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 Manager

Timely · USA (Remote)

Who we are

School scheduling is a hard problem, one that technology was meant to solve. Yet for decades, the master schedule has been built by hand, consuming educators’ valuable time while delivering a sub-optimal result for students. We started Timely to build the tool we wish we had when we were in schools. And today, we are changing how schools create high quality schedules for teachers and students. Timely combines groundbreaking AI technology with support from a team of expert school schedulers: saving schedulers’ time, and surfacing opportunities for leaders to unlock staff potential. Timely delivers optimized master schedules that are more efficient, accommodate diverse educator needs, and enable student access to courses and pathways that impact their lives.

Our district and school partners agree: scheduling is a key opportunity for educational innovation, and that Timely is the indispensable partner in addressing the challenge. We’re experiencing exciting growth as a company, while doubling down on our mission and people-centered approach to leveraging powerful technology. We serve districts and charter school organizations across 15+ states, growing (and renewing) at rates that lead the education technology industry. This growth has been driven by our strong product-market fit, deep understanding of education, and commitment to customer success.

About our Product

At Timely, our product does the impossible: it makes the job of a school scheduler measurably easier, while also delivering better quality in the results. We deliver optimized master schedules that are more efficient, accommodate diverse educator needs, and enable student access to courses and pathways that impact their lives. We address the needs of school-based employees who toil away building schedules and central office employees who need visibility into them.

We differentiate our product in the market through a combination of groundbreaking optimization technology plus an intuitive workflow experience, guiding users through options, implications, and solutions – supported by an experienced Success team.

About the Role

This role is for an experienced product manager who is able to operate in ambiguous settings and consider both the design and business implications of their work. As part of a founding team for a new initiative at Timely, you will work closely and cross-functionally with Engineering and Success teams to uncover customer challenges, develop and test solutions, and drive impactful product decisions in new areas.


This role will balance customer needs with business strategy - identifying the right problems to solve, deciding which solutions to build, and making sure the entire organization understands not just what we’re building, but why. You’ll ensure product decisions are clear, priorities are well-communicated, and our roadmap reflects both user impact and company goals.

Responsibilities

  • Lead early product discovery in a new area to identify and prioritize customer problems, in collaboration with Engineering stakeholders for technical discovery.

  • Lead ideation and design exercises to generate potential solutions and approaches to solving customer problems, leveraging the Success team and other stakeholders.

  • Write product stories that include the “why,” “what,” and “when,” while working closely with Engineering to define the “how”.

  • Collaborate with Engineering stakeholders to build initial prototypes and MVPs.

  • Establish goal- and metric-setting processes with Engineering, to motivate and measure the work.

  • Engage with potential customers to ideate and gather feedback on product and prototypes.

  • Foster a culture of delivering value by setting and adjusting milestones, maintaining high standards, and keeping the team focused on impact.

  • Communicate product decisions with clarity and enthusiasm, ensuring internal and external stakeholders understand priorities, and the reasoning behind them.

About You

  • Mindset: You are a self-starter who is comfortable working in ambiguity and passionate about creating opportunities in education. You are excited by complex problems and imaginative solutions, particularly those that leverage AI. You take on new challenges eagerly and are driven to see ideas through to completion. You take ownership, communicate progress effectively, and adapt quickly in a fast-paced startup environment.

  • Experience: 4+ years in B2B SaaS product organizations, with at least 2 years as a Product Manager. Experience building complex products that leverage AI.

  • Skills: Strong in customer discovery, data analysis, and user-centric story writing. Experience with agile tools (e.g., Jira, Notion, Miro, etc.).

  • Strengths: Collaborative by default, detail-oriented problem solver, and a visual communicator (e.g., mockups, sketches, diagrams, journey maps, etc).

  • Nice-to-have (not required): Background in EdTech and/or education sector; experience in product development - e.g., front-end development, UX design; experience taking a product from 0 to 1 either within a company or as a new startup.

Why Join Us

  • Work with an exceptional team tackling meaningful challenges in education.

  • Be part of a growing, financially healthy company with a proven product.

  • Enjoy comprehensive benefits, including health insurance, parental leave, 401(k), unlimited PTO, access to coworking, and equity in a fast-growing startup.