If you understand what the ATS is doing under the hood, every other resume decision becomes obvious.
The four steps every ATS performs
- Parse: convert your resume to structured data (name, employer, dates, skills)
- Match: compare extracted skills to the job posting requirements
- Score: rank you against other candidates
- Surface: only the top-N candidates are seen by the recruiter
Why your resume gets filtered
Almost always one of: poor parsing (the ATS misread sections), low keyword match (the words in the posting aren't in your resume), or low ranking against stronger applicants in the same role.
See how your resume scores
Resume Bestie's ATS checker shows exactly what an ATS sees when it parses your resume.
Run the ATS checker