ATSGrader checks a resume in the visitor's browser and records only a coarse result for each scan: a score band, whether a job post was supplied, the engine version, and the ids of the published rules that fired. No resume text, keywords or exact scores are stored. This page summarises those anonymous results for 13 August 2026 to 5 November 2026. Everything below is a count of rule flags, not a measure of what employers do.
Key findings
- 614 browser sessions scanned a real resume in the window; each session counts once.
- 44% of scans were flagged "No LinkedIn URL", the most common flag about the resume itself.
- 43% of scans were flagged "Few bullets contain numbers".
- 61% of scans landed in the 70-84 or 85-100 score bands.
- 31% of scans included a job post; the other 425 sessions were scored without one.
Most common problems
Each row is a rule from ATSGrader's published checks. The percentage is the share of the 614 scans in which that rule fired; a scan can trigger several rules, so the rows do not add up to one hundred. Rules seen in fewer sessions than the reporting minimum are left out as noise.
| Rule flag | Share of scans | Scans | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|---|
| No LinkedIn URL | 44% | 271 | - |
| Few bullets contain numbers | 43% | 262 | Quantify resume achievements |
| No professional summary | 37% | 227 | Resume summary examples |
| Many bullets don't open with a strong action verb | 35% | 215 | Resume action verbs |
| Heavy use of ALL-CAPS lines | 32% | 199 | - |
| No "Skills" section header detected | 27% | 164 | Skills to put on a resume |
| No bullet points detected | 26% | 159 | ATS-friendly resume format |
| No "Education" section header detected | 18% | 112 | ATS resume template |
| No "Experience" section header detected | 16% | 101 | ATS resume template |
| Weak bullet opener | 13% | 82 | Resume action verbs |
| Clichés found | 10% | 62 | - |
| First-person pronouns used | 9% | 58 | - |
| No phone number found | 8% | 49 | ATS resume checklist |
| Resume is long | 8% | 47 | Resume length for ATS |
| Resume is thin | 7% | 42 | Resume length for ATS |
| No email address found | 5% | 31 | ATS resume checklist |
| Bullets run too long | 5% | 31 | - |
| Passive voice detected | 3% | 18 | - |
| Date of birth included | 2% | 10 | ATS CV checker |
"No LinkedIn URL", "No professional summary" and the other structure flags are rule checks: they say the checker did not find the item in the resume text it read, whether pasted or extracted from an uploaded file. They do not say an employer rejected anyone for it. The separate "No job description provided" flag describes the scan input rather than the resume, so it is not ranked here.
"High-priority keywords from the job post missing" can only fire when a job post is supplied, so it is measured on those 189 scans: it was flagged in 81% of them (153 scans). See Tailor a resume to a job description.
Score distribution
The score is a 0 to 100 estimate from ATSGrader's own rules. Only the band is stored, never the exact number.
| Score band | Scans | Share of all scans | With a job post | Without a job post |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0-49 | 26 | 4% | 7 (4%) | 19 (4%) |
| 50-69 | 212 | 35% | 60 (32%) | 152 (36%) |
| 70-84 | 310 | 50% | 103 (54%) | 207 (49%) |
| 85-100 | 66 | 11% | 19 (10%) | 47 (11%) |
The last two columns are shares within their own group: 189 scans included a job post and 425 did not.
What the job post changes
Pasting a job post adds a keyword-match category to the score. With a post, keywords carry 30% of the score and the other categories are re-weighted; without one, the keyword category is left out. Because the two groups are scored on different formulas, their bands are not directly comparable, and the table does not show that a job post raises or lowers a score. The people who paste a post may also differ from those who do not, for example by being further along in an application. Read the two columns side by side, not as cause and effect.
Methodology
- Unit of observation: one browser session's first real scan. The same person can appear more than once across sessions or devices.
- Who is counted: 614 sessions between 13 August 2026 and 5 November 2026. Visitors chose to use a free checker; they are not a random sample of job seekers.
- Excluded: the built-in sample and demo scans, and 146 scans started on a non-English page of the site. Several rules (section headings, action verbs, pronouns) are tuned for English, so mixing other languages in would count "the rule could not read this language" as a missing item.
- Stored per scan: a coarse score band, whether a job post was supplied, the engine version and the ids of the rules that fired. Nothing about the resume text is kept.
- Engine versions in the window: 3, listed below. The current engine is version 2026.10.06.1; see the scoring methodology for how scores are built.
- Counts and rounding: counts are exact; percentages are rounded to whole numbers.
| Engine version | First scan | Last scan | Scans |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026.08.13.1 | 13 August 2026 | 3 September 2026 | 116 |
| 2026.09.02.1 | 3 September 2026 | 6 October 2026 | 273 |
| 2026.10.06.1 | 6 October 2026 | 5 November 2026 | 225 |
Limitations
- This is not a random sample; it describes people who chose to try a free resume checker.
- There are no hiring outcomes. A rule flag does not mean a resume was rejected, and the absence of a flag does not mean it would be accepted.
- Text is read as extracted. A LinkedIn address that exists only behind a hyperlink in a PDF, not as visible text, is not seen, so "No LinkedIn URL" can overstate how many resumes truly lack one.
- The study covers scans started on English pages; a page's language approximates, but does not guarantee, the resume's language.
- Rules changed between engine versions, so a share can move because a rule changed, not because resumes did.
- Automated or repeated traffic may be included; it is not filtered out.
- Percentages are rounded, and rules seen in only a few sessions are omitted.
How to cite
Suggested citation:
ATSGrader Editorial Team. "What 614 Resume Scans Show: The Most Common Resume Problems (2026 Data)". ATSGrader, data last updated 5 November 2026. https://atsgrader.com/guides/resume-scan-statistics
Canonical URL: https://atsgrader.com/guides/resume-scan-statistics. Data last updated 5 November 2026. The numbers on this page are also available as machine-readable JSON.