What Is an ATS Score? (And How to Get 85%+)

You applied to 30 jobs last month. Zero callbacks.

Your experience? Solid. Your skills? They match. So what the hell is going on?

Here's what nobody told you: your resume probably never got seen by a human. Before any recruiter reads your application, it gets fed through an Applicant Tracking System—basically a database that decides if you're worth a second look. And if you don't speak its language? You're invisible. Ghosted before the game even starts.

This guide breaks down what an ATS score actually is (spoiler: it's not what LinkedIn influencers tell you), why that "75% rejection" stat is mostly BS, and how to hit the 85%+ mark that gets your resume in front of real eyeballs.

What Is an ATS Score, Really?

Okay, let's untangle this mess. Because there are actually two different things people mean when they say "ATS score."

The commercial score is what you get from tools like Jobscan or Resume Worded. Upload resume. Paste job description. Get a percentage—72%, let's say. But here's the thing: it's a simulation. An educated guess about how well your resume matches the posting.

The enterprise reality? Totally different. Inside actual ATS platforms—Workday, Greenhouse, Taleo—recruiters don't see some tidy "85/100" score next to your name. What they see instead is a list. Rankings. Filters based on whatever they searched for.

Amy Miller, a recruiter who's worked at both Microsoft and Google, puts it bluntly: "The ATS is a filing cabinet, not a bouncer... The idea that the ATS is this mythical, genius, AI-infused tool is crazy."

Filing cabinet. Not Terminator.

So when we talk about "getting 85%," what we're really doing is using commercial tools to make sure your resume is readable, relevant, and won't get mangled by a parser. It's prep work—not a magic number the recruiter sees.

The "75% Rejection" Myth (And What's Actually Going On)

You've seen this stat everywhere: "75% of resumes are auto-rejected by ATS before a human sees them."

It's in every career blog. Every LinkedIn post. And it's essentially made up.

That number? It traces back to Preptel—a resume optimization company that went bankrupt in 2013. There's no peer-reviewed research. No verified 2024 or 2025 data. Nothing. It's a zombie stat that refuses to die.

So what actually causes those instant rejections?

Knockout questions. Most applications have mandatory screening questions. "Do you have work authorization?" "Do you have 5+ years of experience in X?" Answer "No" to something required, and boom—you're out. That's not robot judgment; that's human-designed filtering doing exactly what it was told.

Search invisibility. Here's the part people miss. Recruiters use the ATS like Google. They type stuff like: "Project Manager" AND "Agile" AND "Healthcare". If your resume doesn't have those exact terms? You don't show up. You're not rejected—you just don't exist in their search results.

Pure volume. A single corporate job posting pulls in 250+ applications. Sometimes thousands for remote roles. Recruiters can't physically read them all. Only about 2-3% of applicants get interviews. The math is brutal. But it's not because some robot decided to hate your resume.

Bottom line: stop trying to "trick" a robot. Start trying to be findable by a human who's drowning in a sea of applications.

5 Things That Tank Your ATS Score

Before your resume gets scored on relevance, it has to be read. This is where most people screw up. Not because they're missing keywords—but because the machine literally can't parse their file.

1. Fancy Formatting

Tables, columns, text boxes, graphics. They look slick to humans but absolutely confuse parsers. ATS software reads left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Linearly. A two-column layout? It might mash your job title together with your graduation date. Gibberish.

The fix: Single-column layout. Yeah, it's boring. But it's the foundation of an ATS friendly resume—and bulletproof.

2. Creative Section Headers

Parsers try to map your content to database fields. They know what "Experience" means. "My Professional Journey"? Not so much.

The fix: Stick to the classics. Experience. Education. Skills. Summary. Don't get cute.

3. Missing Keywords From the Job Description

This one's obvious, but people still mess it up. Job asks for "Salesforce" experience; your resume says "CRM software." To you, same thing. To a keyword search? Completely different.

The fix: Mirror their language exactly. They say "Project Management"? Don't write "Managing Projects." Copy-paste the phrase.

4. The Wrong File Format

Here's the 2025 consensus: PDF is king. Preserves formatting. Parses reliably on modern systems. DOCX works if they specifically ask for it—some older systems still prefer Word docs.

The fix: Default to PDF. Only switch to DOCX if the application explicitly requests it.

5. Spelling Variations

"PM" vs "Project Manager" vs "Proj. Manager." To a keyword search, these are three completely different things. Your resume might have the skill; the search just can't find it.

The fix: Include both versions. "Project Manager (PM)" covers your bases.

How to Check Your ATS Score Before You Apply

Alright, practical time. Before you hit that submit button, you should actually know whether your resume's gonna surface—or sink.

The manual method:

1. Copy the job description into a doc
2. Highlight every skill, qualification, and repeated term
3. Check if each one shows up in your resume
4. Count the matches—shoot for 80%+ of hard skills

This works. But it's slow as hell. Do it for 10 applications, and there goes your Saturday.

The tool method:

Commercial ATS checkers automate the whole comparison. Upload resume, paste job description, get instant feedback. Match percentage. Missing keywords. Formatting red flags.

ResumeFlow does this differently. Instead of filling out forms field by field (ugh), you just chat. Talk about your experience naturally. The AI pulls out the details, structures your resume, and scores it against the job description—live. Sitting at 60%? It tells you exactly which keywords to add. Most users hit 85%+ in under 10 minutes.

The key is checking before you apply. Not after you've been ghosted 50 times and are rage-scrolling Reddit at 2am wondering what went wrong.

What "85%+" Actually Gets You

Let's be honest about what a high score does. And what it doesn't.

It does:

• Make sure your resume actually parses (no technical disasters)
• Get you into search results when recruiters look for candidates
• Show you speak the same language as the job posting
• Help you pass the 6-second skim test—because recruiters scan, they don't read

It doesn't:

• Guarantee an interview (you still need the actual experience)
• Replace tailoring for each job (one-size-fits-all resumes are dead)
• Mean a recruiter will definitely call you (61% of candidates get ghosted anyway—it's an industry-wide problem)

The score is a filter. Not a golden ticket. But without passing that filter, you're playing a game you literally can't win.

The Real Algorithm: The Human Recruiter

Here's what the ATS-optimization blogs don't mention: the real algorithm isn't software. It's an exhausted human with 6 seconds and 200 applications sitting in their queue.

Eye-tracking studies show what recruiters actually look at:

1. Current job title and company
2. Previous job title and company
3. Dates—they're checking for gaps and how long you stayed
4. Education

That's it. Six seconds. Brutal.

So a keyword-stuffed wall of text might pass the ATS search... and then immediately fail the human scan. Your resume needs to work for both: machine-readable AND skimmable by someone who's been staring at screens for 8 hours.

That means:

• Clear visual hierarchy
• Bullets, not paragraphs
• Numbers ("Managed $5M budget"—not "Managed budget")
• Breathing room; white space

The 85% score gets you found. The formatting and content get you called.

Wrapping Up

An ATS score isn't a grade from some robot overlord. It's a relevance check. A way to make sure your resume speaks the job posting's language and won't get mangled by whatever parsing software the company uses.

The "75% rejection" myth? Overblown. The real barriers are knockout questions, search invisibility, and sheer volume. But here's the good news: you can control whether your resume shows up in searches.

The 85%+ protocol:

1. Clean formatting—PDF, single-column, standard headers
2. Keyword alignment—mirror the job description exactly
3. Check before you apply—use a scoring tool, not vibes
4. Make it human-readable—bullets, numbers, white space

Curious where your resume actually stands? Try ResumeFlow free. Paste a job description, get your score in 30 seconds. No forms. Just talk about your experience and let the AI handle the optimization.

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Sources: Jobscan 2024 ATS Usage Report; SelectSoftware Reviews 2025; The Interview Guys ATS Research; Kristen Fife (Medium); Amy Miller interviews