Career guides
How to get read by a person, not filtered by a parser
Practical guides to getting past the parser and in front of a person: what each format expects, what recruiters actually scan for, and which conventions change by country.
8 min
AI in hiring: what you are entitled to know
Five places now require an employer to tell you when software is screening your application, or let you contest a decision it made. Three more have rules that have not started yet. Here is what is actually in force, where, and what you can ask for.
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Most read this week
01
Where the 75% ATS rejection number came from
ATS & Resume Tips · 6 min
02
Australia: a transparency rule that has not started yet
ATS & Resume Tips · 5 min
03
California: rules aimed at the employer, not a notice to you
ATS & Resume Tips · 5 min
04
Colorado: the AI law you have read about never took effect
ATS & Resume Tips · 5 min
05
European Union: recruitment is high risk, from 2027
ATS & Resume Tips · 5 min
Start here
If you only do three things
01
Get the format right
One column, real section headings, no tables or graphics. This decides whether a parser reads you at all.
Start here
02
Score what you have
See how your resume parses and where it thins out, before you spend an evening rewriting the wrong section.
First analysis free
03
Rewrite the weak bullets
Strong verb, real number, one outcome. Most resumes lose more here than anywhere else.
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Everything we have written
Where the 75% ATS rejection number came from
The most repeated statistic in resume advice has no study behind it. Here is the paper trail: a 2012 sales pitch from a company that closed the following year, and what the research actually shows instead.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
Australia: a transparency rule that has not started yet
From December 2026, an organisation using automated decision making that significantly affects you must say so in its privacy policy. It is a policy disclosure rather than a notice to you, and it is not in force yet.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
California: rules aimed at the employer, not a notice to you
California's FEHA regulations have covered automated decision systems in employment since October 2025. They are strong on bias testing and record keeping, and they do not give you a right to be notified.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
Colorado: the AI law you have read about never took effect
SB 24-205 was described everywhere as the first comprehensive US AI act. It was repealed before it ever applied. Its replacement does not start until 2027 and its enforcement is currently stayed by a federal court.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
European Union: recruitment is high risk, from 2027
The AI Act classifies CV screening and candidate ranking as high risk, with substantial obligations on the employers and vendors using them. Those obligations were postponed and now start in December 2027.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
Illinois: you must be told when AI is used on your application
Since January 2026 an Illinois employer has to notify you when artificial intelligence is used in a hiring, promotion or other employment decision, and may not use your zip code as a stand-in for a protected characteristic.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
Knockout questions: the filter that actually rejects you
People blame resume parsing for automatic rejections. The thing that genuinely ends an application on its own is a knockout question, and it sits in the form rather than in your resume.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
New York City: what Local Law 144 entitles you to
If an automated tool screens you for a job or a promotion in New York City, the employer must tell you, must publish a bias audit of the tool, and must let you ask for a different process.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
Ontario: the disclosure has to be in the job posting
Since January 2026, an Ontario employer with 25 or more employees must say in any publicly advertised job posting whether AI is used to screen, assess or select applicants. It is the only one of these rules that reaches you before you apply.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
United Kingdom: your right to challenge a solely automated decision
Since February 2026, a significant decision taken about you with no meaningful human involvement carries a right to be told, to make representations, to get human intervention and to contest it. It is data protection law, not employment law, and it applies to hiring anyway.
Updated Aug 15, 2026
What an ATS actually does with your resume, and what it does not (2026)
Most resumes are not rejected because a recruiter did not like them. They are rejected because an applicant tracking system could not read them correctly. Here is what published research on ATS parsing, recruiter behavior, and hiring data actually shows, and how to fix it in 2026.
Updated Jul 4, 2026
Beyond reading
Check a guide against your own resume
The guides explain what good looks like. The checker tells you where yours differs, section by section, with the specific lines named.
Check your resume free
A sample resume in the real checker. The 82 and the sub-scores are what the scorer returns for it.
Our ATS score is an estimate from our own model, not a result from any employer's applicant tracking system. Figures in these guides come from named public sources, shown beside the number. Where we are estimating rather than measuring, we say so. How scoring works.