What an ATS is when you apply for a job

The cabinet, not the grade

When a company says they use an ATS, they mean software that stores applications. Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, SuccessFactors, and smaller tools used by Indonesian employers do not share one formula. A recruiter can search the text. Some setups reject a missing answer on a form. Many never show the applicant a number at all. The number you see on a resume website is that website's number.

So "ATS" on JobHoot is the name of that software, not the name of a score. Resume Score is the free PDF reading at `/resume-score/`, with Parse Rate for how much text came out. Job Match Score is the signed-in comparison to one vacancy. People still search "ATS score." The title can meet them. The glossary at `/glossary/` is where the four names are anchored, so a sentence does not slide back into one nickname.

You do not need to know which vendor a company bought in order to send a file with real text, standard headings, and the ad's words next to true work. That file is readable in more than one cabinet. A designed image is readable in none of them. If a service tells you their score is the employer's score, they are guessing a machine they do not operate.

Make the text selectable

Put your name in the body of the document, not only in a colored header. Use one column. Headings a person would say out loud are enough: Experience, Education, Skills. Each role is a block with the employer, the title, and dates as text, then bullets. Do not build the layout from tables, text boxes, or a row of software logos. Word can do this. A poster app usually cannot.

Export a PDF and try to drag across one bullet. If the highlight skips, the words are still a picture. Upload that PDF to the free check at `/resume-score/`. Parse Rate is the share that came out as clean text. It is a JobHoot heuristic, not a reading from any employer's ATS. Resume Score on the same page is about the document, with no account and no job ad. If Parse Rate is low, fix the file and upload again before you think about keywords.

Then match one posting, if you have one

Job Match Score needs a sign-in and one vacancy. It lives at `/ats-checker/`, which is not in the sitemap. It asks whether this file uses that ad's words next to work you did. It does not average itself with Resume Score into a single ATS score. The marketing line can still say ATS score, because that is the search. The result page should not.

A token costs Rp 250 when an AI write succeeds. A new account gets 50 tokens once. The guest score does not spend them. The smallest purchase later is 100 tokens, Rp 25.000. Do not spend one to invent an employer, a degree, or a date. If the ad wants a license you do not hold, leave the gap.

What to send

Send the PDF whose text you could copy. Keep the designed poster for a human who asked for a visual, and even then keep a text version. Switching templates inside JobHoot does not delete the lines you typed, and the export stays text. A PNG downloaded from a gallery is not a template you can be searched through.

What changes in your file, and what does not

You will not get a tour of the company's ATS. You will get a stored file and, sometimes, a search. Write as if someone will type three words from the ad into a box next week. Those three words should already be attached to a role you held. Everything else people add out of fear — a wall of synonyms, a white-font keyword list, a fake employment gap closure — is a trick aimed at a scoreboard the employer may not use. It is also the sort of trick that fails when a person opens the PDF.

If you want a number anyway, use one that names itself. Resume Score for the file. Parse Rate for the extract. Job Match Score for one ad you paste. Bring questions about "the ATS score" back to those three before you pay any tool, including this one, to move a number that was never defined.

You can apply without ever learning the vendor's name. You cannot apply well with a file that has no text layer.

Skip the vendor's brand. Send text, headings, and the ad's words beside work you did. A white-font keyword list is aimed at a scoreboard the employer may not have, and a person will still see it.

Learn the cabinet exists. Do not learn a fake score that claims to be the cabinet.