DEV Community: Maksym Shykov

PDF or DOCX for an ATS: Which Should You Send?

Maksym Shykov — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:47:05 +0000

Send a PDF, unless the application form asks for something else. The reasoning, the one PDF that will fail every time, and what to do when the employer names a format.

Short answer

Send a text-based PDF unless the application asks for another format — then send exactly what it asks for. The only PDF that reliably fails is one with no real text in it, such as a scan or an export with outlined fonts, and you can test for that in seconds.

The longer answer is worth two minutes, because the usual advice (“always use Word, ATS cannot read PDFs”) is a decade out of date.

Why PDF is the default now

It looks the same everywhere. A DOCX re-flows depending on the fonts and Word version at the other end. Your careful two-page layout can arrive as three ragged pages.
Modern parsers handle it. PDF text extraction is a solved problem; the major systems have supported it for years.
It is harder to mangle. Nobody accidentally edits your PDF between upload and review.

The one PDF that fails every time

A PDF is a container. It can hold real text, or it can hold a picture of text. If you exported from a design tool with the text outlined, or scanned a printout, or screenshotted your CV and saved it as a PDF, then the file contains no text at all. A parser reads it as a blank document.

The test takes three seconds: open the PDF and try to select a line of text with your cursor. If you cannot highlight it, neither can the ATS.

A 30-second test for any PDF

Selecting text proves the text exists. Two more steps show whether it comes out usable:

Select a line. If nothing highlights, the page is an image. Re-export from the original document.
Search for your email with Ctrl F / ⌘ F. If the viewer cannot find it, a parser will not either — often because it lives in a header, an image, or a text box.
Select all, copy, and paste into a plain-text editor (Notepad, or TextEdit in plain-text mode). What you see is close to what a parser receives. If two columns come out interleaved line by line, or your job titles appear far from their dates, fix the layout before you worry about anything else.

Exporting from Word, Google Docs or Pages with their normal Download as PDF or Export to PDF produces text-based PDFs. The risky routes are “print to image”, scanning, and design tools with an option to convert text to outlines.

When DOCX is the right answer

The form says so. If the upload field lists .doc/.docx only, that is the answer. Do not out-clever the form.
A recruiter asked for it. Agencies often re-brand your CV onto their template, which needs an editable file.
The employer runs an older system. Rare now, but harmless to comply with.

Things that matter more than the extension

Format is the easiest decision you will make about your CV. These are the ones that actually move the needle:

One column. Multi-column layouts can be read in the wrong order, interleaving two unrelated lines.
No text inside images. A logo is fine; your job title rendered as a graphic is not.
No critical detail in the header or footer. Some parsers skip those regions. Put your email in the body.
Real bullet characters, not manually drawn dashes inside a table cell.
A sensible filename — Firstname_Lastname_CV.pdf. A human sees it in a folder of hundreds.

Not sure which category your file falls into? Drop it on the free CV score checker — it reads both PDF and DOCX in your browser and tells you straight away whether there is extractable text, how many pages a parser sees, and which sections it managed to identify.

Frequently asked questions

Can an ATS read a PDF resume?

Yes, as long as the PDF contains real text. Modern applicant tracking systems extract text from PDFs routinely. A scanned or image-only PDF has no text to extract and reads as blank.

Should I send .doc or .docx?

Prefer .docx, the current Word format, unless the employer specifically asks for .doc. Better still, send a text-based PDF unless the form limits you to Word files.

How do I know if my PDF is text-based?

Open it and try to highlight a line with your cursor, then search for your email address. If you can select text and the search finds your email, the PDF is text-based.

Originally published at cv.shykov.dev. The checker mentioned here is free, open source and runs entirely in your browser: cv.shykov.dev.

ATS Resume Checkers That Do Not Upload Your CV

Maksym Shykov — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:17:26 +0000

Most resume checkers require you to upload your CV and hand over an email address. Here is what happens to the file, why it matters while you are still employed, and how a local-only check differs.

Short answer

A browser can read and score a PDF or DOCX without sending it anywhere, so an upload is a design choice, not a technical necessity. You can verify a checker yourself in under a minute: open the browser’s Network panel, drop your CV in, and look for a request that carries the file.

A CV is one of the most sensitive documents most people own. It carries your full name, your personal email, your phone number, your home city, and a complete timeline of who has employed you. Handing it to a website is a bigger decision than it feels like.

It matters most in the situation people are usually in when they reach for a resume checker: job hunting while still employed. At that point the document is not just personal data, it is evidence of intent.

What “upload your resume” usually means

When a tool asks you to upload, the file leaves your device and lands on a server. From there, some combination of the following is normal and often disclosed in the terms:

The file is stored, sometimes indefinitely, and tied to the account you created.
The text is sent to a third-party language model for scoring or rewriting.
The email you registered with enters a marketing sequence.
Aggregate data feeds a recruiting product sold to employers.

None of that is necessarily malicious. It is simply the business model: the check is free because you and your document are the product. But it is worth knowing before you click, rather than after.

The questions worth asking of any checker

Does the file leave the device? If there is no upload, most other questions stop mattering.
Is an account required? An email wall exists to capture the email, not to improve the score.
Is scoring deterministic or generated? If a model writes the feedback, your CV was sent to that model.
Can you read the rules? A published rubric can be argued with. A hidden one cannot.
What is the deletion path? If the answer is a support email, assume the file stays.

How a local-only check works

Modern browsers can read a PDF or DOCX without any server involved. The file is opened into memory, the text is extracted by a JavaScript library, the checks run over that text, and the result is rendered — all inside the tab you already have open. Close the tab and the document is gone.

The trade-off is real and worth stating: a local checker cannot compare you against a database of other candidates, and it cannot rewrite your bullets for you. What it can do is tell you whether a parser will read the document correctly, and which specific lines are weak — which is the part that actually affects whether your application arrives intact.

How to check that a checker really does not upload

“We never store your file” is a promise. Whether the file leaves your machine at all is something you can watch happen — or not happen — in any desktop browser:

Open the checker, then open the browser’s developer tools: F12 on Windows and Linux, ⌥ ⌘ I on a Mac.
Switch to the Network tab and clear it, so only new requests show.
Drop your CV into the checker and wait for the result.
Look through the new requests. An upload is a POST or PUT whose request size is roughly the size of your file. Scripts and fonts the page loads for itself are not uploads.

If no request carries the file, the file did not leave. This works on any site, including the one I built — which is the point: the claim should be checkable by you, not taken on trust.

My tool adds a second, browser-enforced guarantee. Its Content-Security-Policy header sets connect-src 'self' data: blob:, which means the browser itself refuses any network connection to another domain, and the one domain it may talk to serves static files only — there is no endpoint to receive a CV.

That is the local kind of checker. The free CV score checker parses your PDF or DOCX in the browser with pdf.js and mammoth, scores it with fixed rules, and has no backend that could receive a file. It is MIT licensed, so the claim is checkable rather than promised.

Frequently asked questions

Is it safe to upload my resume to an online resume checker?

It depends on what happens to the file, which is usually described only in the terms. Uploaded CVs are commonly stored, tied to an account, and sometimes sent to third-party language models. If you are job hunting while employed, prefer a checker that never receives the file.

How can a website read my CV without uploading it?

Browsers can open a file you select into the page’s own memory. JavaScript libraries such as pdf.js and mammoth then extract the text, and the checks run on your device. Nothing needs a server.

How do I know a resume checker is not uploading my file?

Open the browser’s developer tools, go to the Network tab, clear it, then drop your CV in. An upload typically shows up as a POST or PUT request roughly the size of your file. If there is none, the file stayed on your device.

Originally published at cv.shykov.dev. The checker mentioned here is free, open source and runs entirely in your browser: cv.shykov.dev.

What Is an ATS Score, and What Does It Actually Measure?

Maksym Shykov — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:16:16 +0000

An ATS score measures how cleanly a machine can read your CV — not how good a candidate you are. Here is what the number covers, what it cannot see, and the myth to ignore.

Short answer

An ATS score estimates how cleanly applicant tracking software can pull your text, contact details, sections and dates out of your CV. It says nothing about whether you fit the job. Above roughly 85, nothing important is getting lost — spend the time on the content instead.

An applicant tracking system is the software an employer uses to receive, store and search applications. Before a recruiter reads your CV, the system parses it: it pulls out your name, your contact details, your job titles, your dates and your skills, and writes them into database fields. An ATS score is an estimate of how well that step will go.

That is a narrower claim than it sounds, and the narrowness is the point. The score does not know whether you are right for the job. It measures one thing: whether the document survives being read by a machine.

The myth worth dropping first

You have probably read that “75% of resumes are rejected by an ATS before a human sees them.” That figure has been repeated for over a decade and has no credible source behind it. Applicant tracking systems are search and storage tools. They rank and filter on criteria a recruiter sets; they do not autonomously bin three quarters of applicants.

The real risk is duller and more fixable. If a parser cannot find your email, your application arrives with an empty contact field. If it cannot read your job titles, you do not appear in the recruiter's search for “engineering manager”. Nobody rejected you — you were never in the result set.

What a score can reasonably measure

Every honest ATS score is a heuristic built from a handful of checks. On this site the rubric is fixed at 100 points and published, so you can see exactly where each point comes from. In five groups:

Parseability (25) — is there real, selectable text, or is the page an image?
Contact details (15) — email, phone, and a link written out as visible text.
Sections (35) — headings a parser recognises: Experience, Education, Skills, Summary.
Format (15) — page count, dated roles, real bullet structure.
Content (10) — quantified impact and verb-led bullets.

And check by check — this table is the one the scorer runs, not a summary of it:

Check	Group	Points
Machine-readable text	Parseability	15
Clean text encoding	Parseability	10
Email address	Contact	5
Phone number	Contact	5
LinkedIn / website link	Contact	5
Experience	Sections	8
Education	Sections	6
Skills	Sections	6
Summary	Sections	5
Achievements / Projects / Certifications	Sections	10
Page count	Format	5
Dated history	Format	5
Bulleted structure	Format	5
Quantified impact	Content	5
Strong action verbs	Content	5

Two details are easy to miss. A missing phone number or summary only costs its own points — they are warnings, not failures — while a missing Experience, Education or Skills heading fails outright. And the last Sections row is a bonus: an Achievements heading is worth 4, Projects 3, Certifications 3.

Sections carry the most weight because they are what turns a wall of text into structured data. A parser that finds a heading called “Experience” knows the entries beneath it are jobs. Without it, it is guessing.

What no score can measure

Whether your experience matches the role. That is the recruiter's judgement.
Which specific ATS the employer runs. Vendors parse differently, and none publish their rules.
Whether your writing is persuasive. A perfectly parseable CV can still be dull.

Treat a score above roughly 85 as “nothing here will get lost in transit” and move on to the content. Chasing the last few points is almost always wasted effort.

Why two checkers give you two different scores

There is no standard ATS score. Each checker invents its own rubric, weights it however it likes, and — usually — does not tell you what it is. A 62 on one site and an 81 on another are not a contradiction; they are two different tests. The useful question is never “which number is right” but “which specific check failed, and do I agree it matters?” That is only answerable when the rules are published.

Check yours in a few seconds. The free CV score checker scores a PDF or DOCX entirely inside your browser — the file is never uploaded, there is no account, and no language model is involved. You can read the exact scoring rules in the public source.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good ATS score?

On this checker, 85 or above means a parser will read the document cleanly and nothing important is lost. 70 to 84 is good with a few specific fixes left. 50 to 69 needs work, usually a missing section heading or contact detail. Below 50 something structural is wrong, most often text the parser cannot extract.

Do employers see my ATS score?

Not a score from a checker like this one. It is computed on your device and sent nowhere. The employer’s own system may rank applications against the job, but that ranking uses its rules and the recruiter’s search terms, not any third-party score.

Why does my CV get a different score on every checker?

Because there is no standard. Each checker defines its own checks and weights. Compare the individual checks that failed rather than the headline numbers.

Is it true that 75% of resumes are rejected by an ATS?

That figure has circulated for over a decade without a credible source. Applicant tracking systems store and search applications; recruiters set the filters. The real risk is a CV the parser misreads, which then fails to appear in a recruiter’s search.

Originally published at cv.shykov.dev. The checker mentioned here is free, open source and runs entirely in your browser: cv.shykov.dev.

DEV Community: Maksym Shykov

PDF or DOCX for an ATS: Which Should You Send?

Short answer

Why PDF is the default now

The one PDF that fails every time

A 30-second test for any PDF

When DOCX is the right answer

Things that matter more than the extension

Related

Frequently asked questions

ATS Resume Checkers That Do Not Upload Your CV

Short answer

What “upload your resume” usually means

The questions worth asking of any checker

How a local-only check works

How to check that a checker really does not upload

Related

Frequently asked questions

What Is an ATS Score, and What Does It Actually Measure?

Short answer

The myth worth dropping first

What a score can reasonably measure

What no score can measure

Why two checkers give you two different scores

Related

Frequently asked questions