Eighteen terms that come up constantly in resume advice — defined plainly, without the jargon.
Software employers use to collect, store, filter, and rank job applications. Common examples include Taleo, Greenhouse, Workday, iCIMS, and Lever. Most mid-size and large companies use one; the ATS is usually the first "reader" your resume encounters, before any human.
The process an ATS uses to extract structured fields — name, contact details, job titles, dates, skills — from your resume file. Parsing works best on simple, linear layouts; tables, columns, and text boxes are common causes of failed or garbled parsing.
How closely the language in your resume overlaps with the terms in a job description or a recruiter's search query. ATS platforms often use keyword match as a primary ranking signal, which is why mirroring a job posting's specific terminology (when accurate) helps.
The order or percentage score an ATS assigns applicants relative to a job posting, based on parsed content and keyword overlap. Recruiters frequently review only the top-ranked slice of applicants, especially for high-volume postings.
A search method recruiters use inside an ATS or LinkedIn Recruiter, combining terms with AND / OR / NOT (e.g. "project manager" AND "construction" NOT "intern"). Resumes that use the exact phrasing recruiters search for are easier to surface.
The percentage of a resume's content an ATS successfully extracts into structured fields. A low parse rate means sections of your resume — sometimes entire jobs or skills — may be invisible to the recruiter's search and filter tools, even though the file "opens fine."
The first human review step, typically a quick scan (often cited as taking well under a minute) to decide whether an application moves forward. This happens only after a resume clears the ATS filtering stage — which is why ATS compatibility comes first.
A framework — common in government and structured hiring — for defining what a role requires. Job postings that list explicit KSAs are a strong signal of exactly which keywords and qualifications the ATS is likely configured to search for.
The stage label an ATS assigns your application as it moves through hiring (e.g. "New," "Screened," "Interview," "Rejected"). Some ATS platforms auto-advance or auto-reject based on parsed qualifications before a recruiter manually reviews every stage.
A standardized list of skill terms an ATS uses to tag and search resumes (for example, treating "JS" and "JavaScript" as the same skill — or not, depending on the system). Spelling out both common abbreviations and full terms reduces the risk of a mismatch.