How ATS software actually reads your résumé
Before a recruiter ever opens it, an applicant tracking system parses your résumé into structured fields. If the parse fails, your real experience is invisible. The score checks the things that decide whether you make it through that first machine read.
Parse-ability
Single-column, selectable text, with no tables, columns, text boxes, icons, or content trapped in the header or footer. Those are the usual reasons a résumé comes out scrambled on the other side.
Section detection
Standard headings (Experience, Education, Skills) so the system files each block under the right field instead of dropping it.
Keyword match
The skills and titles the posting asks for, present in your real experience and phrased the way the job phrases them. Matching truthfully, never inventing.
Contact and dates
Machine-readable contact details and consistent date formats, so nothing lands in the wrong field or gets read as a gap.
Bullet quality
Concrete, outcome-led bullets a human can skim in a few seconds once the parse succeeds and a recruiter is actually looking.
