Check whether your resume passes the applicant tracking system before a recruiter ever sees it. Paste the job description, upload your resume, and get your ATS score, matched and missing keywords, and specific fixes in 30 seconds.
1 free scan, no signup • 5 scans/month with a free account • Results in 30 seconds
4,300+ resumes analyzed for job seekers in 27+ countries
22skills is a free ATS resume checker that compares your resume against a specific job description and returns a keyword match score from 0 to 100% in under 30 seconds. A score of 70% or higher clears most automated filters; aim for 80%+ for senior or high-competition roles. The free tier gives you 1 scan with no signup, or 5 scans per month with a free account. Pro is $14.99/month, compared to Jobscan at $49.95/month.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is the software employers use to collect, parse, and rank job applications. When you apply online, your resume does not land in an inbox. It lands in a database, where the system extracts your skills, job titles, and experience and compares them with what the job description asks for. According to the Jobscan 2024 ATS Usage Report, 98.4% of Fortune 500 companies use one.
An ATS resume checker does the same comparison before you apply. It reads your resume the way the parser will, matches it against the job posting, and shows you what the system will find and what it will miss. The result is an ATS score, a list of matched keywords, a list of missing keywords, and concrete edits that raise the score.
22skills runs this check in under 30 seconds using GPT-4o-mini, with Claude Sonnet 4.5 as a fallback. It scores your resume against the actual job description, not a generic template, because the missing keywords in one posting are rarely the same as in the next.
Try 1 free ATS scan without signing up. A free account gives you 5 scans per month. Pro adds unlimited scans and AI-powered resume rewriting for $14.99/month.
Three steps to see whether your resume passes the ATS
Copy the full job posting from LinkedIn, Indeed, or the company site. The checker extracts the hard skills, soft skills, tools, certifications, and job titles the employer is screening for.
Upload a PDF or paste your resume text. The scanner parses it the way an ATS would and compares every keyword against the job description, including synonyms and common spelling variants.
See your 0 to 100% match score, the keywords you already have, the ones you are missing, and prioritized suggestions. Add the missing terms, rescan, and watch the score move.
1 free scan, no signup • 5/month with a free account
Most rejections are not about your experience. They happen because the parser could not read it. Here is what every applicant tracking system looks at.
Modern systems such as Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, and iCIMS parse both PDF and DOCX. The rule that matters is that the file must contain selectable text. A resume exported from Canva or scanned as an image is read as a blank page. If the posting names a format, use that one; otherwise a text-based PDF is the safest choice.
Parsers read left to right, top to bottom. Two-column layouts, tables, text boxes, and sidebars get merged into one stream, so a skill from the sidebar can end up inside a job title. Keep one column, and keep your contact details in the body of the page, not in the header or footer, which many parsers skip.
Standard fonts such as Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, or Georgia at 10 to 12 points parse cleanly. Icons, decorative bullets, and text inside graphics do not. Bold and italics are fine. Colored text is fine for a human but adds nothing for the system.
The ATS maps your content into fields using headings it already knows: Work Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications, Summary. Creative labels like "My Journey" or "Where I've Made an Impact" break that mapping, and the content underneath may be filed under the wrong field or dropped.
Every position needs a job title, employer, and dates in a consistent format such as Jan 2023 – Present or 01/2023 – 06/2025. Reverse-chronological order is what parsers expect. Gaps and overlapping dates are not penalized by the software, but missing dates can make a whole role unreadable.
The system searches for the exact skills and job titles in the posting, then a recruiter searches the shortlist by keyword. Write bullet points that pair an action verb with a hard skill and a measurable result: "Reduced deployment time 40% by migrating CI pipelines to GitHub Actions." Spell out acronyms once, then use the short form.
One scan, six checks. We only list what the tool actually does.
Hard skills, soft skills, tools, certifications, and job titles pulled from the posting itself, not from a generic list. Each is marked matched or missing.
Keywords listed as required qualifications count more toward your score than those in the preferred section, the same way a recruiter reads them.
"JavaScript" and "Javascript", "Project Management" and "PM", and small misspellings are matched with fuzzy matching (Levenshtein distance ≤ 2) against a 500+ term dictionary, so you are not penalized for a capital letter.
Whether your resume has the standard sections an ATS and a recruiter expect, with recognizable headings, and whether skills appear where the parser will find them.
When you upload a PDF, the checker extracts the text exactly as a parser would. If what comes out is garbled or empty, you will know before an employer's system finds out.
Missing keywords ranked by how much they affect your score, plus suggestions for where to add them. Pro users can apply them with the AI Optimizer and rescan.
We do not check spelling, fonts, or design, and we do not simulate one specific ATS vendor. We focus on the signals every system shares: keywords, structure, and parseability.
Your ATS score is the percentage of the job description's keywords found in your resume, weighted by how important each one is. There is no universal pass mark inside real applicant tracking systems, but recruiters filter and sort by keyword match, so these bands predict what happens next:
Likely to clear keyword filters and rank near the top of the shortlist. Focus on storytelling and quantified results now.
Good enough for most roles. Add two or three missing required skills to move into the strong band.
Viable with targeted edits. Usually several required keywords are missing or phrased differently than the posting.
The resume is missing multiple required qualifications. Tailor it to the role before applying, or reconsider the fit.
A high score is a directional signal, not a guarantee. A 95% match with weak bullet points loses to an 80% match with measurable impact.
Full scoring guide: What ATS score do you need?
The same resume scores differently against every posting. The checker is built for the loop: scan, fix, rescan, apply.
See exactly which hard skills, tools, and job titles the hiring manager put in the posting and which ones your resume never mentions.
Get prioritized, plain-language edits for each missing keyword: which section, which bullet, and how to phrase it without keyword stuffing.
Check the same resume against several job descriptions, or several resume versions against one job, and see the score change over time.
The free Chrome extension saves a posting from LinkedIn, Indeed, or a company site in one click, so tailoring starts from the real job description every time.
How to do it in ten minutes: Tailor your resume to a job description · Master resume vs. tailored resume
Free • No credit card
Most ATS checkers promise guaranteed interviews or a perfect ATS simulation. We would rather be clear about what we check, how the score works, and where the limits are, so you can decide whether 22skills fits your job search.
Built and maintained by an independent team focused on a single product, not a content farm bolting AI onto a resume builder.
Resumes are processed to produce your score and then stored only in your own account, if you create one. Anonymous scans are not kept. Data is stored in the EU, you can delete your account and every analysis at any time, and nothing is shared with employers or recruiters. Details: Security · Privacy policy.
Common questions about checking your resume for ATS compatibility
An ATS resume checker analyzes your resume against a specific job description and returns a keyword match score from 0 to 100%. According to the Jobscan 2024 ATS Usage Report, 98.4% of Fortune 500 companies use applicant tracking systems to rank candidates before a recruiter reviews them. 22skills runs the check in under 30 seconds and returns your score plus a prioritized list of missing keywords.
Yes. 22skills gives you 1 free ATS scan with no signup and no credit card. A free account raises the limit to 5 scans per month. Pro is $14.99/month (or $39 per quarter) with unlimited scans and AI-powered resume rewriting, compared to Jobscan at $49.95/month for similar scan volume.
Aim for 70% or higher to clear most automated filters, and 80% or above for senior roles or postings with heavy competition. Below 60% usually means several required skills from the job description are missing. See the full guide: What ATS score do you need?
Not directly. Employers' systems are not open to candidates. An ATS checker simulates the two things those systems do with your file: parse the text and match it against the job description. That is what 22skills tests, and it is why the result predicts whether you pass the keyword filter.
The most common reasons are missing keywords from the job description, formatting the parser cannot read (tables, text boxes, multi-column layouts, graphics), non-standard section headings, and skills spelled differently than the posting spells them. Greenhouse reported an average of 244 applications per job opening in March 2026, so those mismatches decide who gets read. One scan shows all of them.
Either works with modern systems as long as the file contains selectable text. If the posting asks for a specific format, follow it. Otherwise a text-based PDF keeps your layout stable across systems. Never upload a scanned image or a design-tool export that flattens text into graphics. 22skills accepts PDF uploads and pasted text.
You do not need to rewrite your history, but you should tailor the summary, skills section, and top bullet points to each posting. Tailoring is what moves a score from the sixties into the eighties. 22skills is built for that loop: scan, add missing keywords, rescan, apply. Start from one master resume and create a tailored version per job.
22skills uses exact matching (case-insensitive) and fuzzy matching with a Levenshtein distance of two or fewer edits, so "Javascript" and "JavaScript" count as one keyword and minor misspellings are not penalized. The dictionary holds 500+ ATS keywords with synonyms and variants. Keywords marked as required in the posting weigh more than nice-to-haves. More in How ATS software works.
In practice the terms are used interchangeably. A scanner reads your file the way a parser does; a checker also compares it with a job description and scores the match. 22skills does both in one scan: it parses your PDF or text, then scores it against the posting you paste.
The checker does not imitate one vendor. Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, Taleo, SAP SuccessFactors, and iCIMS all parse slightly differently, but they share the same signals: keyword match, recognizable sections, and readable text. 22skills tests those shared signals, which is what transfers between systems.
You can paste both documents into ChatGPT and ask for feedback, but you get unstructured text, no consistent score, and nothing saved between applications. 22skills runs the same class of AI models inside a fixed pipeline that returns a 0 to 100% score, matched and missing keyword lists, and prioritized suggestions, and keeps your history so you can track improvements across versions.
Only if they compare your resume with the real job description. A checker that grades formatting alone misses the main reason resumes are filtered out: missing keywords from the specific posting. 22skills runs the same AI models on the free tier as on Pro and matches against 500+ ATS keywords, so a free scan uses the same scoring engine as a paid one. The only difference is scan volume.
Yes. Anonymous scans are not stored. With an account, your analyses are stored in the EU and only you can see them. You can delete your account and all data at any time. We never sell resumes, share them with recruiters, or train models on them. See Security.
The best free checker scores your resume against a specific job description rather than giving a generic format grade. 22skills returns a job-targeted score, your matched and missing keywords, and prioritized fixes on the free tier. Many alternatives call themselves free but gate the job-targeted analysis behind a paid plan (Jobscan from $49.95/month, Resume Worded Pro $49/month). Compare: Best ATS resume scanners in 2026.
The checker is one step in the loop. These cover the rest.
Build a single-column, parser-safe resume from scratch, or import your current one.
Open the builder →A complete, ATS-ready example resume for each role, with the keywords marked. Open one in the builder and replace the details.
Browse examples →The hard skills, tools, and certifications ATS filters look for in 19 roles, from software engineer to registered nurse.
Browse keywords →Save a posting from any job board in one click and scan your resume against it.
Get the extension →A cover letter written from the same job description and keyword gaps.
Learn more →What happens to your resume between the Apply button and a recruiter's screen.
Read the guide →Step-by-step formatting, keyword, and section rules with examples.
Read the guide →Each role has its own keyword set. Check your resume against role-specific ATS keywords.
Comparing tools? 22skills vs. Jobscan · vs. Rezi · vs. Enhancv · vs. Teal · vs. Resume Worded
Your resume may be filtered out by the ATS before a recruiter sees it. Check your ATS score now and see exactly which keywords are missing.
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