Apply KitATS check
Can an applicant tracking system read your CV?
Drop in any CV PDF and see what an applicant tracking system gets out of it: the text, the order, the contact details, the headings.
- Nothing is uploaded Your PDF is read right here in your browser. It never leaves your computer.
- Result in seconds No queue, no email to wait for. The report appears as soon as the file is read.
- Free, no sign-up No account, no email address. Check as many CVs as you like.
Made by Sven Read, who also built Apply Kit, a free kit for Claude Code that writes a tailored CV and cover letter for every job.
Waiting for a PDF
Your report appears here.
Drop a CV on the left. In a few seconds you get a score from 0 to 100 and eight checks, each with the points it cost.
- Real textIs the text real text, or an image a parser sees as an empty page? up to −100
- Reading orderIs the text stored in the order you read it, or do lines jump between sections? −10 to −35
- Contact detailsAre an email address and a phone number there as text, not in an image or icon? −7 to −30
- Section headingsAre headings like Experience, Education and Skills found? −10
- Letter spacingDo wide-tracked headings break into single letters? −8
- Problem charactersAre there ligatures like “fi” that break keyword search? −8
- LengthHow many pages and words? More than three pages is long. −5
- Document titleIs the PDF’s title your name, or a file name like “CV_final_v3”? Info
How the score reads
90 to 100Reads cleanly
70 to 89Readable, with things to check
0 to 69A parser will likely get this wrong
The score starts at 100; each finding takes off the points shown next to it. A PDF without real text scores 0.
Reading your CV…
On your computer, with pdf.js. Nothing is sent anywhere.
/ 100
The text exactly as the PDF stores it, in that order.
Want CVs that pass, tailored to every job?
Apply Kit writes them from facts you confirmed. Free.
Background
What this check looks at
Is there real text?
A CV exported as an image, or scanned, looks fine to you and empty to a parser. Everything starts with a real text layer.
Reading order
PDFs store text in an order that can differ from what you see. I found this in my own CVs: they looked perfect, but every job title was stored first and every bullet point afterwards. A parser reading in stored order would have put my achievements under the wrong employer. The check flags text that jumps back up the page within a column.
Contact details and headings
Parsers look for an email address, a phone number and section headings like Experience, Education and Skills (or Berufserfahrung, Ausbildung, Kenntnisse). Contact details in an image or an icon font are invisible to them.
Letter-spaced headings and odd characters
Headings set with wide letter spacing can come out as “E X P E R I E N C E”, which a search for “Experience” misses. Ligatures such as “fi” are a single character, so “finance” no longer matches “finance”.
Questions
How the check works
Is my CV uploaded anywhere?
No. The check runs in your browser. Your PDF is read on your own computer and never sent to a server, including ours. You can switch off your internet connection after the page has loaded and it still works.
Which applicant tracking systems does this simulate?
None in particular, and no tool honestly can: every system has its own parser and they don’t publish how they work. This check shows what a parser gets when it reads the text the way a PDF stores it, which is how many text extractors work. If your CV reads cleanly here, you have removed the most common technical reasons a parser gets it wrong.
What does “reading order” mean?
A PDF stores its text in some order, which isn’t always the order you see on the page. If the order jumps, for example all job titles first and all bullet points afterwards, a parser that reads in stored order can put your achievements under the wrong job. You can’t see this by looking at the PDF.
My CV passed. Does that mean every system will read it correctly?
It means the text is there, in order, with findable contact details and headings. That covers the technical basics. Whether a recruiter or a ranking system likes the content is a different question.
Should I send a PDF or a Word file?
Send what the job ad asks for. A PDF with real text, like one that passes this check, is read well by most systems and looks the same everywhere.