ATS toolkit

How an ATS reads your resume, and how Ruubu helps

An applicant tracking system turns your resume file into text, splits it into sections and fields, then lets recruiters search what it found. Ruubu checks your resume against that process: a free score from 14 rules with a fix for each, warnings for layouts that scramble the text, and 42 templates marked ATS-safe.

Check my resume free See the formatting checklist

Updated October 31, 2026

Sample result from Ruubu's resume checker for a fictional resume: an ATS score of 71 out of 100 and what to fix first

14 rule-based checks
4 layout warnings
42 ATS-safe templates
Free, no account

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The 14 checks behind your score

Contact details, headings, dates, skills, measurable results, length and more: see what each check looks for and the points it scored. Free, no account needed.

Tested with commercial resume parsers

Do Ruubu's ATS-safe templates read correctly in a commercial resume parser?

Yes, for every contact and job field we test. In our latest test (November 3, 2026), all 42 ATS-safe templates, exported to PDF, were read correctly by an independent commercial resume parser for name, email, phone, job titles and employment dates. Section headings were detected in 41 of 42. When a parser misreads a line, we fix the template and test again.

ATS-safe templates, PDF, latest test November 3, 2026

Name: 42 of 42 read correctly
Email: 42 of 42 read correctly
Phone: 42 of 42 read correctly
Job titles: 42 of 42 read correctly
Dates: 42 of 42 read correctly

Section headings were detected in 41 of 42 templates.

How we test

Export one resume from every template
The same fictional resume, with placeholder contact details, saved to PDF from each of the 42 ATS-safe templates.
Read it with independent parsers
Each file goes through independent commercial resume parsers and through Ruubu's own text-layer reader.
Compare every field
Name, email, phone, job titles, employment dates and section headings are checked against what the resume says.
Fix it, then test again
When a parser misreads something, we change the template and run the whole set again.

What the tests changed

Bullet markers now come in the text order, right before their line.
Letter-spacing is capped, so headings are no longer read as single letters.
A little word spacing in the name, so first and last name are read as two words.
Contact items no longer break inside an email address.
Code-style heading marks are drawn instead of written, so they stay out of the text.
NewThe editor and the resume checker suggest a phone format when a number uses brackets, such as (415), because some parsers split it into two numbers.

Start from an ATS-safe template

What is an ATS?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is the software employers use to collect applications, store resumes and move candidates through hiring stages; Workday, Greenhouse and Lever are common ones. Many parse each resume into a searchable profile, so what a recruiter can find depends on how cleanly your file turns into text.

How does an ATS read a resume?

In four steps. It extracts the text from your PDF or Word file, finds the sections by their headings, pulls out fields such as your name, contact details, job titles, employers and dates, then stores them so recruiters can search and filter. Each step builds on the one before, so text lost early never comes back.

Read the longer explanation: how applicant tracking systems work.

Extract the text
The file becomes plain text, line by line. Scans and text inside images give the parser nothing to read.
Find the sections
Headings such as Experience, Education and Skills tell the parser where each part starts.
Pull out the fields
Name, email, phone, job titles, employers, dates and skills are copied into a candidate profile.
Search and filter
Recruiters search those fields by title, skill or keyword and filter on the answers to screening questions.

What does the parser actually see?

Plain text, read line by line. Below, one fictional resume is shown as a single column and as a two-column layout, then read back by Ruubu's rule-based parser. The single column keeps its sections in order and scores 91. Read straight across the page, the two columns mix together and score 60.

Sample (fictional, English resume)

Ruubu's rule-based fallback parser, the one the free checker uses when its AI reader is unavailable. Employers' systems differ.

Single columnFirst 20 of 44 lines

Juniper Tsao
Senior Product Manager | B2B Fintech | Cut fraud losses 35% on $2B volume
juniper.tsao@example.com | +1 (415) 555-0142 | San Francisco, CA | https://linkedin.com/in/your-name

SUMMARY
Senior Product Manager with nine years building payments and analytics products for B2B platforms. Owns a fraud product area covering $2B in annual volume across 14 markets, pairing weekly discovery with disciplined experimentation.

EXPERIENCE
Senior Product Manager, Finwire, San Francisco, CA    Mar 2022 – Present
- Launched a real-time fraud scoring product across 14 markets, cutting chargeback losses 35% on
  $2B in annual payment volume.
- Drove the dispute automation roadmap across 4 engineering squads, reducing manual review
  turnaround from 48 hours to 6 hours.
- Ran 23 A/B tests on checkout risk flows, lifting authorization rates 2.1 points without
  increasing fraud exposure.

Product Manager, Clearstack, San Francisco, CA    Jun 2019 – Feb 2022
- Owned the analytics module of a B2B SaaS platform serving 1,200 customers, growing feature
  adoption from 18% to 47% in 18 months.
- Shipped a self-serve onboarding flow that cut time-to-first-value from 9 days to 2 days.

Score of what was read: 91/100

No layout warning

Two columns (sidebar)First 20 of 38 lines

Juniper Tsao
Senior Product Manager | B2B Fintech | Cut fraud losses 35% on $2B volume

CONTACT                           SUMMARY
juniper.tsao@example.com          Senior Product Manager with nine years building payments and
+1 (415) 555-0142                 analytics products for B2B platforms. Owns a fraud product area
San Francisco, CA                 covering $2B in annual volume across 14 markets, pairing weekly
https://linkedin.com/in/your-name    discovery with disciplined experimentation.

SKILLS                            EXPERIENCE
Product Strategy                  Senior Product Manager, Finwire
Payments                          Mar 2022 – Present
Product Analytics                 - Launched a real-time fraud scoring product across 14 markets,
SQL                                 cutting chargeback losses 35% on $2B in annual payment volume.
Amplitude                         - Drove the dispute automation roadmap across 4 engineering
Mixpanel                            squads, reducing manual review turnaround from 48 hours to 6
Looker                              hours.
A/B Testing                       - Ran 23 A/B tests on checkout risk flows, lifting authorization
API Product Design                  rates 2.1 points without increasing fraud exposure.
Stakeholder Management

Score of what was read: 60/100

Checker warning: Two columns

What the parser found in each version
Field	In the resume	Single column	Two columns
Name	Found	Found	Found
Email	Found	Found	Found
Phone	Found	Found	Found
Sections	Summary, Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications, Languages	Summary, Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications, Languages	Summary, Experience, Certifications, Languages
Roles	3	3	3
Roles with dates	3	3	3
Skills	12	12	0
ATS score	97/100	91/100	60/100

In our study of 48 English sample resumes, the same re-read averaged 91.4 for a single column, 89.5 with icons in the contact line, 84.5 with tables and 58.8 for two columns. Read the study.

What does Ruubu's ATS check look at?

14 rule-based checks on contact details, headings, skills, dates, bullets, measurable results and length. Each is worth a fixed number of points, and together they make a score out of 100, so the same resume always gets the same score. Every check that loses points comes with the specific change to make.

Ruubu's ATS checks: what each one looks for and the points it carries
Check	What it looks for	Points
Contact details complete	Email, phone and location where a recruiter or parser expects them.	8
Professional summary	A short opening summary that says who you are and what you do.	8
Standard section headings	Section names a parser files correctly, like Experience and Education.	6
Skills section depth	Enough skills listed to match a search, with your top ones pinned.	8
Skills backed by experience	Each skill you claim shows up in a bullet, project or certificate.	8
Dates on every role	Start and end dates on every role, so the timeline reads cleanly.	8
Consistent dates, newest first	One date format throughout, with your latest role first.	6
No long unexplained gaps	Months with no role get flagged, so a recruiter doesn't have to guess.	3
2-5 bullets per role	Enough bullets to show your work, few enough to be skimmed.	5
Bullets include measurable results	Percentages, dollars and counts that prove the result.	15
Bullets use strong action verbs6 resume languages	Bullets that open with what you did, not “responsible for”.	10
Bullet length in range	One clear outcome per bullet, not a paragraph or a fragment.	5
Length fits one to two pages	Fits one to two pages, with the most room given to recent roles.	6
Education listed	Degree, school and year, or a relevant certification.	4
Target role keywords presentEditor, with a target role	Words from the role you are aiming for, found in your summary, skills, titles or bullets.	10

English, Turkish, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese resumes get every check. A resume in any other language gets 13: the action-verb check needs word lists for that language, so it is skipped and the score is scaled over the rest.
The target-role keyword check runs in the editor once you set the role you are aiming for; the points are then scaled back to a score out of 100.
In the free checker, a pasted job description gives a separate keyword match: the posting's keywords you cover and the ones you miss. It does not change the ATS score.
Score bands: 75 and above reads as Strong, 50 to 74 as Needs work, below 50 as At risk.

Check my resume free

Which layouts cause problems?

Tables, two-column designs, icon fonts and page headers or footers. Each can scramble the reading order or drop text when a parser turns the file into plain text. Ruubu's checker looks for these 4 patterns whenever you upload or paste a resume and warns you. They are flagged, not scored, because the score rates the content itself.

Tables
Many parsers read a table cell by cell, row by row, so a skills grid or a contact row can come out in the wrong order.
Two columns
A parser that reads straight across the page mixes the left and right columns into one stream of half sentences.
Icons and symbols
Icon fonts turn into stray characters or vanish, so a phone number or email shown only with an icon can lose its label.
Page headers and footers
Some parsers skip the header and footer areas, and lines such as Page 1 of 2 end up in the middle of your text.

Flagged when you upload or paste a resume, never scored. How to fix each one in the formatting checklist.

Which Ruubu templates are ATS-safe?

42 of the 55 templates are marked ATS-safe: layouts built to read in order, with real, selectable text and standard headings. The other 10 layouts with columns or graphics and 3 photo layouts carry a warning label instead, on the gallery and in the editor, so you always know which kind you picked before you export.

ATS-safe: 42 templates
Columns or graphics: 10 templates
Photo layout: 3 templates

Start from an ATS-safe template or browse every template.

Does tailoring keep my resume ATS-readable?

Ruubu checks it. A tailored resume shows two scores side by side: the match score for the posting and the ATS score before and after. If a rewrite loses ATS points, Ruubu restores your original wording where that keeps the score up, and you keep the version you prefer.

Tailoring rewrites your own experience. It never adds employers, job titles or results you did not give it.

See how tailoring works, tailor from a job link or compare keywords with a posting for free.

Sample tailoring step in Ruubu: keyword coverage for a job posting, the keywords still missing and the ones already covered, and the ATS score before and after tailoring

Can any tool guarantee my resume gets through an ATS?

No. Every employer sets up its own system: which fields it reads, which screening questions filter candidates, how recruiters search. People still make the decisions from what the system found. Ruubu makes sure your resume reads cleanly and uses the job's language, which is the part you control. No tool can promise interviews, rankings or a hiring outcome.

Settings differ: two employers on the same software can read and sort the same resume differently.
Screening questions, such as work authorization or years of experience, can filter an application before anyone reads the resume.
People decide: the system stores and sorts, and a recruiter chooses who gets an interview.

How does Ruubu compare with other ATS checkers?

Ruubu's main score rates the resume itself on 14 fixed rules, free and without an account, and a pasted job description adds a separate keyword match. The same resume then feeds tailoring, cover letters and interview prep for each job. Our comparisons set prices, plans and features side by side, each with its source and the date we checked.

Which applicant tracking systems does Ruubu work with?

Ruubu reads job links from 10 of the systems below, and Ruubu for Chrome fills application forms on 34. On one-page forms it can submit after your click; on multi-step forms you press every button yourself. A resume that passes the free check reads cleanly in each of them.

System	Job link	Autofill	Submit	Multi-step
Greenhouse	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Workday	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Lever	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Ashby	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
SmartRecruiters	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
BambooHR· Beta	Yes	Yes	No	No

Show all 34 systems

System	Job link	Autofill	Submit	Multi-step
Workable· Beta	Yes	Yes	No	No
Recruitee· Beta	Yes	Yes	No	No
Personio· Beta	Yes	Yes	No	No
Teamtailor· Beta	Yes	Yes	No	No
iCIMS· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Taleo· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
SAP SuccessFactors· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Jobvite· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
softgarden· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Oracle Recruiting Cloud· Beta	No	Yes	No	Yes
Paylocity· Beta	No	Yes	No	Yes
Paycom· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Paycor· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
JazzHR· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Breezy HR· Beta	No	Yes	Yes	No
Rippling· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Dover· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Gem· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Pinpoint· Beta	No	Yes	Yes	No
Comeet· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Eightfold· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Avature· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Cornerstone· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
d.vinci· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
onlyfy· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Homerun· Beta	No	Yes	No	No
Factorial· Beta	No	Yes	Yes	No
Kenjo· Beta	No	Yes	Yes	No

Names and logos belong to their owners. Ruubu is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Details

How do Workday, Greenhouse and other systems handle your resume?

Each applicant tracking system has its own application flow: whether you need an account, how the resume upload works, which fields it fills from your file and which questions follow. These guides cover six systems using only what each vendor documents publicly, plus what Ruubu for Chrome does on each form.

What else do people ask about ATS checks?

Short answers to the questions we hear most: what the free checker scores, what it costs, how many checks run, when keywords count, what a good score is, whether anything is guaranteed, how tailoring and templates fit in, which languages work and how long your text is kept.

What is an ATS resume checker?

A tool that reads your resume the way applicant tracking software does and flags what gets in the way. Ruubu's free checker scores it out of 100 on 14 rule-based checks and lists a fix for each one that loses points.

Is Ruubu's ATS checker free?

Yes. The check, the score and the list of fixes are free, with no account. Resume Pass and Pro add AI rewrites, tailoring to a job, a watermark-free PDF and DOCX export.

How many checks does it run?

14 on every resume in English, Turkish, German, French, Spanish or Portuguese, from contact details to length. A resume in any other language gets 13, because the action-verb check needs word lists for the language. In the editor, setting a target role adds a keyword check.

Does the checker look at keywords?

The score rates your resume on its own, so it stays the same from one posting to the next. Paste a job description and the free checker adds a separate keyword match: the terms from the posting you cover and the ones you miss. In the editor, a target role adds a keyword check to the score.

What is a good ATS score?

In Ruubu, 75 or more reads as Strong, 50 to 74 as Needs work and below 50 as At risk. A high score means the resume reads cleanly and covers the basics, and every check that loses points comes with the fix.

Can Ruubu guarantee my resume gets through an ATS?

No tool can. Each employer configures its own system, and people make the final call. Ruubu makes sure your resume reads cleanly, follows the job's language and contains nothing you did not give it.

Does tailoring lower my ATS score?

Ruubu scores every tailored resume again. When a rewrite loses ATS points, it restores your original wording where that keeps the score up. Both scores are shown side by side, so you keep the version you prefer.

Which templates are ATS-safe?

42 of Ruubu's 55 templates are marked ATS-safe. Layouts with columns, graphics or a photo carry a warning label, so you know when a design may read out of order.

Are Ruubu's templates tested with real ATS parsers?

Yes. We export the same fictional resume to PDF from every ATS-safe template and run it through independent commercial resume parsers, the kind of engine many ATS vendors use, and through Ruubu's own text-layer reader. In the latest test (November 3, 2026), all 42 templates were read correctly for name, email, phone, job titles and employment dates.

What did the parser tests change?

Bullet markers now come in the text order, letter-spacing is capped so headings are not split into letters, the name has a little word spacing so it reads as two words, contact items no longer break inside an email, and code-style heading marks are drawn instead of written. The editor and checker also suggest a phone format when a number uses brackets.

Does it work for resumes in other languages?

Yes. Resumes in English, Turkish, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese get every check, with action-verb rules written for each language. A resume in any other language is scored on 13 checks, because the action-verb check is skipped there. Section headings are recognized in the 6 languages Ruubu is available in and several more.

What happens to the resume I check?

We never sell or share it. The text, and any job description you paste, is kept for 7 days so you can open it in the editor; after that it is deleted automatically unless you save it.

Where can I read more about how ATS software works?

Start with how applicant tracking systems work, then what a good score means and how to optimize for a specific job. The myths article separates real parsing problems from folklore, and our study of 48 sample resumes shows which weaknesses cost the most points.

ATS guides

What does an ATS read in your resume?

Paste or upload your resume. The free checker scores it out of 100 on 14 checks, lists the fix for each one that loses points and warns you when the layout could scramble the text. No account is needed, and we never sell or share your resume.