Free Resume Checker

About the resume checker

Most resumes are not rejected for one big mistake. They lose ground through a dozen small ones: bullets that list duties instead of results, a missing phone number, dates in three different formats, a heading a parser does not recognize. Each is easy to fix once you see it, and hard to see in a document you have read fifty times.

This free resume checker reads the text you paste and runs a set of concrete checks covering contact details, section headings, length, action verbs, numbers in bullets, pronouns, buzzwords, and date consistency. Add a job description and it also reports keyword matches. Every finding names the line it came from and tells you what to change. The checks run in your browser, and the guide below explains what each one means.

How to use it

1. 1

   Copy your resume text

   Open your resume file, select all, and copy it. Paste the plain text into the box. If the text comes out scrambled or out of order, note that, because it is a warning sign about your layout.

2. 2

   Add a job description (optional)

   Paste the posting you are applying to if you want keyword results. Without it, the checker still reviews structure, impact, and clarity, which apply to every application.

3. 3

   Read the findings by severity

   Start with high-severity items, since they affect whether your resume is read at all. Medium items affect how strong it looks. Low items are polish you can do last.

4. 4

   Fix, paste again, and compare

   Edit your resume, then run the check again on the new version. A falling issue count is the real progress marker. Do not chase a perfect score at the cost of honest, specific wording.

What this resume checker looks at

The checks fall into four groups. Each one maps to a question a recruiter or an applicant tracking system asks, whether or not anyone says it out loud. The score summarizes how your resume does across these groups, but the list of findings is what you should act on.

• Structure: Is there a name, email, phone number, and location? Are the core sections present under standard headings such as Experience, Education, and Skills? Is the length reasonable for your experience?
• Impact: How many bullets include a number, such as a count, percentage, dollar amount, or time frame? Do bullets start with an action verb, or with "Responsible for" and "Helped with"?
• Clarity: Are there first-person pronouns, filler buzzwords, or overly long bullets that bury the point?
• ATS readiness: Are dates written in one consistent format? Can the contact details and sections be found as plain text? If you added a job description, which of its key terms appear in your resume and which are missing?

How to fix the most common findings

Most findings come down to a handful of patterns. Fix them in this order, because the first ones decide whether the rest of your resume gets read carefully.

Missing contact details or headings come first. A recruiter who cannot find your phone number may not look for it. Use plain headings, because a creative label such as "My Journey" can confuse both people and software. Duty-style bullets come next. Rewrite "Responsible for onboarding new clients" as "Onboarded 35 mid-market clients in 2024, cutting average setup time from 3 weeks to 9 days." Lead with the verb, add the scale, and end with the result. Inconsistent dates are a quick fix: pick one format, such as "Mar 2022 – Present," and use it everywhere. Finally, cut pronouns and buzzwords. "I am a results-driven team player" becomes a sentence about an actual result.

What a resume score can and cannot tell you

A resume score is a useful progress meter, not a prediction. It measures how well your document follows conventions that make resumes easier to read and easier to parse. It cannot tell you whether a specific employer will call you, because that depends on the role, the other applicants, and the person reading.

No checker can replicate a particular employer's applicant tracking system. Those systems are configured differently by each company, and their internal rules are not public. What any checker can do is flag the problems that cause trouble across most of them, such as missing sections, unreadable dates, and absent keywords, along with the writing problems that make a human reader move on.

Use the score to compare versions of your own resume. If a change raises the score but makes a bullet less accurate, keep the accurate version.

A two-pass review that catches what checkers miss

Automated checks find patterns. They do not know that your title at a startup undersells your scope, or that a project you cut was the most relevant thing you did. After the checker, do one human pass with these questions in mind.

• Top third: Would someone know your target role and level from the top third of the first page alone?
• Best result: Is your single strongest result in the first two bullets of your current or most recent job?
• Defensibility: Could you talk for two minutes about every number on the page?
• Relevance: Is anything older than 10 to 15 years, or unrelated to the target role, taking space a newer result could use?
• Fresh eyes: Read it aloud or ask someone in your field to skim it for 30 seconds and tell you what you do.

Examples

Frequently asked questions