Check your resume against the job you're applying to
SynCV's ATS resume checker compares your resume against one job description and reports where they overlap: which requirements your resume addresses, which keywords from the posting are missing, and whether your formatting will survive parsing. The score describes the match between two documents. It is not a verdict on your candidacy, and it is not a number the employer sees.
What the check actually measures
A resume has to clear two different bars before a human reads it properly: it has to parse, and it has to look relevant. The check covers both, and they fail for unrelated reasons.
- Requirement coverage — which of the posting's stated requirements your resume speaks to
- Keyword overlap — terms the posting uses that your resume never does
- Placement — whether a matched skill appears in your experience or only in a list
- Parse safety — columns, headers, tables and images that break extraction
- Section structure — whether standard headings are present and detectable
What the score means, and what it doesn't
The score is an estimate of how well your document matches this posting. That is a genuinely useful diagnostic, because it is measurable and you can act on it.
It is not the employer's score. Every ATS vendor computes matching differently and every employer configures theirs differently, so no third-party tool can reproduce the number a specific company sees. Treat a low score as a prompt to check which requirements you've left unaddressed, not as a rejection.
Chasing 100% is the wrong goal. A resume engineered to maximise overlap reads like it was engineered to maximise overlap.
From gaps to a fixed resume
The report is only half the job. Most gaps fall into three categories, and two of them are fixable in minutes.
Terms you match but never say
The most common gap by a distance. You have done the work; the resume describes it in different words. This is what tailoring fixes.
Skills listed but never evidenced
A tool that appears only in your skills list and never in a bullet. Move it into the role where you used it.
Genuine gaps
Requirements you do not meet. Leave these alone — they are information about the fit, not something to paper over.
Before
Created reports and dashboards for various teams.
After tailoring
Built weekly SQL-backed Power BI dashboards for the marketing team, tracking campaign spend and lead quality across five channels.
Same experience, different emphasis: The original bullet is true for almost any analyst, so it matched almost nothing. Naming SQL, Power BI and the marketing partnership — all already on the resume elsewhere — makes the same work legible to this employer.
Who it's for
Anyone who has applied to a lot of roles without response and cannot tell whether the problem is the resume, the targeting, or the market. The check separates the first from the other two.
What it doesn't do
Worth stating plainly, because several of these are things similar tools imply they can do.
- The score is SynCV's estimate of how well your resume matches one job description. It is not the score the employer's system produces.
- It cannot guarantee that any ATS will pass your resume through.
- It does not assess whether you are qualified for the role, or advise you whether to apply.
- It reports gaps; it will not close a gap by inventing experience to fill it.
Frequently asked questions
Does tailoring a resume help with ATS?
- It helps, because most applicant tracking systems rank or filter on how closely a resume's wording matches the job description. If you describe the same work in the words the posting uses, you score better on that comparison. No tool can guarantee an ATS will pass you through, and SynCV does not claim to — a recruiter still reads the result.
What is a good ATS score?
- There is no universal threshold, because every vendor scores differently. Use the breakdown rather than the number: if the posting's main requirements are each addressed somewhere in your experience section, the resume is doing its job.
Why did my score change when my resume didn't?
- Because the score is relative to a job description. Scan the same resume against a different posting and you get a different result — which is the entire argument for tailoring per application.
Where can I find my previous resume scans?
- Every scan and the application it belongs to is saved in the Job Tracker, so you can reopen a tailored resume, compare versions, or pick up an application you started earlier.
How many free scans do I get?
- Every account includes 1 free resume scan to start, with no card required; it does not refill. Pro has no scan limit, whether you pay weekly, monthly or quarterly — only fair-use ceilings of 30 scans an hour and 200 a day.
Does SynCV tell me whether I am qualified for a job?
- No. SynCV compares your resume to a job description and shows where the two overlap and where they do not. Deciding whether you are a fit — and whether to apply — is yours to make. The match score describes your document, not your candidacy.
Related
Check your resume against a real posting
Paste a job description you're about to apply to and see which of its requirements your resume currently answers.