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Free ATS Resume Scanner

Free ATS resume checker: will it actually read your CV?

Upload your resume and jobctl scans it the way an applicant tracking system does — a score, the fields it extracted, and the exact issues to fix. No job description needed.

Drag your resume here, or

PDF or DOCX · up to 2 MB.

Free to use. Your resume is deleted after the scan, and we don’t post, apply, or email on your behalf — how we handle your data.

Preview a sample reportSee exactly what comes back before you upload anything.

Sample report — not a real scan

5 issues found

2 critical3 warnings
Critical2 checks

  • The skills sidebar sits in a second column

    Parsers that read straight across the page interleave the sidebar with job bullets, so a line can come out as “Redis Led migration of the billing”. The contact block parsed fine, but the Experience section is at risk.

    FixMove to a single-column layout — the sidebar becomes a normal Skills section and nothing else has to change.

  • Dates aren’t machine-readable

    Two roles use the apostrophe-year form, which isn’t recognised, so they land in the ATS with no start or end date and the tenure reads as a gap.

    Jan ’21 – Mar ’23

    FixWrite years in full and keep one format throughout: “Jan 2021 – Mar 2023”.

Warnings3 checks

  • Only 3 of 22 bullets contain a measurable result

    The rest describe duties without an outcome, so nothing separates this candidate from anyone else who held the title.

    FixAdd a number where you know one — throughput, latency, cost, team size, uptime.

  • 14 bullets start with a weak verb

    Phrases like “Responsible for” and “Helped with” describe a job description rather than what the candidate did.

    FixLead with an action verb and a number: “Cut API latency 40% by…”.

  • 6 skills appear only in the Skills list

    These are never mentioned in a work-experience bullet, so there is no evidence behind them.

    RedisTerraformgRPC

    FixWork each one into a bullet where it was actually used, with the result.

Passing3 checks

  • Contact details sit in the document body

    Being at the top of page one is correct. The real risk is Word’s header/footer layer, which parsers skip because it’s stored outside the main text stream — this resume doesn’t use it.

  • Real text layer, not a scanned image

    Selectable text throughout, so every field above could be read.

  • Standard section headings

    Experience, Education and Skills all matched to known sections.

74
/ 100
Needs work

Most of this resume parses cleanly, but 5 issues distort what the ATS stores.

Score breakdown

Field extraction90
Contact & identity100
Formatting & layout45
Section structure85
Work history & dates55
Impact & writing62

Contact details we extracted

These are the fields a parser writes into the ATS. Anything missing from this list didn’t come out of your file, so the recruiter can’t search on it. Links are whatever your resume contains — LinkedIn, GitHub, Behance, a portfolio site.

Full name
Alex Morgan
Current title
Senior Backend Engineer
Email
[email protected]
Phone
+1 415 555 0142
Location
San Francisco, CA, United States
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/alexmorgan
GitHub
github.com/alexmorgan
File PDFPages 2Words 640Text layer Yes

Checked against how the systems employers actually use read a resume

Ashby applicant tracking systemGreenhouse applicant tracking systemWorkday applicant tracking systemBambooHR applicant tracking systemLever applicant tracking system
How the scan works

Your resume has two readers. This is the first one.

Before a person ever opens it, software turns your resume into database fields. If that step goes wrong, nothing else gets a chance to go right.

We read the file, not the design

Your PDF or DOCX goes through the same extraction an applicant tracking system runs: text out, layout discarded. Whatever survives that is what a recruiter can actually search.

You see the fields it produced

Name, email, phone, location, current title, links. These are the values that get written into the ATS database. A blank or a wrong one there is invisible to you and permanent to them.

Then the issues, ranked

Critical problems that corrupt parsing come first, then warnings that weaken the resume, then everything already passing. Each one names the fix.

What we look for

The six things that actually break a resume

Not a checklist of opinions about fonts. These are the failures that change what an ATS stores about you — and all six are visible in the scan above.

  • Contact details in the header/footer layer

    This is the one people get wrong in both directions. Text at the top of page one is correct — that is where your name belongs. The risk is Word’s header/footer layer, a separate part of the file stored outside the main text stream, which parsers skip like a watermark. Same pixels on screen, completely different outcome.

  • Two columns

    A sidebar reads cleanly to you and scrambles for a parser that scans straight across the page. Your skills end up spliced into the middle of a job bullet. Single column is the only layout that is safe everywhere.

  • Dates a parser can’t compute

    “Jan ’21 – Mar ’23” looks fine and parses to nothing: the apostrophe-year form is not recognised, so the role lands with no dates and your tenure reads as a gap. Write the year in full and keep one format throughout.

  • Creative section headings

    “My Journey” instead of “Experience” is the most common reason a full resume scores empty. The parser matches headings against a known list; anything else is unclassified text.

  • Text that is really an image

    Design tools happily export type as vectors, and scanners produce pictures of pages. Either way the parser sees a blank document. If you cannot select the text, neither can it.

  • Skills with nothing behind them

    A wall of tool names in a sidebar passes a keyword check and fails a human one. Every skill worth listing should appear in a bullet where you used it, next to what it achieved.

No job description

This scan is about your resume alone

Most resume checkers ask you to paste a job posting and hand back a match percentage. That number tells you about one advert, and it changes the moment you look at a different one. It says nothing about whether your resume is readable.

Everything here is measured from your file: whether the parser found your name, whether your dates compute, whether your layout survives extraction, whether your bullets say what you achieved. Fix these once and every application benefits — no re-scanning per posting.

Once the scan is clean, the next step is a resume written for the specific role. The AI Resume Builder rewrites your CV against a job post and returns a single-column, parser-safe PDF — so it passes this scan by construction.

Before you ask

The questions we actually get

Is the ATS resume scanner free?
Yes. Upload a resume, get the score and the full issue list — the whole report, with nothing held back or blurred out behind a paywall.
Do I need to paste a job description?
No. This scan measures your resume on its own — whether a parser can read it and whether it reads well. There is nothing to paste and nothing to re-run per job posting.
Which file formats can I upload?
PDF and DOCX, up to 2 MB. Those are the two formats employers accept, and we check both the same way an ATS would.
Should I send a PDF or a Word file?
Either works when the resume is built cleanly. A DOCX stores structured XML, so parsers read it very reliably; a PDF stores positioned text, which is fine as long as there is a real text layer and one column. Layout matters far more than the format.
Is it really bad to put my name at the top of the page?
No — that is exactly where it belongs. The problem people are thinking of is Word’s header/footer layer, which is stored outside the document’s main text and often skipped by parsers. Text placed normally at the top of page one is read fine.
Does a missing GitHub or portfolio link hurt my score?
Not at all. We list whichever links your resume contains — LinkedIn, GitHub, Behance, Dribbble, a personal site — because what is relevant depends entirely on your field. Not having a particular one is never counted against you.
What happens to my resume after the scan?
It is parsed to produce your report and then deleted. It is not shared with employers, not used to train anything, and we do not apply or email on your behalf.
Will a high score guarantee I get interviews?
No. A clean score means your resume parses correctly and reads well — it removes the mechanical reasons you get filtered out. Getting interviews still depends on applying to roles that fit, which is what jobctl’s job matching is for.

Find out what the parser sees.

One upload, no job description. PDF or DOCX.