See your CV the way an ATS and a recruiter see it.
Upload your CV, paste the job. In about a minute the CV X-Ray shows what the tracking system reads back, how well you match, which keywords are missing and what a recruiter notices first.
- · No sign-up, no card
- · Checked against the job you actually want, not a generic list
- · Your file is deleted after 24 hours
Why good CVs get filtered out
Most companies don't read your CV first. An applicant tracking system (ATS) does. It pulls your file apart into fields — name, contact details, job titles, employers, dates, skills — and the recruiter searches and filters those fields, not your nicely designed PDF.
That's where strong candidates quietly disappear. Not because the software "rejects" them, but because it reads them badly:
- A two-column layout gets read across both columns, so your job titles end up glued to your skills list.
- Dates written as "Spring '23 – now" don't parse, so your experience looks like zero years.
- A header image holding your name and email means the ATS has no name and no email.
- The job asks for "stakeholder management" and your CV says "worked with lots of teams". A human sees the match. A keyword search doesn't.
You never find out. You just don't hear back.
How to check a CV properly
A useful ATS check isn't a generic score out of 100. It should answer four questions, for the specific job you're applying to:
- Can the system read my file? Every field you wrote should come back out the same — same title, same dates, same employer.
- Do I speak the job's language? Which of the posting's must-have skills and terms appear in my CV, and which are missing?
- Do I actually meet the must-haves? Not just the words — is there evidence in my CV for each requirement?
- What does a recruiter notice in six seconds? Is my strongest result visible near the top, or buried in the fourth bullet of an old job?
You can do a rough version yourself: copy all the text out of your PDF into a plain text editor and see if it still makes sense in order. Then put the job posting next to it and highlight every requirement you can point to. It takes about half an hour per job, and it works.
What the CV X-Ray shows you
The X-Ray runs a small crew of specialists on your CV and one job posting:
- CV Analyst turns your CV into a structured record of your roles, results and skills.
- Job Analyst separates the posting's must-haves from the nice-to-haves and pulls out the terms that matter.
- Company Intel reads what the company does and cares about right now.
- ATS Checker parses your file the way tracking systems do.
- Recruiter Editor reads it like a recruiter with six seconds to spare.
You watch them work, and about a minute later you get one report:
- A match score for this job, with the parts that make it up.
- How an ATS reads your CV: what you wrote next to what the system read back, field by field, with anything that broke flagged.
- Keywords: which of the job's important terms you already use, and which are missing.
- Must-haves: each requirement marked met, partly met or not shown — with the line from your CV that proves it.
- Hidden strengths: things you've done that the job values but your CV undersells.
- The recruiter's six-second skim: the first impression, and whether your best result is visible.
- Top fixes, in order of impact.
Fix it yourself, or hand it to the crew
Everything in the X-Ray is yours to act on by hand. If you'd rather not rewrite your CV for every application, the same crew can do it: a tailored CV, cover letter, recruiter email and LinkedIn copy for each job, checked like an ATS and edited like a recruiter.
The difference from other AI writers is the Truth Guard. Every sentence it writes must link to something you've actually done. Lines without evidence are removed, and when a job asks for something you might have but haven't shown, the crew asks you instead of making it up.
Want to go deeper first? Read how to pass ATS screening and the resume keywords guide.
Questions people ask
Is the ATS checker really free?
Yes. The CV X-Ray needs no account and no card. To keep it free for everyone there's a limit of three X-Rays a day per connection.
Which files can I upload?
PDF or DOCX, up to 5 MB. For the job, paste a link to the posting or the posting text itself — text works best when a careers page needs a login.
What happens to my CV?
It's used for this X-Ray only and deleted after 24 hours. The report opens only in the browser that ran it, for 24 hours, so save anything you want to keep.
Which ATS does it test against?
It reads your file the way common applicant tracking systems parse CVs — sections, job titles, dates, contact details and keywords — and shows you what came out the other side. Every ATS is configured differently, so treat it as a strong check rather than a promise.
Does a high score mean I'll get an interview?
No tool can promise that. A high score means nothing technical is holding your CV back and it speaks the job's language. The rest is the fit, the timing and the people reading it.
Can it fix my CV for me?
The X-Ray lists the top fixes. If you'd rather not make them by hand, the crew rewrites your CV, cover letter, recruiter email and LinkedIn for the job — free for 7 days, and every line is checked against what you've actually done.
See what the crew finds in your CV.
Match score, ATS read-back, missing keywords and the recruiter's six-second skim, for the job you actually want. Your file is deleted after 24 hours.
Run my free X-Ray