ATS CV Checker: See What an ATS Reads From Your CV

CV or resume: what is the difference?

In the UK, Ireland, much of Europe and Australia, "CV" (curriculum vitae) is the everyday word for the document you send with a job application. In the US and Canada the same document is called a resume, and a CV usually means a longer academic record of research, teaching and publications. An ATS treats both the same way: it turns the file into plain text and fields. So this CV checker runs the same checks as our resume checker, and the tool above says "resume" in a few places.

How an ATS reads a CV

1. Extract the text from your PDF or Word file, in reading order.
2. Split it into sections such as Profile, Work History, Education and Skills.
3. Pull out fields: your name, email, phone, job titles, employers, dates and skills.
4. Make it searchable, so a recruiter can find your CV by keyword.

Two columns, tables, text boxes, icons and contact details in the page header can scramble step 1, and every later step inherits the mistake. The ATS parser test shows what each problem looks like.

What this CV scanner checks

• Parsing and format: columns, tables, images, icons, scanned pages, page count and date style.
• Sections and contact: email and phone near the top, not only in the Word header. UK, Irish, European and Australian phone formats such as 07700 900123 or +61 412 345 678 are recognised, and so are CV headings such as Personal Profile, Work History, Employment History, Key Skills and Education and Training.
• Each bullet: an action verb, a number, no duty-style opening such as "Responsible for", and a sensible length. British spellings such as "organised" and "analysed" are rated like US ones.
• Keywords: paste the job advert to see which skills it asks for that your CV is missing.

Common UK CV conventions

• No photo. UK and Irish CVs usually leave out a photo. In parts of continental Europe, such as Germany, a photo is still common but usually optional. Either way, an ATS cannot read text inside an image.
• Personal details. Name, phone, email and your town or city are enough; a full home address is usually not needed. Date of birth, marital status and nationality are usually left off, because employers should not use them to judge your application. Add your right to work if a job asks for it.
• About two pages. Two A4 pages is the usual length; one page is fine early in your career. Australian CVs often run to two or three pages. This checker flags a CV over two pages, so ignore that finding if a longer CV is normal for your field.
• A short personal profile of three or four lines at the top, then work history in reverse date order.
• References. "References available on request" is usually left off in the UK. In Australia, listing two referees is common.
• UK spelling if you apply to UK employers: organised, programme, colour.

If you use the Europass template, test the PDF here: its label column can be read out of order by a simple parser.

What the free CV check includes

The CV check runs in your browser with fixed rules, with no AI and no upload: the score, the top 5 fixes, the parsed-text view and the first 3 missing keywords per job. Only if you buy the $5 ATS-friendly export is the parsed text sent to our server, just to build the file. See pricing.

Related tools

• ATS Checker
• Resume Checker
• Keyword Scanner
• ATS Parser Test