What is an ATS?
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is software used by employers to automatically parse, store, and rank job applications before a human recruiter reviews them. Companies like Amazon, Google, JPMorgan, and most Fortune 500 employers use ATS software to handle the thousands of resumes they receive. Popular ATS platforms include Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, Taleo, iCIMS, and BambooHR. If your resume isn't optimised for ATS, it gets filtered out before a recruiter ever sees it — no matter how qualified you are.
How ATS scoring works
ATS systems score your resume across four main dimensions: (1) Keyword match — how many terms from the job description appear in your resume. (2) Section completeness — whether your resume has all expected sections: Work Experience, Education, Skills, and Contact Info. (3) Formatting safety — whether the file can be cleanly parsed without errors. (4) Action verb strength and quantification — whether your bullets demonstrate impact, not just activity. HireSprint's AI optimises all four dimensions simultaneously.
What kills your ATS score
The biggest ATS killers are: Tables and multi-column layouts (ATS parsers read left-to-right and scramble multi-column content), text boxes and headers/footers (most ATS systems skip these entirely), images and graphics (ATS cannot read text inside images), non-standard section titles (use "Work Experience" not "Where I've Been"), acronyms without full forms (write "Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)" not just "SEO"), unusual fonts (stick to Arial, Calibri, Garamond, or Georgia), and missing keywords from the job description.
What boosts your ATS score
The highest-impact ATS boosters are: exact phrases from the job description (not synonyms — if the JD says "project management" use "project management", not "programme management"), standard section headers (Experience, Education, Skills, Summary), clean single-column formatting in a .docx or PDF saved from Word, strong action verbs at the start of every bullet (Achieved, Built, Led, Reduced, Increased, Delivered), quantified achievements on every bullet, and full keyword coverage across all skills mentioned in the JD.
ATS score targets to aim for
Below 60: Your resume is almost certainly being filtered out automatically. You're not reaching any recruiters. 60–79: You're getting through some filters but losing out to better-optimised competitors. 80–89: Strong score — you're passing most ATS screens and reaching recruiters. 90+: Excellent — your resume is as well-matched as possible to the role. HireSprint users average an ATS score of 47 before tailoring and 89 after — a 42-point improvement in 60 seconds.
The ATS keyword strategy
Read the job description and identify three categories of keywords: (1) Required skills — mentioned multiple times or listed under "Requirements". These are non-negotiable. (2) Preferred skills — mentioned once or under "Nice to Have". Include these if you have experience. (3) Job title variants — the exact title and any variants used (e.g. "Software Engineer", "Software Developer", "SWE"). Incorporate all required and preferred keywords naturally into your bullets, skills section, and summary. Never keyword-stuff — ATS systems can detect and penalise it.
Best ATS-safe resume formats
The safest ATS format is a single-column chronological resume saved as .docx or as a PDF exported directly from Word (not Google Docs, which can introduce formatting issues). Font: Arial, Calibri, or Garamond at 10–12pt. Margins: 0.5–1 inch all sides. Section order: Contact Info → Summary → Work Experience → Skills → Education. No text boxes, tables, columns, headers/footers, images, or graphics. File name: "FirstName-LastName-Resume.pdf" — not "CV-Final-v3.docx".
How HireSprint beats the ATS for you
HireSprint's AI reads your resume and the job description simultaneously, identifies every keyword gap, rewrites your bullets to incorporate missing terms naturally, restructures your summary to mirror the role's language, and formats the output in a clean ATS-safe template. The result is a resume that passes ATS filters and reads well to human recruiters — both screens, handled in 60 seconds. Users average an 89 ATS score after tailoring, up from 47 before.
Stop Guessing. Check Your ATS Score Now.
Paste your resume and a job description. Get your ATS score in seconds — free, no sign-up required.
Check My ATS Score Free →