Your ATS Compatibility Score: What It Means and How to Improve It

What is an ATS Compatibility Score?

An ATS compatibility score (0-100) measures how well your resume parses and ranks inside Applicant Tracking Systems. The higher your score, the more likely your resume is to surface in recruiter searches — before a human even decides to open your file.

WasDoc scores your resume across four dimensions:

• Content Match (53%) — How close your resume text is to the extracted, verified version
• Keyword Coverage (25%) — What percentage of role-relevant keywords were successfully extracted
• Critical Fields (20%) — Whether name, email, phone, skills, experience, and education were found
• Section Headers (2%) — Whether standard resume sections (Summary, Skills, Experience, Education) are detected

Score Ranges at a Glance

| Score | Rating | What It Means | |-------|--------|---------------| | 90–100 | Excellent | Fully ATS-ready, maximum keyword extraction | | 80–89 | Good | Minor issues, most systems will parse correctly | | 70–79 | Fair | Moderate parsing gaps, some keywords missed | | 0–69 | Poor | Significant issues — likely auto-rejected |

Top 5 Ways to Improve Your Score

1. Use standard section headings ATS systems look for "Work Experience", "Education", "Skills" — not custom labels.

2. Remove tables and text boxes These break ATS parsing. Use clean line-by-line formatting instead.

3. Mirror job description language Exact keyword matches score higher than synonyms. If the job says "project management," use that phrase.

4. Keep formatting simple No headers/footers, no columns, no graphics containing text.

5. Save as a text-based PDF Never submit a scanned image as a PDF — it scores 0 on every parsing dimension.

The WasDoc Difference

WasDoc's ATS Verification service tests your resume against live ATS parsing logic and delivers a scored report showing exactly which fields were extracted, which keywords were found, and what to fix.

Get your ATS compatibility score today. Start ATS Verification →