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Do resume scanners work?
What they are
How they could help you
How they’re lacking
Estimated read time: 4 minutes
Do resume scanners work?
Hey folks, this week, I encountered a question on Reddit that I’ve seen before, but one I think we haven’t covered yet on this newsletter. Do resume scanners work?
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Now on to our topic: resume scanners.
What are they?
Well, you may have heard of some of them. JobScan and ResumeWorded are two well known examples.
They essentially check your resume for keywords against a target job. Below is a screen cap of Jobscan’s interface when you begin a scan.
This is what you see when using Jobscan.
In the left box, you copy/paste your resume (or upload it) and on the right, you paste the target job description.
To illustrate, I’ve copied a software tester resume into the left hand box, and a software tester JD in the right box. When it completes its scan, you get a readout that covers five areas:
Searchability
Skills
Recruiter Tips
Formatting
Cover Letter (if you included one)
This is what the results look like:
This is the dashboard you see as soon as it completes the scan
This screen is showing you the skills area and how your resume compares to the JD. It tells you which skills keywords you’re matching for and which ones you’re missing. The more skills you match, the higher your score at the end.
It also shows you which soft skills you’re missing. This also factors into your end score.
This is another section that provides you with some “recruiter tips”.
There are other sites like this, but they work very much the same. Tools like this are helpful, because they can help you identify important terms your resume may be missing.
Recruiters sometimes search for qualified applicants through boolean search (much in the same way you search Google for Elon Musk videos).
If your resume is missing a term that the recruiter is searching for, it won’t come up in the search results (or won’t appear high on the list).
But….here’s where you may want to be careful
The problem I’ve noticed with some people using resume scanners (based on what I see on forums like Reddit) is that they get carried away with the results and completely forget about the human element in the hiring process.
Because while your resume will be loaded into an ATS and scanned for relavant skills and experiences (in the form of keywords), it’s the human recruiter working that ATS that’ll be making the call on whether to call you in or not. Your resume has to make sense to that person.
Example. If you remember, there was a section in Jobscan that covered soft skills (i.e., problem solving, communication, detail-oriented etc.). The problem is, nobody gives a sh** about soft skills. Let me explain.
Soft skills are important to be sure. They’re arguably more important than technical skills because if you have them, you’re very likely to do well and move up (both in work and in life).
The thing is, on a resume, any body can say they are “detail-oriented”. How does the recruiter know you REALLY ARE detail-oriented? They don’t.
That’s why resumes aren’t a good medium for showing soft skills (a better one is the interview). Resumes that waste space on soft skills sometimes do worse than those that don’t.
Jobscan doesn’t factor that in though and if you didn’t know any better, you’d follow their advice and stuff your resume full of those useless terms in the hopes of raising your match score.
The other problem is that even when you consider the important keywords, it’s not just a matter of stuffing them into your resume and calling it a day.
Your resume HAS TO MAKE SENSE TO PEOPLE. It needs to sound natural, exactly the way you would expect to sound having a conversation with somebody.
Jobscan doesn’t tell you how to do that.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t use it, but remember that it’s only part of the picture. The results given are by no means a be all end all.
What topics do you want to see me cover in future newsletters?
I’d love to hear from you - let me know if you have topics or questions you’d like me to cover.
About the Author
I’m James, Cofounder of Final Draft Resumes. I’ve been in the career consulting space for 13 years, and before that, I was a recruiter for AECOM.
I’ve helped thousands of job seekers, from industries like software engineering, IT, sales, marketing, manufacturing, and more generate job opportunities through well-written resumes that translate unique backgrounds into coherent narratives.
If you’re struggling with your resume for whatever reason, reach out - I just might be able to help!
If you’re more of a DIY person, then check out Resumatic, my free-to-try resume builder.