Free Resume Keyword Scanner
Paste any job posting and see the exact keywords an applicant tracking system will look for. Add your resume to find out which ones you already cover and which are missing. Free, no signup, and nothing leaves your browser.
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Why keywords decide whether your resume gets seen
When you apply through an online portal, an applicant tracking system parses your resume and ranks it against the job description. The ranking runs heavily on keyword overlap: the skills, tools, and qualifications named in the posting. A qualified candidate whose resume says "built dashboards" can rank below a weaker one whose resume says "Tableau," simply because Tableau is the word the posting used. Recruiters then work the ranked list from the top.
This scanner reads the posting the way the software does. It checks the text against a database of 31,000+ skills with synonym matching, and weights what it finds by where it appears: requirements section first, job title second, preferred qualifications after that. That is why two postings for the same role can produce different keyword lists, and why tailoring per application beats one generic resume.
How to use missing keywords without keyword stuffing
The goal is never to paste the missing list into your resume. It is to recognize which of those terms describe work you have genuinely done, then say that work in the posting's language. Three honest moves cover most cases:
- Rename what you already say: if the posting says "stakeholder management" and your bullet says "worked with department heads," use their phrase.
- Add the tool to the achievement: "Automated reporting" becomes "Automated reporting in Python," if Python is what you used.
- Put exact required phrases in your skills section, and back the important ones with an experience bullet that proves them.
Skip the tricks: white-on-white text, repeating a keyword ten times, or claiming skills you cannot discuss in an interview. Parsers catch most of it and recruiters catch the rest.
Scanner, then checker: the two-step tailoring routine
Keywords are necessary but not sufficient. A resume can match every term and still fail because the file does not parse, the headings are nonstandard, or the dates are missing. So the routine that works is: scan here while you tailor for the specific job, then run the finished file through our free ATS checker for the full diagnostic before you submit. If your resume needs a structural rebuild first, start from an ATS-safe template and bring your content in with the importer. For the deeper theory, read our guide to checking whether a resume is ATS-friendly.