Paste a job description and upload your resume. The checker extracts required skills and qualifications from the posting, then reports which ones your resume covers and which ones are absent.
When a recruiter opens a new job requisition in their ATS, the system prompts them to define screening criteria. In many cases, this includes a list of required skills and qualifications that the ATS uses to filter incoming applications. Resumes that match enough of these criteria move forward. Those that don't are deprioritized or filtered out entirely.
The filtering is usually not a simple pass/fail. Most modern ATS platforms generate a ranked list of candidates, with keyword match rate as one of the ranking signals. A resume matching 9 out of 12 required skills ranks above one matching 5 out of 12. The recruiter typically reviews candidates starting from the top of this list and stops when they have enough qualified candidates to interview.
This means the keyword gap between your resume and the job description directly affects your position in the queue. It's not about gaming the system. It's about making sure the relevant experience you actually have is expressed in the terms the job posting uses.
These are specific, measurable capabilities: programming languages, software platforms, certifications, methodologies. "Python," "AWS," "PMP," "Agile," "SQL Server." Hard skills are the easiest for ATS systems to match because they are unambiguous strings. If the job says "Kubernetes" and your resume says "Kubernetes," that's a match. If your resume says "container orchestration" instead, many ATS platforms will not make the connection.
Terms like "leadership," "communication," "problem-solving." ATS systems can match these strings, but they carry less weight in most scoring algorithms. The reason: almost every resume claims these skills, so they have low discriminative value. Job descriptions include them because they matter for the role, but ATS filtering rarely hinges on soft skill keywords alone.
Every field has its own vocabulary. Healthcare uses "HIPAA," "EMR," "ICD-10." Finance uses "SOX compliance," "Basel III," "Bloomberg Terminal." These domain terms signal that you belong in the field and understand its regulatory and operational context. Missing industry-specific terms is a common reason career changers score poorly on ATS scans, even when their transferable skills are strong.
Years of experience ("5+ years"), education requirements ("MBA," "Bachelor's in Computer Science"), and credential markers ("CPA," "Licensed"). Some ATS platforms use these for hard filtering: if the requisition requires a CPA and your resume doesn't mention one, you may be filtered out regardless of your other qualifications.
Your resume says "data analysis" but the job description specifies "Tableau," "Power BI," and "SQL." The ATS is searching for those specific tools, not the category they belong to. List the tools you actually use.
The posting says "Search Engine Optimization" and your resume says "SEO." Some ATS platforms handle this mapping, many do not. When space allows, include both the full term and the abbreviation at least once in your resume.
A skills section is useful for keyword coverage, but ATS scoring algorithms often give more weight to keywords found within your work experience bullets. If Python appears only in your Skills section but never in your experience descriptions, some systems score it lower than a resume where Python appears in context ("Built data pipeline using Python and Airflow").
Read the job description carefully. Note the specific terms it uses. Then describe your genuine experience using those same terms where they apply. This is not deception; it is translating your experience into the employer's vocabulary. If you managed budgets and the posting says "P&L management," use "P&L management" if that accurately describes what you did.
Most keyword checkers compare word lists. They extract nouns from the job description, extract nouns from your resume, and report the overlap percentage. This approach misses context. A keyword like "management" in a job description might refer to "project management," "people management," or "database management." A simple word match treats all of these as the same.
Ajusta's analysis groups keywords by category (technical skills, qualifications, soft skills, industry terms) and checks for contextual matches. It also distinguishes between required qualifications and preferred ones based on where they appear in the posting and how they are phrased.
The output is a categorized list showing which keywords are present in your resume, which are missing, and where in your resume each match was found. Missing keywords are flagged with the section of the job description where they appeared, so you know exactly what the employer is looking for.
There is no fixed number. The right count depends on the job description. A technical role with 15 required skills needs more keyword coverage than a general management role listing 6 qualifications. Focus on covering the requirements stated in the posting rather than hitting an arbitrary keyword count.
Use the same terminology the job posting uses, but integrate it naturally into your experience descriptions. If the posting says 'project management,' use that phrase rather than 'managing projects' when possible. ATS parsers match on exact strings more reliably than paraphrases. That said, cramming keywords into a list without context looks bad to human reviewers.
Some do, some don't. Enterprise platforms like Workday and iCIMS have some synonym mapping built in, but the coverage varies. Smaller ATS platforms often rely on exact string matching. The safest approach is to use the exact terms from the job description while also including common industry abbreviations (e.g., both 'JavaScript' and 'JS').
Most ATS platforms do not explicitly penalize keyword stuffing in the way search engines do. However, some newer systems with AI scoring can detect unnatural keyword density and flag it. More importantly, if your resume passes the ATS but reads poorly to a human recruiter, the keyword stuffing has defeated its own purpose.
Where keywords appear matters. Skills listed in a dedicated Skills section are parsed differently than skills mentioned within job descriptions under Experience. Most ATS systems give more weight to keywords found in the Experience section because they appear in context. A skill in your Skills section confirms you claim it; a skill in your Experience section shows you used it.
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