No reply after you apply?
Is an ATS the reason?

An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is the software companies use to collect and pre-screen applications. It parses your resume file into plain text, extracts structured fields — contact details, employers, dates, skills — and compares them against the role requirements: keyword coverage, degree floor, and years of experience. Three failure modes decide whether your file ever reaches a human. First, text extraction: scanned images, unusual symbols, and two-column layouts can come out interleaved or garbled, so the parser reads a skill in the wrong context. Second, hard filters: a degree or tenure requirement below the threshold is applied automatically, before anyone opens the file. Third, keyword matching: the role's core terms either appear in your resume, or they do not. What does not help is padding with unrelated keywords — it dilutes the experience evidence that actually moves the match rate.

It can be. Three common causes: the text in your file was never extracted properly (scanned images, unusual symbols, complex layers), your degree or years fall below a hard requirement, or the role's core keywords are missing from your resume. All three are checkable before you apply.

In some legacy enterprise systems, yes. They extract text line by line, so two-column or sidebar layouts can come out interleaved and mismatch skills with experience. For strict corporate portals a single-column layout is safer; for direct messages or referrals a two-column design usually looks better — you can tailor by channel.

No. Padding with unrelated terms does not raise your match rate and dilutes the experience that matters. The effective approach is to describe what you actually did using the terminology of the target role — matching built on real work, not a keyword list.

The report simulates the screening rules and matching models that major ATS platforms publish, so you can catch formatting and keyword problems before you apply. Real outcomes also depend on open headcount, human review and each company's specific knockout rules. The check is free and needs no sign-up: upload a resume and get results in seconds. PDF / DOCX / MD / TXT, up to PDF ≤ 2MB, others ≤ 200KB.

It is never made public. Temporary parsed text from a guest session expires automatically after 24 hours; only if you sign up and claim it does the resume get stored in your own account.