ATS checkers and resume scores – Page 3

Usually yes. A traditional objective talks about what you want ("Seeking a challenging role..."), while a summary tells the employer what you offer. Many checkers prefer the summary for that reason.

Example rewrite:
Objective: "Seeking a position in a growing company where I can use my skills."
Summary: "Junior accountant with ACCA papers in progress and two years in accounts payable. Strong in reconciliations and Excel."

A one-line target can still help career changers and graduates, as long as it is specific to the role.

An ATS checker looks at structure and content signals: whether the text can be extracted, whether sections and contact details are found, and how your wording compares with a job advert. A grammar checker looks at spelling, punctuation and sentence structure.

You need both:

• ATS checker: catches unreadable layouts, missing sections and missing key terms.
• Grammar checker: catches typos, wrong tenses and awkward sentences.

Neither replaces reading your resume aloud slowly. Grammar tools often miss wrong words that are spelled correctly, such as "manger" for "manager", and ATS checkers do not judge whether your story is convincing.

Treat it as a rough picture of how a system might extract your resume: the plain text, and sometimes the fields it filled in. Read it from top to bottom and look for anything out of place.

What to check:

• Your name and contact details appear first and are complete.
• Each job title, employer and date stays together.
• Bullets follow the right job, not a different one.
• Skills are not mixed into your work history.
• No strange characters appear where icons, symbols or special fonts were.

If you see problems, fix the layout in that area and run the check again. If the parsed view looks clean, small score differences elsewhere matter much less.

It usually means there is too much text packed into the page: long paragraphs, small margins, small font or little space between sections. Dense pages are hard for people to scan, even if software reads them fine.

Ways to fix it:

• Break long paragraphs into two or three bullets.
• Cut repeated duties and filler phrases.
• Add a little space between sections.
• Keep body text at a readable size rather than shrinking it to fit.

If you cannot fit everything, that is a sign to cut content or use a second page, not to squeeze harder.

Lightly. These scores usually look for confident, active wording versus vague or negative phrasing. They can point out weak sentences, but they cannot judge tone the way a person in your industry would.

Useful takeaways:

• Replace passive or hesitant phrases ("was involved in", "tried to") with clear actions.
• Remove negative comments about past employers.
• Keep claims specific rather than boastful.

Ignore suggestions that push you to sound more impressive than you are. Honest, specific wording reads as confident on its own.

Usually because of how your dates are written or arranged. Checkers estimate experience from date ranges, so overlapping jobs, missing months, unusual formats or dates on a separate line can throw the count off.

Things to check:

• Each job has a start and end date on the same line as the title.
• One consistent format, such as "Jan 2022 – Present".
• Overlapping part-time roles are labelled clearly.
• Education dates are not being counted as work.

If the dates are correct and clear, a checker's miscount is not worth worrying about. State your total relevant experience in your summary so a human sees the right figure.

Make sure your current job is listed first, with "Present" (or "Current") as its end date, and that the title and dates sit on the same lines as the employer. Checkers often take the first or most recent entry as your current role.

Common causes:

• Jobs not in reverse date order.
• A volunteer role or freelance work with "Present" listed above your main job.
• Dates placed in a separate column or table.

If you have two current roles, put the main one first and label the other: "Part-time" or "Volunteer".

Not much for the score, but it is a useful warning. If a checker picks up odd skills, such as words from your hobbies or company names, an employer's portal might do the same when it fills in skill tags.

What to do:

• Look at where the wrong terms come from on your resume.
• If hobbies are being read as skills, keep them in a separate, clearly headed section, or remove them.
• Make sure your real skills are listed in plain text with standard names.

When applying through a portal, always review and correct the skill tags before submitting.

Treat it as that job board's own guide, not as the employer's view. Job boards may score how complete your profile is or how well it matches a job, using their own rules.

Useful parts:

• Reminders to fill in missing profile sections.
• A rough idea of which jobs match your profile.

Limits:

• It does not show how a specific employer reviews applications.
• Some scores are linked to selling premium features.

Keep your job board profile complete and accurate, and judge your resume by real responses from employers.

Be careful. Extensions can sometimes read pages you visit, including job portals and email, so they deserve more caution than a website you upload one file to.

Before installing one:

• Check who publishes it and read its privacy policy.
• Look at the permissions it asks for, such as "read and change all your data on websites".
• Prefer well-known tools with clear explanations.
• Remove extensions you no longer use.

Often a website checker or your own copy-paste test gives you what you need without installing anything.

Some checkers flag common clichés and vague phrases, which helps. But only you can make it specific, by adding facts that belong to your experience.

Quick test for generic lines: could thousands of other applicants write the same sentence? If yes, rewrite it.

Generic: "Hard-working professional with strong communication skills."
Specific: "Front office supervisor who trained 10 new receptionists and cut check-in queues by adding a pre-arrival email."

Use the checker to find candidates for rewriting, then add numbers, names of tools, types of clients and results.

Most checkers compare one advert at a time, so build a combined picture yourself. This shows which skills matter across your target roles, not just one employer.

A simple method:

• Run your resume against three to five similar adverts, one at a time.
• Note the important missing terms from each report.
• Highlight terms that appear in most reports; those are your priorities.
• Add the ones you genuinely have to your master resume.

After that, tailor for each application with a single-advert check. This approach is also a quick way to spot skills you may want to learn.

Some checkers use AI models or changing rules that do not always produce identical results. Others may update their scoring over time. Small differences between runs are a sign that the score is an estimate, not a precise measurement.

How to respond:

• Do not chase small changes; look at the issues that appear every time.
• Use a rule-based tool if you want consistent results while you edit.
• Judge improvements by whether your resume reads better, not by a few points.

If results swing widely, rely more on your own checks and human feedback.

A good report explains what it found, why it matters and what to do about it. A bare number with no explanation is not much use.

Look for:

• Clear rules or criteria, ideally shown openly.
• Specific issues tied to parts of your resume, such as "Phone number not found".
• A view of the extracted text, so you can see reading-order problems.
• A comparison with a job advert you paste in, showing matched and missing terms.
• Honest limits: a statement that it is not an employer's score.

Be cautious with tools that hide results behind payment, promise interviews or push you to add skills you do not have. ResumeBuilder.ae's ATS-readiness check, for example, shows its rules in the tool and is described as an internal estimate, not an official employer score.

The best report is one that helps you make clear, honest improvements quickly.

First, check that it is a real gap and not a date typo. If it is real, decide whether a short explanation helps. Checkers flag gaps because human readers notice them, not because gaps are automatically rejected.

Options:

• Fix any wrong dates.
• Add a one-line entry for the period if useful: "Career break: relocation and family, 2024."
• Mention courses, freelance work or volunteering from that time.

Never stretch other jobs' dates to hide a gap. Honest explanations are widely accepted; inaccurate dates are not.

There is no fixed rule, but three to six bullets for a recent, relevant role and one to three for older roles is a common guide. Long lists make it hard to see your best points.

How to trim:

• Keep bullets with results or unusual responsibilities.
• Merge similar duties into one bullet.
• Remove tasks everyone in that job would do.
• Put the strongest bullet first.

If the job was long and important, more bullets can be fine, as long as each one adds something new.

Usually from leftovers: white or tiny text from an old template, placeholder text hidden behind a shape, or text in a header that is turned off on some pages. Sometimes it is a deliberate keyword trick someone added in an earlier version.

How to find it:

• Select all text in your document and change the colour to black temporarily.
• Check headers, footers and text boxes.
• Copy the PDF text into a plain editor and read it all.

Delete anything that should not be there. Hidden text can look like an attempt to trick the system, even if it was an accident.

Not unless you have a clear reason. A template only fixes layout problems, and many good, simple templates are free. If the report shows real layout issues, any clean single-column template can solve them.

Before buying:

• Check whether the issues are about layout or content. Content issues need your editing, not a new template.
• Try a free single-column template and run the check again.
• Watch for subscriptions hidden in the checkout.

On ResumeBuilder.ae, all templates are free to use and preview, and you pay only US$1.00 per PDF export.

Usually yes. A city and country help recruiters understand where you are, and some searches filter by location. It takes only a few words.

Example: "Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia".

You do not need a full street address. If you are relocating, add a short note: "Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (relocating to Singapore, 2027)". If you prefer not to share your city for privacy reasons, at least give the country.

A title match compares your job titles or headline with the job advert's title. A skills match compares the skills and tools in your resume with those mentioned in the advert. Different tools label them differently, but the idea is similar.

How to improve each honestly:

• Title match: add a professional title line under your name that reflects the role, if it is true for you.
• Skills match: make sure skills you really have appear in your skills section and bullets using the advert's terms.

A low title match with a high skills match often means a career changer or an unusual title, which a cover letter can explain.

No. A checker score means nothing to an employer: it comes from a tool they do not use, with rules they have not seen. Mentioning it can look odd and takes attention away from your experience.

Instead, let the resume speak:

• A clear layout that reads well.
• Strong evidence for the job's main requirements.
• A short, tailored cover letter.

Use the score privately, as a tool for improving your resume.

Check that you wrote its official name. Checkers often look for known certification names, so abbreviations, local names or spelling differences can make them miss it.

Write it fully and accurately:

• "Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute, 2024"
• "Certified Management Accountant (CMA), IMA, 2023"

If your certificate is local or less known, keep the official name and add the issuing body, so recruiters can understand and verify it. A checker not recognising it does not mean employers will not.