Ashby Resume Check: Parsing and Application Guidance

Ashby’s application-form documentation gives two numbers for resumes. The maximum resume upload is 50MB, but a resume must be 16MB or smaller to be processed for full-text search and for auto-filling application fields. A resume question uploads a single file and can appear only once on a form. Other file-upload questions accept PDF, DOC, DOCX, JPG, JPEG, PNG, and common video formats such as MP4 up to 50MB. Executables and certain text formats such as .md are not supported, and Ashby suggests converting those to PDF. Ashby also lists Enhanced Resume Parsing as an opt-in feature that applies only to resumes added after an admin turns it on.

Employers build the form from question types including short answer, multiple choice, checkboxes, Yes/No, number, URL, location, education history, file, and resume. Any of them can be required, and some can be private: candidates answer them, but only organization admins and users with elevated access can read the responses.

Auto-reject rules run once, when the application is submitted, and only on new applications. Conditions on multiple-choice questions can test equals, is empty, or is not empty. Conditions on text questions can test contains, starts with, ends with, or similar to, a fuzzy match that Ashby’s example uses to match “local” against “localization.” Conditions combine with And, Or, and Not, and can be nested. Rules run in the order listed, and once one rejects an application the later ones are skipped. A rejection email can use a template and be delayed by a set number of business days, and recruiters can list auto-rejected candidates with a filter. Applications submitted through an application request link are not checked.

Separately, AI-assisted application review lets recruiters define criteria in job settings. For each criterion the AI looks for evidence in the resume and returns Meets or Does not Meet with a rationale and citations. If it can’t decide, the criterion is marked unknown, and an unreadable resume is marked skipped. Ashby’s page describes no overall score or ranking and says the reviewer, not the AI, advances or rejects. It also says resumes are redacted for personal information before reaching the model, that applicants can be given disclosures and can opt out, and that admins opt in to each AI feature separately.

Ashby’s candidate search includes a Full Text Resume Search filter with four match modes. Matches finds resumes that contain all the words in any order and is case-insensitive. Contains finds the exact phrase in order. Equals needs the exact phrase with the same capitalization. Similar finds word variations, so “localization” may also match “localized.” OR, AND, and NOT have symbol forms (| or a comma, & or +, and !), quotation marks keep a multi-word term together, an asterisk matches part of a word, and parentheses group sub-queries.

Practical reading, ours and not an Ashby statement: Contains needs your phrase exactly as typed and in order, while Matches needs only the words. A posting’s term, such as revenue operations, is found by both when written in full. Write the full phrase once, in a sentence that says what you did.