I Built a Free ATS Resume Checker — No Signup, Runs 100% in Your Browser
75% of companies filter resumes with ATS software before a human ever reads them. I got tired of ghosted applications, so I built a small tool that scores your resume against what ATS actually weighs — free, no signup, and your text never leaves your browser.
Paste Your Resume, Get a Score in Seconds
Paste your resume, and the checker scores it instantly across the five factors ATS software actually weighs: length, action verbs, quantified results, section structure, and parsing safety. No account, no credit card, no usage limit.
And one thing I want to be upfront about: it runs entirely in your browser. Your resume text is never uploaded, stored, or sent anywhere — the scoring happens locally on your own device.
The Five Factors ATS Actually Weighs
These are the five factors the checker scores, roughly in order of how often they get qualified people rejected:
1. Length
The sweet spot is one focused page for most professionals — roughly 400 to 700 words. A three-page novel buries your best material below where recruiters stop reading; a three-line stub tells the parser there is nothing to score.
- Bad: A 3-page resume listing every job since 2005 — including the summer internship at the teahouse.
- Good: One tailored page for the role you are applying for, with the last ten years doing the heavy lifting.
2. Action Verbs
Parsers and recruiters both scan for verbs that show ownership. Passive, duty-shaped phrasing reads as filler.
- Bad: "Was responsible for managing a team."
- Good: "Led a six-person team that shipped the migration two weeks early."
3. Quantified Results
Numbers are the fastest way to prove impact without a reference call. If you do not have exact figures, approximate honestly — "roughly 30%" beats nothing.
- Bad: "Improved customer satisfaction."
- Good: "Raised customer satisfaction from 82% to 91% over three quarters."
4. Section Structure
ATS parsers classify your content by section headers. Creative names confuse the classifier, and misclassified content scores as missing.
- Bad: Section headers like "My Journey" and "Superpowers."
- Good: Standard headers — Summary, Experience, Education, Skills. Creativity belongs in your bullet points, not your section titles.
5. Parsing Safety
The silent killer. Two-column layouts, text boxes, skills charts saved as images, contact info in the document header — all of these can scramble when an ATS extracts your text. A scrambled parse means skills and dates go missing, and nobody tells you.
- Bad: Contact info in the document header, a skills chart saved as an image, and a designer two-column template.
- Good: Contact info as plain text at the top, skills as a plain list, single column, standard fonts.
How the Score Works (No Hand-Waving)
The checker is a heuristic scorer, not magic: it parses your text the way an ATS would, measures it against the five factors above, and shows a per-factor breakdown with specific fixes. It will not get you a job by itself — no tool can. What it does is catch the mechanical problems that get qualified people auto-rejected.
And to repeat the privacy part, because it matters: the scoring runs 100% locally in your browser. There is no upload, no account, and no analytics on your resume text.
Transparency
I am a solo founder. The checker is free and standalone; it is also part of a larger toolkit I am building (KAKI), which has paid plans if you want more. I am not affiliated with any ATS vendor, and I publish no user counts or result claims until I have real ones.
— Ethan Shan
Your Turn
Run your resume through the checker. What does your score say — and which factor surprised you? I am still tuning the weighting, so tell me what matters in your industry.