter Notebooks, Anaconda etc. as part of your data workflow.

What we offer

  • Base salary range for this position is $75,000 - $80,000 and is based upon experience and other factors.
  • Hybrid role based out of our NYC office
  • Ownership and growth opportunities
  • Flexible vacation policy
  • Robust benefits package
  • A fun culture including: catered meals, team events, and happy hours
  • The opportunity to work with a group of passionate, humble, and kind team members

If you’re looking to be part of something new that is transforming an industry, this is the role for you. You will be empowered to think like an entrepreneur by coming up with new ideas, testing, implementing, and then scaling them quickly.