How to Improve Your ATS Resume Score: 10 Practical Fixes

You upload your resume to an ATS resume checker, receive a score, and immediately wonder: “How can I make this score higher?”

A low ATS resume score does not automatically mean your resume is bad. It may indicate that important job-related keywords are missing, your resume doesn’t closely match the job description, your experience is too vague, or some information is difficult to identify.

The better approach is not to chase a perfect number. Instead, use your ATS score as feedback that helps you find areas worth improving.

Analyze the job → Check your resume → Improve → Recheck

Here’s how to do it.

What Does an ATS Resume Score Actually Mean?

There isn’t one universal ATS scoring system used by every employer or applicant tracking system.

Different ATS platforms and resume-analysis tools can evaluate resumes differently. Some may place more emphasis on keywords and job-description matching, while others may consider skills, experience, structure, readability, and other factors.

That’s why an ATS resume score should be treated as a diagnostic indicator, not a hiring guarantee.

If your resume receives a score of 68, for example, don’t simply add random keywords until the number becomes 90. Instead, ask:

• Which important skills are missing?
• How closely does my resume match the target job?
• Are my experience descriptions specific enough?
• Are my resume sections clear?
• Can the important text be extracted properly?
• Is there irrelevant information taking up space?

The useful information is often why the score isn’t higher.

Your Resume Score Is Not the Same as Your Job Match

This distinction is important.

A resume can be well formatted, readable, and professionally written but still be a poor match for a particular job.

For example, a software developer may have an excellent resume, but if they’re applying for a position that requires technologies they haven’t mentioned — or don’t have experience with — the resume may not match that specific opportunity well.

The opposite can also happen. A candidate may have exactly the right experience but present it in a way that makes important information difficult to identify.

So think of these as different goals:

• Resume quality — Is the resume clear, accurate, and well structured?
• Job match — Does the resume demonstrate relevant qualifications for this particular position?
• ATS score — How does a particular analysis tool evaluate the resume?

A strong application considers all three.

Analyze the Job Description Before Checking Your Resume

Your resume shouldn’t be optimized in isolation. Before you check anything, understand what the employer is actually asking for.

Look through the job description and identify:

Job title

What exact position is the employer hiring for?

Required skills

Which skills are specifically requested?

Tools and software

Does the job mention Microsoft Excel, QuickBooks, Salesforce, Git, AutoCAD, or another specific tool?

Responsibilities

What will the successful candidate actually be expected to do?

Qualifications

Are there requirements involving education, certifications, experience, or other qualifications?

Industry terminology

Are there specific terms used repeatedly throughout the job description?

This process is essentially job description analysis. The goal isn’t to copy the job description into your resume. The goal is to understand what the employer is looking for and where your genuine experience overlaps with those requirements.

Now Check Your ATS Resume Score

With the job requirements in mind, check your current resume. This gives you a baseline and helps you identify potential weaknesses relative to that specific job.

The process is simple: upload your resume, review the findings, and note which gaps connect to what you just identified in the job description.

You can use the free HireTools ATS Resume Checker to check your resume and identify areas that may need improvement.

There is no need to change everything at once. Start with the issues that are most relevant to the job you’re targeting.

1. Improve Your Resume’s Job Description Match

A generic resume can contain good information and still be a weak match for a particular position.

Imagine a company is hiring an accountant and the job description mentions QuickBooks, accounts payable, bank reconciliation, and financial reporting.

That first version isn’t necessarily wrong, but it doesn’t clearly communicate all of the relevant experience. If the candidate genuinely has that experience, the second version makes it much easier to identify — without copying the employer’s wording everywhere. It means making relevant experience visible.

Ask yourself: “If someone compared my resume with this job description, would they quickly understand why I’m relevant?”

2. Add the Right Resume Keywords

Keywords are terms that describe skills, qualifications, tools, responsibilities, and other requirements related to a job.

Relevant keywords can naturally appear in your professional summary, skills section, work experience, projects, certifications, and education, when relevant.

For example, if a job specifically requires Microsoft Excel and you genuinely use Excel, writing “Microsoft Excel” can be more precise than simply writing “Microsoft Office.” Similarly, if you have actual experience with accounts payable, mentioning accounts payable is clearer than using a vague phrase such as “financial tasks.”

But don’t stuff keywords. Adding a keyword you cannot honestly support isn’t an improvement. If a job description mentions Python but you’ve never used Python, don’t add Python simply because you think it will increase your score. A strong resume doesn’t contain the maximum number of keywords — it contains the most relevant and truthful information.

3. Strengthen Your Skills Section

Your skills section should quickly communicate what you can actually do.

The second version gives much more useful information for a specific accounting position. The right skills depend on the role — a frontend developer might list HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, and Git, while an administrative professional might list Microsoft Excel, Data Entry, Records Management, Scheduling, and CRM Software.

The key is relevance. Your skills should match the position and be supported by your actual experience.

4. Make Your Work Experience More Specific

Vague experience descriptions don’t tell the reader enough about what you actually did.

When reviewing your experience section, ask: What did I actually do? What tools did I use? What responsibilities did I handle? Which parts of this experience are relevant to my target position?

Then use those answers to make your bullet points more specific. You don’t need to make every bullet extremely long — you simply need to make the important information clear.

5. Use Clear Resume Section Headings

Your resume should be easy to navigate. Common headings include Professional Summary, Work Experience, Skills, Education, Certifications, and Projects.

Creative headings aren’t automatically wrong, but unnecessary creativity can make the structure less obvious. For example, “My Professional Journey” is less direct than “Work Experience.”

When creating an ATS-friendly resume, clarity is usually more useful than cleverness.

6. Check Whether Your Resume Text Is Readable

A resume can look perfect on your screen while having problems when its text is extracted. This is an important distinction: visual appearance is not the same as text readability.

Potential problems can include:

• Important information placed inside images
• Complicated layouts
• Unusual symbols
• Poorly structured tables
• Text being extracted in an unexpected order
• Important information that isn’t actually machine-readable

This doesn’t mean every two-column resume will fail an ATS. The more useful question is: “Can the important information be extracted and understood in a sensible order?” If not, the visual design may be creating an unnecessary problem — and checking the actual resume file can reveal issues that aren’t obvious when simply viewing the document.

7. Make Your Contact Information Easy to Identify

Your contact information should be straightforward. Depending on your situation, this can include your name, phone number, email address, location, LinkedIn profile, and portfolio or GitHub profile.

Avoid placing essential contact information inside an image or decorative graphic. Your name and contact details don’t need an elaborate design — they need to be clear and accessible.

8. Remove Information That Doesn’t Help Your Application

Improving an ATS resume score isn’t about making your resume longer. Sometimes the best improvement is removing information.

Review your resume for irrelevant skills, unrelated experience, repeated statements, generic filler, unsupported keywords, and information with little connection to the target position.

More content isn’t necessarily better content. Relevance matters more than volume.

A focused resume can communicate your qualifications more effectively than one that tries to mention everything you’ve ever done.

9. Keep Your Resume Consistent

Consistency improves readability and makes your resume easier to review. Check date formatting, job titles, company names, bullet styles, section formatting, verb tense, and spacing.

For example, avoid mixing date styles like these within the same resume:

• January 2023 – March 2025
• 2021/06 – 2022/08
• June 2020 to December 2020

Choose one date style and use it throughout your resume. These details may not be the biggest factor in every ATS analysis, but consistent formatting makes the document clearer and more professional.

10. Check Your Resume Again After Making Changes

This is where the process comes full circle. Don’t make twenty changes and simply assume your resume is better — this is the Analyze → Check → Improve → Recheck loop in practice:

1. Recheck. Run the revised resume through an ATS resume checker.
2. Review the result. Make sure the changes improved the resume without making it unnatural or inaccurate.

The goal is progress, not score chasing. If your score increases but your resume becomes repetitive, misleading, or less readable, you’ve moved in the wrong direction.

What If Your ATS Resume Score Is Still Low?

Don’t panic. A low score can have several possible explanations.

Your resume may not match the job closely enough

A strong resume for one position may be a poor match for another.

Important skills may not be clearly mentioned

You may have the required experience but describe it using overly general language.

Your experience may be too vague

The resume might not clearly communicate what you actually did.

The document may have parsing problems

The resume may look fine visually but contain text that is difficult to extract.

The scoring system may evaluate things differently

Different tools can use different methods, so one score shouldn’t be treated as a universal measurement of your employability.

The useful response to a low score is diagnosis, not panic.

Should You Try to Get a 100 ATS Resume Score?

Not necessarily. There is no universal ATS score that guarantees an interview.

Trying to force your resume to reach a particular number can lead to bad decisions, such as:

• Adding irrelevant keywords
• Repeating the same terms excessively
• Making the resume unnatural
• Adding skills you don’t have
• Removing useful information just to satisfy a score

A better goal: Readable + Relevant + Accurate + Job-focused

The score is useful when it helps you move toward those goals.

How JD Analysis and ATS Checking Work Together

Think of them as answering two different questions. JD analysis asks: “What is this employer looking for?” Resume analysis asks: “How well does my resume communicate that I have those qualifications?”

This is much more useful than uploading a resume and trying to increase a number without understanding what the number represents.

ATS-Friendly Does Not Mean Generic

Your basic resume can remain consistent while you adjust relevant parts for different positions — your professional summary, relevant skills, keywords, which experience is emphasized, projects, and job-specific terminology.

For example, an accountant applying for a position that emphasizes QuickBooks may want to make genuine QuickBooks experience more visible than when applying for a position that emphasizes a different accounting system.

ATS-friendly doesn’t mean generic. It means your relevant information is presented clearly enough to be understood. For a deeper look at this idea, see our guide: What Is an ATS Resume?

ATS Resume Score Improvement Checklist

Before submitting your resume, ask yourself:

• ✓Does my resume target the specific job?
• ✓Did I analyze the main requirements in the job description?
• ✓Did I include relevant keywords naturally?
• ✓Are my skills specific and relevant?
• ✓Does my work experience demonstrate those skills?
• ✓Are my section headings clear?
• ✓Can the important text be extracted properly?
• ✓Is my contact information easy to identify?
• ✓Did I remove irrelevant information?
• ✓Is my formatting consistent?
• ✓Did I check the revised version again?

If you can answer yes to these questions, you’re optimizing your resume for the right reasons — not simply trying to increase a number.

How HireTools Can Help You Improve Your Resume

1. Analyze the job. Read the job description and identify its important requirements.
2. Check your resume. Use the free HireTools ATS Resume Checker to evaluate your current resume.
3. Improve the weaknesses. Fix relevant keywords, skills, experience descriptions, structure, and readability.
4. Check again. Run the updated resume through the checker and review the new result.
5. Build a better version if needed. If your resume needs a major overhaul, use the HireTools ATS Resume Builder to create a new ATS-friendly resume.

Check My Resume →
Build a New Resume

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Takeaway: Improve the Resume, Not Just the Number

Your ATS resume score is most useful when you treat it as feedback rather than a target.

Don’t ask only: “How do I get a higher score?”

Ask: “What is my resume failing to communicate clearly?”

Analyze the job description. Check your resume. Find the gaps. Make targeted, truthful improvements. Then check it again.

Analyze → Check → Improve → Recheck

That’s a much better way to build an ATS-friendly resume than chasing a perfect score.