Step 1: Get an honest baseline

Before editing anything, check where your resume currently stands against a real job description you're targeting. Guessing which keywords matter wastes more time than checking directly.

Paste your resume and a job description to get an instant match score and missing-keyword list.

Check Your ATS Score

Step 2: Close the keyword gap honestly

Go line by line through the job description and highlight required skills, tools and qualifications. For each one you genuinely have, check whether your resume uses that exact phrase somewhere. Add it where it's true; don't add it where it isn't — misrepresenting a skill you don't have creates problems later in the interview, not fewer.

Step 3: Fix structural issues

Step 4: Strengthen the bullets themselves

A high keyword match with weak, vague bullets still won't convert into interviews once a human reads it. Use the action–context–result pattern for each bullet:

Action–context–result

"Reduced (action) customer support ticket backlog by 40% (result) by introducing a tagging system across a team of six agents (context)."

Step 5: A five-minute consistency pass

  • Same date format everywhere
  • Same tense (past tense for past roles, present for current)
  • Same bullet style throughout, no mixed symbols
  • No leftover template placeholder text
  • File named with your actual name

Step 6: Re-check before every distinct application

"ATS score" isn't a fixed property of your resume — it changes with every job description you match it against. Re-run the check for each role you're seriously applying to, especially across different industries where the expected vocabulary shifts.