ATS Score, explained

How MerlAI scores your resume

Your score is a report card with five subjects. Here's exactly what each one means — and the one move that pushes you past 90.

The five things we check

Every resume is scored on the same five categories. Four of them grade your resume on its own. The fifth grades it against a specific job — and that's the key to the whole thing.

Why most resumes stall in the 80s

Keyword Match is worth 30% of your score, but it asks a question we can't answer without a target job: "Does this resume use the same words as the job you actually want?" Until you attach a job, that 30% sits on a neutral standby — which caps even a perfect resume at about 88.

Paste in the job you're chasing, and we score the match for real. That's the move that breaks 90.

No job attached: ~82 → + target job → 90+

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