What match score should I aim for?

Aim for 80. That is the number the report calls the recommended score, and the target band it shades runs from 80 to 100.

You do not need 100. Above 80 your resume already covers the requirements the posting actually asked for, and the remaining points tend to come from keywords a human reader would notice you had stuffed in.

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What to do at each level

80 and above. Send it, and put the time you would have spent tuning keywords into the cover letter instead.

60 to 79. You are close, and the gap is almost always missing hard skills. Work through those first, then look at the number again before you touch anything else, because a couple of hard skills often carry you over on their own.

Below 60. Something larger is going on, and it is worth working out which of two things it is before you start editing:

1. The posting genuinely wants a different profile from yours, in which case your time is better spent on a different posting.
2. Your resume did not fully parse, so the scan cannot see half of what you wrote. Open your resume and check every section has content in it, since an empty section is the tell.

Which changes move the number fastest

Work on hard skills first and the job title second, because that is the order the points are in.

• Hard skills are 60 of the 100 points. Every missing hard skill you add is worth more than every missing soft skill combined on most postings.
• The job title is 10 points, all or nothing. If the posting's exact title is not on your resume you are giving away 10 points for the price of one line of text. This is the single cheapest fix in the product.
• Soft skills are 15 and other keywords are 5. They are worth 20 points between them, so leave them until the two above are done.
• The degree is 10 points and it is the one part you cannot edit your way to. If your degree is below what the posting asks for you still get 5 of the 10, which puts your ceiling at 95 rather than 100.

Whichever part you are working on, going from zero mentions of a keyword to one mention is the biggest single gain available, because a keyword you mention at least once earns at least half its weight and a keyword you never mention earns nothing.

Your plan does not change your score

Four of the resume checks are Premium only, and all four are advisory. A free account and a Premium account scanning the same resume against the same job get exactly the same number, so a low score is never something a plan is holding back.

Scores are not comparable between postings

A 78 on one job and a 78 on another do not mean the same thing, because the two postings were not asking for the same amount. A posting that lists no soft skills hands over that whole 15 points automatically, so its scores run high, while a posting with a long and specific requirements list runs low.

Compare your score against 80 on the posting in front of you, not against what you scored on the last one.