What Is a Good
ATS Score?
How ATS scoring works, what score actually gets you interviews, and how to improve your resume's ATS match rate for any specific job description.
2025 · 6 min read
ATS score ranges: what they mean
How to improve your ATS score
1. Match exact keywords from the job description. Paste the job description into Zari's optimizer and see exactly which keywords you're missing. ATS systems often use exact matching — if the JD says “project management” and your resume says “project coordination”, that may not match. Use the exact phrasing from the JD.
2. Put keywords in your experience bullets, not just the skills section. Most ATS weight keywords in your experience section more than in a standalone skills list. “Managed projects using Jira and Confluence” in an experience bullet scores higher than just listing “Jira, Confluence” in skills.
3. Fix formatting issues first. Tables, text boxes, headers/footers, and unusual fonts can prevent ATS from parsing your resume correctly. If the ATS can't read your text, it can't score it. Use a clean, single-column format for maximum ATS compatibility.
4. Use both acronyms and spelled-out versions. Write “Search Engine Optimization (SEO)” the first time you use it, then use the acronym after. ATS systems may match only the exact form used in the JD.
Common questions
What is a good ATS score for a resume?
A good ATS score is typically 70% or higher on a well-calibrated ATS scoring tool. Scores above 80% indicate strong keyword alignment with the job description. Scores below 50% suggest your resume is missing many critical keywords and is likely being filtered out before a recruiter sees it. However, the score itself matters less than the specific keywords you're missing — a 65% score with all the required qualifications present may perform better than an 80% score that hits generic keywords but misses the specific technical requirements listed in the JD.
How does ATS scoring actually work?
ATS systems score resumes by: (1) Parsing your resume text into structured fields (name, email, education, experience, skills), (2) Extracting key terms from the job description, (3) Comparing the two — looking for keyword presence, frequency, and placement. Modern ATS (Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, iCIMS) use weighting systems that give more credit to keywords that appear multiple times, appear in experience sections (not just skills lists), and match required vs preferred qualifications. The score you see in tools like Zari is an approximation of this underlying process — it's designed to identify gaps, not to exactly replicate any specific ATS algorithm.
Can I have too high an ATS score?
Not in the traditional sense — a high score means your resume matches the job description closely, which is the goal. However, the mechanism of getting a high score matters. A resume that keyword-stuffs (inserting keywords randomly or unnaturally) may score high in a simple tool but will read poorly to the human recruiter who sees it after passing the ATS filter. The goal is high keyword density achieved through legitimate, naturally written experience bullets — every keyword should correspond to a real skill or experience you have.
What's the difference between ATS scoring tools?
ATS scoring tools vary significantly in quality. The main dimensions: (1) How they extract keywords from the job description — simple tools look for exact word matches; better tools understand context and weight keywords by importance (required vs preferred, frequency in JD). (2) Whether they understand synonyms and related terms — 'JavaScript' and 'JS' are the same thing; good tools know this. (3) Whether they evaluate keyword placement — appearing in experience bullets is more valuable than appearing only in a skills section. Zari's scoring is designed to approximate real ATS behavior, not just count keyword occurrences.
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