7 Ways to Improve Your ATS Score Before You Apply

You have run your CV through an ATS checker and your score is not where it needs to be. Before applying, here are seven targeted changes that will improve your match score efficiently.

1. Update Your Skills Section

The skills section is the fastest single place to add keywords. If the job description mentions tools, technologies, or competencies that you genuinely have but that are not on your current CV, add them here. This takes two minutes and can shift your score significantly.

Focus on hard skills — specific tools, software, certifications, and technical methodologies — rather than generic soft skills. ATS systems weight hard skill keywords more heavily.

2. Rewrite Your Personal Statement

Your personal statement is read early and weighted by ATS. Include the job title (or close equivalent) and the two or three most important competencies from the job description. This is a high-visibility area for both ATS and human reviewers.

A targeted personal statement update takes five to ten minutes and improves both your ATS score and your first impression on the recruiter.

3. Add Missing Qualifications Explicitly

If the job requires a specific qualification that you have but have not listed explicitly, add it. ATS systems look for exact strings — if "CIMA qualified" or "Prince2 Practitioner" is in the job description and not in your CV, that is a gap you can close immediately.

4. Mirror the Exact Language of the Job Description

ATS systems often match exact phrases rather than synonyms. If the job description says "financial modelling" and your CV says "financial analysis," they may not match. Where the job description uses specific phrasing that accurately describes your experience, use that exact phrasing.

5. Check Your Section Headings

ATS systems look for content under expected section headings. If your experience section is labelled "Career History" instead of "Work Experience," the ATS may not recognise it. Rename your sections to use standard headings: Work Experience, Education, Skills, Professional Summary.

6. Spell Out Acronyms (and Include Both Forms)

Include both the acronym and the full term for key qualifications and tools. "Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)" covers both. "Amazon Web Services (AWS)" covers both. This way, whether the ATS searches for the full term or the abbreviation, your CV is a match.

7. Remove Formatting That Breaks Parsing

If your CV uses tables, columns, or headers/footers, your score may be artificially depressed because content is not being parsed correctly. Simplify your formatting and re-run the check. A formatting fix can reveal that your keyword match is actually much better than your score suggested.

After Making Changes, Check Again

Run your CV through the ATS checker again after making changes to verify the improvement. CVCircuit's free checker lets you run as many checks as you need.

Check your ATS score free at CVCircuit.