What's the difference between a resume scanner, a resume checker and an ATS score?

They're mostly the same tool wearing different names. A resume scanner or ATS scanner emphasizes the parse: running your file through an ATS-style extraction to see what survives. A resume checker emphasizes the audit: sections, keywords, content quality. An ATS score or resume score is the number either one produces. Koluvu's checker does all three in one report. The extracted text is the scan, the flagged issues are the check, and the score out of 100 is weighted from both. The one thing none of them are is the actual score a recruiter sees, because recruiters don't see one.

Is Koluvu's ATS resume checker free?

Yes. Fully, with no scan limit, no account and no credit card. Everything in the report is free: the score, the category breakdown, every flagged issue with its fix, the extracted text, the PDF download and the share link. There's no paywalled tier of the checker.

Do applicant tracking systems automatically reject resumes?

Rarely, and not the way people imagine. The widely repeated claim that 75% of resumes are never seen by a human traces to a 2012 sales quote with no study behind it. In a 2026 survey of 1,000 US hiring managers, 71% used an ATS but only 19% let software screen candidates out before a human looked. What does reject you automatically: knockout questions like work authorization and location. What makes you invisible: a parse failure that leaves your skills out of the searchable record.

How accurate are ATS resume checkers?

Accurate about the things that are mechanical, and honest tools say so. Whether a parser can find your sections, read your dates and pull your contact details is deterministic. Koluvu shows you the extracted text so you can verify it rather than trust a number. Keyword matching is reliable but not identical to any one recruiter's search. What no checker can do is predict a hiring decision, and no third-party tool runs the actual Workday or Greenhouse parser; anyone claiming to is guessing. Treat the score as a diagnosis of what's fixable, not a forecast.

How do I improve my ATS score?

In the order the report lists them. First, anything under parse fidelity: move contact details out of the header, drop the second column, replace icons and skill bars with text, use standard section headings. Second, keywords: add the skills and tools the posting names, in the form it names them, and back each with a bullet that shows you used it. Translate your experience into the posting's language; never invent experience you don't have, because recruiters check and interviews expose it. Third, content: quantify results and cut repetition. Rescan after each pass; most resumes reach 80+ in two.

Does an ATS reject resumes for employment gaps?

Not the parser; it just reads dates. But recruiters can configure filters on the fields it extracts, and gaps, degrees and years of experience are the classic ones. In the Harvard Business School and Accenture study of 2,275 executives, 88% said their system filters out qualified candidates who don't match the exact criteria. Two things you control. Make sure your dates parse correctly so a real gap doesn't look bigger than it is, and account for the gap in plain words, with a one-line entry for the period or a mention in your summary, so the human who searches you finds the explanation next to the dates.

How do I know if my resume is ATS-friendly?

The honest test is to look at what a parser extracts, which is exactly what the checker shows you. But you can also test it yourself in two minutes, and recruiters recommend that you do. Open your resume, select all, and paste it into a plain-text editor: if the reading order is scrambled or your email vanished, an ATS will see the same thing. Better still, start an application on any company's Workday or Greenhouse careers page and upload your file; if the form auto-fills your name, roles and dates correctly, you're fine. The rules of thumb behind both tests: a single-column layout, standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills), contact details in the body rather than the page header, real text instead of icons or skill bars, standard fonts, and dates written consistently.

Can an ATS read PDF resumes, or is Word better?

Either, as long as the file contains real text. A PDF exported from Word or Google Docs parses fine on every modern ATS; a PDF that's actually a scanned image does not. DOCX is marginally safer on older systems like Taleo, and it's what some enterprise application forms explicitly ask for. If the posting specifies a format, use that. The checker flags scanned or image-based PDFs immediately.

Can an ATS read two-column resumes, tables and headers?

Modern parsers handle two columns better than they used to, but it remains the most common source of scrambled output: sidebar text interleaved with your experience, a certifications table collapsed into one line. Headers and footers are worse. Many parsers skip them entirely, and that's where people put their email and phone. The checker shows you the extracted text so you can see whether your layout survived, rather than guessing.

Do I need a job description to check my resume?

No. Without one you get the parse, structure and content checks, and the keyword score runs against your target job title. With one, the keyword check compares your resume to that specific posting, which is what matters, because a resume is only ever ATS-optimized for a particular job, not in general.

Which ATS platforms does the checker cover?

The checker is built from the parsing behavior of the systems Koluvu's agent submits applications through every day: Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, Taleo, SAP SuccessFactors, Ashby and SmartRecruiters. Together those cover the large majority of corporate hiring. The report notes where a specific platform is stricter, such as Taleo with formatting or Workday with contact fields.

Do all companies use an ATS?

Nearly all large ones and most mid-sized ones. Jobscan's 2026 audit found a detectable ATS on 97.4% of Fortune 500 careers sites, and a 2026 survey of 1,000 US hiring managers put ATS use at 71%. Small companies and agencies are more likely to read applications straight from an inbox. Either way the parse matters: the same clean, single-column, text-based resume that survives Workday is also the easiest one for a human to skim in seven seconds.

How is this different from Jobscan?

Jobscan is a good tool that pioneered the category. The differences: Koluvu's checker is unlimited on the free plan where Jobscan allows five scans a month; it shows you the text the ATS extracted rather than only a match rate; it publishes how the score is weighted; and it's connected to an agent that rebuilds your resume for every posting and applies for you. Jobscan checks a resume; Koluvu checks it, then does the applying.

Can ChatGPT check my resume for ATS compatibility?

It can give useful feedback on wording and keywords if you paste the text in. What it can't do is parse your actual file. It never sees the layout, the header, the columns or the fonts, which is where ATS problems live. Use a checker for the parse and the extracted text; use an AI assistant, if you like, for the prose.

What happens to my resume after I upload it?

Nothing, because it isn't uploaded. The checker parses your file inside your browser tab and the analysis runs there too; the resume never reaches a Koluvu server. If you create a share link, only the report is stored: scores, findings, keyword lists and platform notes, never the resume text, the file name or your contact details. The PDF is generated in your browser as well.

Free30+ checks · unlimited scans · free account

Free ATS resume checker. See your score, and what the ATS actually reads.

Koluvu’s ATS resume checker runs the same kind of extraction applicant tracking systems run, modeled on Workday, Greenhouse, Lever and iCIMS. It scores your resume out of 100 against the job you paste, and shows you the text a parser actually pulls from your file. Then it tells you what to fix.

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30+
Checks across four categories: 8
ATS platforms modeled: 0
Accounts, uploads or emails required

Built from the parsing behavior of Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, Taleo and SuccessFactors : the systems Koluvu’s agent submits applications through every day.

What an ATS actually does

ATS software doesn't reject resumes. Bad parsing and knockout questions do.

Most of what you've read about applicant tracking systems is recycled from a decade-old sales pitch. Here is what the primary research says, and every number below links to its source.

97.4%of Fortune 500 companies: have a detectable applicant tracking system on their careers site. Workday alone runs over 40% of them.Source: Jobscan, 2026 ATS Usage Report
71%of US hiring managers: use an ATS, but only 19% let software screen candidates out before a human looks. Most rejections happen after the parse, not because of it.Source: Resume Genius, 2026 Hiring Insights Report (n=1,000)
88%of employers using an ATS: believe qualified candidates get filtered out because they don't match the exact criteria in the job description. Keywords matter; formatting myths don't.Source: Harvard Business School and Accenture, Hidden Workers (n=2,275 executives)
244applications per job: on Greenhouse in 2025, up from 116 in 2022. The pile more than doubled; the number of humans reading it didn't.Source: Greenhouse, 2026 Recruiting Benchmark Report

Myth

“75% of resumes are never seen by a human.”

Reality

That figure traces to a 2012 sales quote from a resume-service startup that closed in 2013. No study behind it has ever surfaced. Recruiter surveys put automated screen-outs before human review at around one in five employers.

Myth

“The ATS rejected my resume.”

Reality

Almost always it was a knockout question (work authorization, location, a minimum requirement) or a human who searched by keyword and didn't find you. Increasingly it's ranking: match-scoring sorts you into a low-fit pile that, at a thousand applicants, nobody opens. Parsing failures don't reject you; they make you invisible, which is worse.

Myth

“A 100 ATS score guarantees an interview.”

Reality

No tool's score is the ATS's score. Recruiters search and filter; they don't read a number. Aim for 80+ against a specific posting. A perfect score usually means keyword stuffing, which recruiters notice.

What the ATS resume checker looks at

Thirty-plus checks, in the order they cost you interviews

Parse problems first, because a resume the ATS can't read has no keywords. Then the fields, then the match to the job, then whether a human will want to keep reading.

Parse fidelity

Can the ATS turn your file into clean text and fields? This is where most real damage happens, and it's invisible to you.

File type and version (PDF vs DOCX, scanned images)
Multi-column layouts that interleave when read left to right
Tables and text boxes whose contents get skipped
Contact details placed in the page header or footer
Icons, skill bars and graphics standing in for text
Non-standard fonts and characters that turn into symbols
Section headings a parser can actually recognize
Dates in a format the parser can read as dates

Sections and completeness

The fields a recruiter's ATS record is built from. If one is missing, the record is missing it too.

Name, email, phone and location detected
Professional email address and sensible file name
Summary, experience, education and skills present
Experience in reverse-chronological order with employer and dates
LinkedIn or portfolio link present and consistent
Job title match to the role you're targeting
Length appropriate to your level (one page early, two later)

Keywords against the job

Paste the job description and the checker compares the two the way a recruiter's search would.

Hard skills and tools named in the posting
Soft skills the posting asks for, evidenced in bullets, not just listed
Acronyms and full terms both present (SQL and Structured Query Language)
Years of experience and seniority language matching the level
Required certifications and education
Keyword stuffing: repetition that reads as gaming and gets penalized

Content quality

What the human sees after the ATS is satisfied. A parseable resume that says nothing still loses.

Quantified results rather than duties
Strong, varied action verbs; no repeated openers
Bullet length and density that survives a seven-second first read
Tense and date consistency across roles
Spelling, grammar and personal pronouns
Buzzwords and filler that dilute the signal

See what the ATS sees

The text the parser extracted, line by line.

Every other checker gives you a number. This one also gives you the evidence: the raw text a parser pulls from your file, with every collision marked, so you can see for yourself where a two-column layout or a header put your details out of reach.

The example on the right is the most common failure we see: a clean two-column design that reads perfectly to a human and interleaves into nonsense for a parser reading left to right. The email in the page header never appears at all, which means the recruiter’s record has no way to contact this candidate.

Your resume, as designed

What the ATS extracted

MICHAEL CARTER
SKILLS Senior Product Manager
Roadmapping Fintech · 2021 – Present
SQL Led a 9-person squad; shipped
Figma payments v2 to 1.2M users
Stakeholder mgmt Product Manager
EDUCATION Carta · 2018 – 2021
BSc Economics Grew activation 31%

Sidebar interleaved with experience on 4 lines
Email and phone in page header: not found
Education and skills sections found
1 of 2 job titles attached to the wrong employer

What makes a resume ATS-friendly

Seven rules. Follow them and it parses everywhere.

An ATS-friendly resume isn't a special template. It's an ordinary document that a parser can read top to bottom. These are the rules the parse-fidelity checks enforce, and why each one exists.

Check mine against theseFree · scored in your browser

01
One column, top to bottom
Parsers read left to right across the whole page. A sidebar interleaves with your experience.
02
Standard section headings
Experience, Education, Skills, Summary. A parser maps headings to fields; a clever heading maps to nothing.
03
Contact details in the body, not the page header
Many parsers skip headers and footers entirely, and that's where most templates put your email.
04
Real text, not icons, skill bars or images
A phone icon isn't a phone number. A five-star bar isn't a skill level. Neither is extracted.
05
Standard fonts, no text boxes or tables
Text boxes and table cells are often read out of order or dropped; unusual fonts become symbols.
06
Dates in one consistent format
Jan 2022 to Present, everywhere. Mixed formats mean mixed parsing, and a role with no dates looks like a gap.
07
A text-based PDF or DOCX
Exported, not scanned. If you can select the text in a viewer, a parser can read it.

Per-platform guidance

Workday isn't Greenhouse. The report says which one you're up against.

Most checkers treat every ATS as the same machine. They aren't: the systems below parse differently, and the report calls out where a specific platform is stricter than the rest.

Workday
Parses your file into form fields you then confirm, so a parse error becomes a form error you might not spot. Contact details in headers and multi-column layouts are the usual culprits.
Greenhouse
Greenhouse's own support docs list what breaks its parser: columns, tables, headers and footers, text boxes, images and word art. Recruiters then re-key your details by hand, if they bother.
Source: Greenhouse Support: Unsuccessful resume parse
Lever
Lightweight parse focused on contact fields and work history; skills are matched from free text, so acronyms and full terms both matter.
iCIMS
Long-established enterprise parser that leans on conventional section headings. In our scans, creative headings ("Where I've made a dent") are the ones most often not recognized as experience.
Taleo
Oracle's older system, still common in large enterprises. Its parser predates the modern layout-aware ones, so plain single-column DOCX is the safe bet.
SAP SuccessFactors
Second most common Fortune 500 ATS after Workday. Parsing is field-oriented like Workday's; date formats and job titles need to be unambiguous.
Ashby
Modern parser used by startups; handles layouts well, but skills bars and icon-only contact details still vanish.
SmartRecruiters
Solid modern parsing; the checker's standard-headings and contact-placement rules cover the failure cases seen here.

How the ATS score is calculated

A resume score you can argue with, because we publish the weights.

Job seekers on Reddit regularly report the same resume scoring 39 on one checker, 48 on another and 63 on a third, because almost none of them say what they're measuring. Two of the twenty most-visited checkers publish their weights. Here are ours.

Parse fidelity35%: How much of your resume survives extraction: fields found, sections recognized, nothing scrambled or dropped.
Keywords against the job35%: Coverage of the skills, title and requirements in the posting you paste. Without a posting, this scores against your target title.
Sections and structure15%: The expected sections, in the expected order, with the expected details attached to each role.
Content quality15%: Quantified results, verbs, length, consistency and spelling: the human read after the machine one.

What is a good ATS score?

80+ here means it parses and covers the posting. Don’t chase 100.

85 to 100Ready to submit
Parses cleanly and covers the posting. Stop polishing and apply; early beats perfect.
70 to 84Fix the flagged items
Usually a few missing keywords or one structural issue. Ten minutes of edits, then rescan.
Below 70Structural problems
Something is breaking the parse: columns, a header, an image. Fix formatting first; keywords can't help a resume the ATS can't read.

No checker’s score is the ATS’s score. Recruiters search and filter; they don’t read a number. The score measures whether you’ll be found and understood, which is the part you control.

How to check your resume for ATS in four steps

Upload, optionally paste the posting, read the report, fix and rescan. Or skip the fixing and let the agent do it for every job.

01
Upload your resume
Upload a PDF. The checker runs the same kind of extraction an ATS does, in your browser, and keeps the raw output to show you.
Instant
02
Paste the job description
Optional but worth it: the keyword score is only meaningful against a real posting. A target title works in a pinch.
Optional
03
Read the report
Score out of 100, the four category breakdown, every flagged issue with the fix, and the text the parser extracted. Download it as a PDF or share a link.
Seconds
04
Fix it, or let the agent
Edit and rescan as often as you like. Or hand it to Koluvu, which rebuilds your resume for every posting it applies to.
Unlimited

How it compares

Koluvu vs Jobscan, Enhancv, Resume Worded and Kickresume

All four are capable tools. The differences are what's free, what's shown, and what happens after the score.

	Koluvu	Jobscan	Enhancv	Resume Worded	Kickresume
Free scans	Unlimited	5 per month	Email required	Score only	Score only
Shows the text the ATS extracted	Yes, line by line	No	Parse rate only	Static demo	No
Job description match, free	Yes	Required, 5/mo	Optional	Paid	No
Score weights published	Yes	No	No	No	No
Per-ATS guidance	8 platforms	Detects from URL	5 named	No	No
Statistics linked to sources	Every one	Own report	Own study	No	No
Then applies for you	Yes, per posting	No	No	No	No

Competitor details are taken from their public pages as of September 2026 and will change; where a company doesn’t state something, the cell says so rather than guessing.

Then stop doing this by hand

The checker fixes one resume. The agent rebuilds it for every posting.

A resume is only ever ATS-optimized for one job. Koluvu’s agent watches 100,000+ company career pages, and for each matching role it rewrites your resume against that posting and the ATS reading it, answers the screening questions, and submits, usually within minutes of the job going live.

Start free How the agent works

Every resume rebuilt against the posting and the ATS reading it
Review each application before it sends, or run on autopilot
10 free auto-applies included, no card required
Every version archived, so you always know what was submitted

Questions people actually ask

ATS resume checker questions, answered honestly

What a good score is, whether the ATS rejects resumes, PDF or Word, columns and headers, and what happens to your file.

An ATS resume checker runs your resume through the same kind of parsing an applicant tracking system uses, then reports what came out: which sections and fields it could find, what got scrambled or dropped, and how well the text matches a job description. Koluvu's checker adds a score out of 100 across four categories and shows you the raw extracted text, so you're looking at the kind of record a recruiter's system builds from your file rather than guessing at it.

Last thing

Find out what the ATS reads before the recruiter does.

Free, unlimited, no account. Runs right here.

Check my resume free

PDF · free account for job matches · scoring runs in your browser

Free ATS resume checker. See your score, and what the ATS actually reads.

ATS software doesn't reject resumes. Bad parsing and knockout questions do.

Thirty-plus checks, in the order they cost you interviews

Parse fidelity

Sections and completeness

Keywords against the job

Content quality

The text the parser extracted, line by line.

Seven rules. Follow them and it parses everywhere.

One column, top to bottom

Standard section headings

Contact details in the body, not the page header

Real text, not icons, skill bars or images

Standard fonts, no text boxes or tables

Dates in one consistent format

A text-based PDF or DOCX

Workday isn't Greenhouse. The report says which one you're up against.

Workday

Greenhouse

Lever

iCIMS

Taleo

SAP SuccessFactors

Ashby

SmartRecruiters

A resume score you can argue with, because we publish the weights.

80+ here means it parses and covers the posting. Don’t chase 100.

How to check your resume for ATS in four steps

Upload your resume

Paste the job description

Read the report

Fix it, or let the agent

Koluvu vs Jobscan, Enhancv, Resume Worded and Kickresume

The checker fixes one resume. The agent rebuilds it for every posting.

ATS resume checker questions, answered honestly

What is an ATS resume checker?

What's the difference between a resume scanner, a resume checker and an ATS score?

Is Koluvu's ATS resume checker free?

What is a good ATS score?

Do applicant tracking systems automatically reject resumes?

How accurate are ATS resume checkers?

How do I improve my ATS score?

Does an ATS reject resumes for employment gaps?

How do I know if my resume is ATS-friendly?

Can an ATS read PDF resumes, or is Word better?

Can an ATS read two-column resumes, tables and headers?

Do I need a job description to check my resume?

Which ATS platforms does the checker cover?

Do all companies use an ATS?

How is this different from Jobscan?

Can ChatGPT check my resume for ATS compatibility?

What happens to my resume after I upload it?

Find out what the ATS reads before the recruiter does.