How a scan works

A scan compares one resume against one job posting and returns a match score out of 100. It runs while you wait, and it usually takes a few seconds.

There is no queue and nothing to come back for, because the scan finishes before the report page does. By the time the page has loaded, your result is already on it.

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What a scan needs from you

A scan needs two things from you, and neither of them takes long to supply.

• A resume, either one you have already added to SkillSyncer or resume text you paste in.
• The job posting, which means the job title and the job description at minimum. The company name is optional.

Use the exact job title from the posting rather than a tidied-up version of it, because the job title is scored separately from everything else in the report.

What happens when you press Create Scan

1. We read the job description and pull out every keyword we recognize in it, sorting them into hard skills, soft skills, and other keywords.
2. We count how often the posting asks for each one, because that count is what your own count gets measured against.
3. We search your resume for those same keywords and count them there too.
4. Those two sets of counts, together with your job title and your highest degree, produce the match score.

Step 1 is the part worth understanding, because it explains most of what you see later: only keywords the job description actually contains ever reach your report. A skill sitting on your resume that this posting never mentions is not counted against you, and it will not appear anywhere in the scan. Every scan is measured against one posting rather than against your resume in general, which is why the same resume can score very differently against two jobs.

What you get back

• A Match Report carrying your score out of 100.
• A keyword breakdown split into hard skills, soft skills, and other keywords, showing what the posting asked for against what your resume covers.
• A Degree Match and a Job Title Match result, both of which feed into the score.
• A set of Resume Checks covering word count, contact details, quantifiable accomplishments, and similar. These are advice on how your resume reads, so they do not move the score.

For the arithmetic behind the number, see How your match score is calculated. For what each part of the report is telling you, see Reading your match report.

What a scan costs

A scan costs 1 scan credit, whichever scan type you choose. Premium accounts run unlimited scans, so nothing is deducted from your balance.

See How many scans do I get? for how the free allowance works and when it renews.

More on keyword scanning

The resume keyword scanner page explains why keyword matching decides so much of whether your resume ever reaches a person.