ATS compatibility

How we score your resume

Your score counts what your resume says with fixed rules, the same before and after any change. Each rule follows published advice from university career centers, government job sites and the job platforms and applicant tracking systems themselves. Where an exact number is our own choice, we say so.

What the score never does

It never invents anything. No experience, figure or skill that isn’t in your resume is added to raise it; every rewrite is checked in code for new numbers and skills.
It never asks you to add skills you don’t have. Only skills your resume already names count. The positions you match only decide which of yours matter most.

35 points

Read by systems

Whether an applicant tracking system can pull your details out of the file correctly.

Text a system can read
9 pts
Everything that matters is real text in one column, not only inside images, tables, text boxes or side-by-side columns.
How we count it: 9 points when nothing meaningful sits only in an image, table, text box or column; 0 otherwise.
Sources
Standard section headings
7 pts
Your experience, education and skills sit under headings a system recognizes, such as “Experience”, “Education” and “Skills”, instead of creative titles.
How we count it: 7 points × the share of those sections in your resume with a recognized heading in English, Spanish or Portuguese (variants such as “Work history” or “Formación” count).
Sources
Contact details
7 pts
Your email, phone, city and LinkedIn profile, as plain text in the body of the resume.
How we count it: Email 3 points, phone 2, location 1, LinkedIn 1.
Our convention Every guide asks for email and phone; city and LinkedIn are recommended rather than required, so they weigh less. The split of the 7 points is ours.
Sources
Dates for every role
6 pts
Each role shows when it started and ended, ideally month and year; your current role can say “Present”.
How we count it: 6 points × the share of roles with a start and an end date; the most recent role may leave the end open.
Sources
One or two pages
6 pts
One page, or two when you have the experience to fill them.
How we count it: 1–2 pages 6 points, 3 pages 3, longer 0.
Our convention The guides set one or two pages, and USAJOBS no longer accepts longer resumes; the 3 points for three pages are ours.
Sources

30 points

Structure and writing

Whether a recruiter sees quickly what you do and what you achieved.

A specific headline
5 pts
Under your name, a line that says what you do, such as “Senior Accountant | IFRS”, not “Curriculum Vitae” or “Resume”.
How we count it: 3 points for having one and 2 more when it is specific: 2 to 14 words, not your name and not a generic word such as “Resume”, “CV” or “Profile”.
Our convention The range of 2 to 14 words is ours.
Sources
A short summary
5 pts
A short paragraph at the top on your experience and strengths.
How we count it: 30–90 words 5 points; 15–29 or 91–130 words 3; any other length 1; none 0. Guides ask for 2 to 5 lines or 2 to 4 sentences, and Tec de Monterrey’s guide for 50 to 75 words; 30–90 words is about that.
Our convention The partial-credit bands (15–29 and 91–130 words) are ours.
Sources
Bullets that open with an action verb
6 pts
Each bullet starts with what you did: “Led”, “Reduced”, “Negocié”, “Implementei”.
How we count it: 6 points when at least 80% of your bullets open with an action verb, proportionally less below that.
Our convention Guides ask for an action verb at the start of every bullet; allowing one in five without it before losing points is ours.
Sources
Short bullets
5 pts
One idea per bullet, in one or two lines.
How we count it: 5 points × the share of bullets of 8 to 30 words, minus 1 point for each bullet over 40 words. One or two lines is about 13 to 34 words.
Our convention The 8-word minimum and the 40-word limit are ours.
Sources
Results, not duties
3 pts
Say what you did or achieved instead of opening with “Responsible for”, “Duties included”, “Helped with”, “Worked on” or “Assisted”.
How we count it: 3 points with none, down to 0 when a quarter of your bullets open that way.
Our convention The quarter is ours. Some guides only ask to use “helped” and “assisted” sparingly, which is why a few cost little.
Sources
No “I” or “my”
2 pts
No I, me or my (yo, mi; eu, meu) in your bullets and summary. A verb in the first person, like “Negocié” or “Implementei”, is fine.
How we count it: 2 points with none, down to 0 when a fifth of your bullets and summary use them.
Our convention The fifth is ours.
Sources
A skills section
4 pts
A list of your skills, so systems and recruiters find them at a glance.
How we count it: Five or more skills 4 points, one to four 2, none 0.
Our convention Five is ours. The only number we found is BYU-Pathway’s advice to keep the list to 6–8.
Sources

35 points

Your skills in demand

How clearly your resume shows the skills of yours that the positions you match ask for.

Your skills, weighed by demand
Only yours
We take the skills that the positions you match in our catalog ask for and keep only the ones your resume already names. The more of those positions ask for one of your skills, the more it weighs.
How we count it: A skill you don’t have is never listed, scored or suggested, so the score never drops because positions ask for something you lack.
Our convention Weighing each skill by how many of your matched positions ask for it is ours.
Sources
Shown where you used it
1 · 0.7 · 0.4
A skill named in the role where you used it counts more than one only in your summary, and that more than one only in your skills list.
How we count it: Full credit (1) in a role’s title or bullets, 0.7 in the headline or summary, 0.4 only in the skills list or a certification. The 35 points are your weighted share of full credit.
Our convention The three weights are ours. Guides and hirers value a skill shown in context of your experience; keyword searches in Greenhouse and LinkedIn Recruiter match a skill in any section, which is why a listed skill still counts.
Sources

Separate indicator, 0–100

Impact

What a person reading your resume values and a parser doesn’t measure. It is shown beside the score, never added to it.

Figures in your achievements
60 of 100
Numbers show the size of what you did: percentages, amounts, people, time.
How we count it: 60 points when at least half of your bullets have a figure that isn’t a year, proportionally less below that.
Our convention Half is ours. Some guides also accept a clear description when there is no figure, which is why figures only move Impact, never your ATS compatibility.
Sources
One tense per role
20 of 100
Your current role in the present and earlier roles in the past, without mixing tenses inside a role.
How we count it: 20 points × the share of roles written in one tense, among roles with two or more bullets whose tense we can tell (20 when none qualifies). We check that each role is consistent, not which tense it uses.
Our convention Checking one tense per role is our reading of the guides; Purdue OWL also allows the past for a finished achievement in your current role.
Sources
A summary of useful length
20 of 100
The same short summary: it is the first thing a person reads.
How we count it: 30–90 words 20 points; 15–29 or 91–130 words 10; otherwise 0.
Our convention The same bands as above; the partial-credit ones are ours.
Sources

How to read the number

ATS compatibility adds Read by systems (35 points), Structure and writing (30) and Your skills in demand (35). When none of the positions you match asks for a skill your resume names, the first two make up the 100 points, keeping their 35:30 ratio. Impact is shown beside it and never added to it.

The same rules score your resume before and after any change, and they only count what it says: reordering, regrouping or changing the template doesn’t move the score.

It is our estimate built on public guidance, not the score of any particular applicant tracking system: each employer sets up its own, and none publishes a universal formula. No score guarantees an interview.

“Our convention” marks a number the guides don’t give: they agree on the practice, and we fixed the threshold so the same resume always gets the same score.

Sources checked on September 27, 2026

What the score never does

Text a system can read

Standard section headings

Contact details

Dates for every role

One or two pages

A specific headline

A short summary

Bullets that open with an action verb

Short bullets

Results, not duties

No “I” or “my”

A skills section

Your skills, weighed by demand

Shown where you used it

Figures in your achievements

One tense per role

A summary of useful length

How to read the number