The Technical ATS
& Career Glossary

The practice of including both the acronym and the fully spelled-out version of a key term so an ATS recognizes a match regardless of which form the job description uses.

A resume tool that uses artificial intelligence to generate, tailor, and optimize resume content — as opposed to simply providing templates for users to fill in manually.

Software employers use to collect, store, search, and rank job applications and to track candidates through hiring.

Screening criteria an employer configures, such as knockout questions or required qualifications, that can set aside applications before a recruiter reviews them.

A tool you run yourself that scans your resume, usually against a job description, and reports an estimated match score and the issues behind it.

An estimated rating of how well your resume matches a specific job description, usually produced by a resume checker rather than assigned by an employer's ATS.

A resume layout and structure designed to be correctly parsed and searched by Applicant Tracking Systems.

A deliberate transition from one professional field, industry, or role type to a meaningfully different one — requiring the job seeker to reframe existing experience through the lens of the target industry.

ReframeCV's intelligent form system that adapts resume input fields based on the detected job category — asking developers for GitHub links and tech stack, designers for portfolio URLs, and so on.

A resume format that leads with a skills or competencies section, then reverse-chronological work history — includes a free copy-paste template below.

How closely your work history, seniority level, and accomplishments map to what a specific job description is asking for.

A resume-building method where the job description drives the content — rather than filling in a blank template.

A way of comparing the language in your resume with the terms in a job description, used by many ATS searches and resume checkers and often based on exact words.

The practice of forcing keywords into a resume unnaturally, in an attempt to game ATS matching and resume checkers — which tends to backfire with both software and human readers.

The percentage of your resume that an ATS can successfully read and convert into structured data.

The practice of crafting precise, structured instructions for an AI model to produce a specific, high-quality output — a skill that heavily influences results when using general-purpose AI for tasks like resume writing.

An online tool that helps you create and format a resume using templates and guided sections; the content is still written by you.

The document type you save your resume as — such as .docx or .pdf — which determines whether an ATS can extract any text from it at all.

The process by which an ATS extracts and structures the information from your resume file.

The process of customizing your resume's content and language to match a specific job description, rather than submitting a generic document.

A resume layout using one continuous column of content — generally the safest format for ATS parsing.

A comparison between the skills a job description requires and the skills your resume demonstrates, used to surface what's missing before you apply.

A structured exercise that audits your existing competencies and matches them to the requirements of a target role or industry — the first step in building a career change resume.

A structured format (Situation, Task, Action, Result) for writing resume bullet points that demonstrate measurable impact.

The combination of programming languages, frameworks, tools, and infrastructure a developer uses — and how listing it on a resume affects ATS scoring.

Competencies and abilities that carry value across different jobs, industries, and career paths — regardless of where they were originally developed.