Free CV checker

A CV checker that knows a CV is not a resume.

Drop your CV and get the read a recruiter's software gives it: a parse score out of 100 from weighted checks computed in code, and a written review of what the document actually says. It handles what CVs carry and American templates do not expect, including Commonwealth spelling, a personal-details block, and a second page. Free, about a minute, no account.

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What changes

Four things a CV carries that this does not punish.

Each one is a specific instruction the checker works under rather than a line of positioning, and each is something a document written to a US template would never have to survive.

Commonwealth spelling is correct

Organised, programme, centre, behaviour, colour, labour, optimise, specialise, enrolment, catalogue. The spelling pass is explicitly told these are not errors, so your CV is not handed back with a list of accusations about words you spelled properly.

Personal details are read, not discarded

Date of birth, nationality, marital status, passport number, gender. CVs in India and the Gulf routinely carry them. They are transcribed exactly as written and considered, instead of being silently dropped before anyone looks at the document.

Two pages is not automatically a fault

The length check allows two pages for most people and three when the document reads as senior or leadership, and it works that out from the CV itself rather than asking you first.

The market you are aiming at is part of the verdict

The review says in plain terms how the document reads to a recruiter in the market it is aimed at, which is the question behind most CV rewrites and the one a score on its own never answers.

The parse score

The same 100 points. CV templates lose them differently.

Applicant tracking systems do not care what you call the file, so the weights are identical. What differs is which checks a CV usually fails, because CV templates are drawn to look like documents rather than to be read by software.

The two-column CV is the expensive one. A sidebar for skills and languages beside a main column of roles is a shape most CV templates reach for, and single-column layout is the single heaviest check in the whole rubric. A parser reading across the page can interleave your skills into the middle of a job description.

After that: contact details set inside the page header, which is why contact in the body carries its own check; skills laid out in a table or a grid of rating bars, which is what the no-content-tables check is about; and a photo with your name set as part of it, which costs you the text-in-images check and the name check together.

Those four together are worth roughly a third of the score, and none of them are about your career. The full list, with the points each check carries, is published on the ATS resume checker.

The honest limit

An academic CV is a different document.

If yours is the long-form academic kind, with a publication list, conference talks, grants and teaching history, read the result with one correction in mind.

The length check is built for the hiring market, where two pages is the working ceiling. An academic CV is supposed to be long, so that check will mark it down and you should ignore that specific deduction. Everything else still applies: a parser reads an academic CV exactly as badly as it reads anything else when the layout is in two columns or the contact details are in the header.

Every other check is about whether your document survives being read by software and by a person in a hurry, and neither of those is more forgiving in a university department than in a company.

Questions

Common questions.

What is the difference between a CV and a resume here?

For the checker, very little in the mechanics and quite a lot in the tolerances. The parse checks are the same because applicant tracking systems are the same. What changes is that Commonwealth spelling is treated as correct, personal-detail blocks are read rather than treated as clutter, and a second page is normal rather than a fault.

Is the CV checker free?

Yes, and the whole result is free. There is no locked section, no report emailed after a payment, and no account to make before you can use it.

Will it tell me to remove my photo or my date of birth?

It reads what is there and tells you how the document lands in the market you are aiming at. It does not apply a blanket rule, because the right answer genuinely differs between the Gulf, the UK and India.

Does it work on a Word CV?

Yes. Word and PDF are both accepted. A Word file has no visible page for the layout checks to look at, so those are marked as not assessed and the score is recalculated over the checks that could be observed.

I am applying from India to another country. Does that change anything?

That is the case this was built around. The review states how your document reads to a recruiter in the market it is aimed at, and the feedback itself is written in plain English so nothing in it needs a second read.

The same engine, asked differently