Understanding your ATS score

First, what an ATS actually does

You have probably read that applicant tracking systems auto-reject 75 percent of resumes before a human sees them. There is no study behind that number; it traces to a 2012 sales pitch by a vendor that shut down the following year. What the major systems document is different: automatic rejection is triggered by your answers to application questions, not by your resume text. What actually removes you is a recruiter's filtered search, or a ranking that puts you below the fold.

So your score does not measure "will a robot reject me." It measures how findable and how convincing your resume is when a human searches, filters, and skims. We wrote up the research behind this on our About page.

What the score is

The score is a 0 to 100 AI evaluation of your resume, graded across eight areas with fixed weights:

• Work experience (28 points)
• Skills (15 points)
• Professional summary (12 points)
• Keywords and industry alignment (12 points)
• Formatting and ATS compatibility (10 points)
• Projects (8 points)
• Education (8 points)
• Certifications and training (7 points)

Every claim in the analysis has to quote the exact text of your resume or the job description it is based on, and those quotes are machine-checked before you see the result. A second pass checks the analysis for fabricated statements. If the AI cannot produce a verifiable analysis, you get an error, not a made-up score.

Reading your result

Do not fixate on the number. The breakdown tells you which of the eight areas is costing you the most points, and experience and skills together carry 43 of the 100, so start there. Scores move most when you turn duty-style bullets into specific, quantified outcomes.

What needs which plan

The score card and the eight-area breakdown are included with every scan. Live improvement suggestions, the recovery roadmap, and the multi-company matrix need Pro. The X-Ray ATS visualizer needs Premium. Scan limits are covered in Uploading your first resume.