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Your résumé, read the way a screener reads it

Upload a PDF and get the specific lines a parser or a recruiter trips over, and the skills you list but never demonstrate. Two honest numbers instead of one score, because we measured what one score is worth and the answer was not much.

Sign in to scan your résumé

Free, and it takes about twenty seconds — we email you a link, so there is no password to make up. You will get the full report, not a preview of one.

Sign in and scan

Your file is read once and not stored. Paste a job description once you are in and the report also marks each requirement demonstrated, listed, or absent. Everything on this page below the tool reads without an account.

Why one score lies

In August 2026 we put two résumé products’ real output through a competitor’s own ATS score. A heavily fabricated résumé came back at 89 / 100, labelled “Excellent”. Our own more conservative output for the same candidate scored 78 to 82. Then the same fabricated product scored 35 against a different job.

Two things follow. A score that swings 54 points on the same document cannot tell you whether a real problem exists or whether you drew a different posting. And a score that goes up when you add keywords cannot tell an accomplishment from an invention — so the more someone fabricates, the better they do. We tracked those fabricated résumés into 21 real applications. They produced zero interviews.

So this scanner does not sell you a number to raise. It reports two: what the job asks for that you have, and how much of that a reader can actually find you doing. Adding words to a skills line moves the first and not the second. The distance between them is the finding.

What an applicant tracking system actually does

Most of what is sold about this is fear, and the fear is load-bearing for the products selling it. Here is what we could verify, and what we could not.

"75% of résumés are rejected by a robot before a human sees them."
That number comes from a 2012 sales pitch by a résumé-optimisation vendor that no longer exists. No study supports it. Recruiter surveys put content-based automatic rejection well under 10% of configurations, and none of the major hiring platforms rejects on résumé content by default.
"You need an exact keyword match or you are filtered out."
Keywords decide whether you turn up in a recruiter’s search, not whether you are deleted. That is still worth a lot — a résumé nobody searches up is a résumé nobody reads — but the mechanism is visibility, not a filter.
"A higher score means a better résumé."
We scored two products’ real output on a competitor’s own score in August 2026. A heavily fabricated résumé rated 89 out of 100, "Excellent". The same product rated 35 against a different job. A number that moves 54 points on the same document, and that rises when you invent experience, is not measuring quality.
"Getting the résumé right is what gets you the interview."
The knockout questions on the application form are the only true automatic rejection in most systems — work authorisation, location, a required licence. A perfect résumé behind a wrong answer to one of those does not get read.

What genuinely costs people interviews, in order: the knockout questions on the form, which are the only real automatic rejection; a file a parser cannot read, which makes you invisible to the searches that surface candidates; and a page that claims more than it shows, which loses the human once you do surface. This scanner measures the second and the third. The first is the application form, and it is why we built the rest of the product.

Everything it checks

What a parser recovers

  • Whether the PDF has a real text layer, or is a picture of a résumé that a keyword search finds nothing in
  • Whether your name, email, phone and location survive as findable strings rather than fusing into a header
  • Whether the section headings are detectable, so content lands in the right part of the record
  • Whether each role separates into company, title and dates instead of merging into one string
  • Whether every role carries dates, in a format that parses
  • Whether your links are complete addresses rather than bare domains nobody retypes
  • Whether any contact field is still carrying a placeholder or a form default

What the work demonstrates

  • For every skill you list: does a bullet show you doing it, or does it only appear in the list
  • With a job description pasted: each required and preferred term marked demonstrated, listed, or absent
  • Which requirements you can genuinely meet that the page never says in the employer’s words
  • Whether a stated number of years of experience matches the dates printed on the same page
  • Whether the skills line is denser than the work below it supports

What a reader takes in seven seconds

  • How many bullets carry a number rather than a description of a duty
  • Whether bullets open with an action, and whether the openers repeat inside one role
  • Whether the newest role carries the weight, and whether its first bullet leads with what the job asked for
  • Bullet length, word count, page count, and bullets repeated across two roles

How it sounds

  • The phrases that fill a line and say nothing — passionate, results-oriented, proven track record
  • First person in the body, where it does not belong
  • A term repeated past the point where repetition adds anything

Questions

Is the résumé scanner free?
Yes. You sign in first — an email link, no password to invent — and then scanning is free. Signing in is what lets us keep the scan attached to you instead of losing it on refresh, and it is what stops the tool being scripted by someone who is not job hunting.
Do you keep my résumé?
No. The file is read in memory for the length of one request and is not written to storage, not attached to your profile, and not kept after the report is returned. If you want us to remember your résumé, that is a separate, deliberate step in the product.
Why two numbers instead of one score?
Because one number can be raised by typing. Match is what you have; Evidenced is what a reader can find you doing. Adding skills to a list moves the first and not the second, so the distance between them is the finding — and it is the finding a single score is structurally unable to report.
What file types can I upload?
A PDF with a real text layer. If your résumé is a Word document, export it to PDF first — Word files are perfectly safe to send to employers, we just cannot read one yet. A PDF that is really a picture cannot be scanned by us or searched by a recruiter, and the scanner will tell you that outright.
What does pasting the job description change?
It turns a general check into a targeted one. We pull the required and preferred requirements out of the posting and mark each one as demonstrated in your work, listed but never shown, or absent. The middle state is the one worth reading — it is a skill you genuinely have that the page does not prove.
Will this rewrite my résumé for me?
Not on this page. The scanner tells you what a reader trips over and what to change. It will never add a skill or an accomplishment you did not tell us about — if a requirement is missing, we ask whether you have done it rather than writing it in.
Does a high score here mean I will get the job?
No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. This measures whether your résumé survives being read — by software, then by a person with seven seconds. What happens after that is about the work you have done and the roles you pick.
How long does a scan take?
About ten seconds for the general check, a little longer when you paste a job description.
Should I use a two-column résumé?
Prefer one column. Parsers read a page as a single top-to-bottom stream, so two columns interleave — your email can end up inside the education section. Measured parse rates run around 93% for single-column layouts against roughly 86% for multi-column ones. It is not fatal; it is a needless risk.
Do tables, text boxes and headers cause problems?
Often. Content in a header or footer is invisible to many parsers, which is why a phone number up there can vanish entirely. Tables and floating text boxes error in a large share of systems. Put contact details in the body of the page and lay the résumé out with ordinary paragraphs.
How long should a résumé be?
Between about 400 and 1,600 words. Under that there is not enough shown work for anything to be evidenced; past it a reader skims rather than reads, and the newest role is what they came for. We do not ask anyone to delete real experience to hit a page count.

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