Glossary
Every SkillSyncer term defined once, with the other names the app uses for the same thing, so you can find what you are looking for whichever word you searched.
Every term SkillSyncer uses, defined once.
Where the app shows a different word for the same thing, both are listed. The product grew a few names for several of these, so an entry that says "also seen in the app as" is telling you those are the same thing, not two features. Search for whichever word you saw on screen and you will land here.
One warning before you start: there is no such thing as a plain "credit" on SkillSyncer. There are two separate currencies, scan credits and AI credits, and they behave differently. Both have their own entry below.
Action verb
The verb a bullet point opens with. Strong action verbs describe what you achieved (designed, delivered, reduced) rather than what you were present for.
Two checks look at them: one flags weak action verbs, and one flags repetitive action verbs when the same opener turns up across several bullets.
See Every content quality check, and how to pass it.
AI credit
The currency that pays for the AI writing tools. Free accounts get 10 a week and Premium gets 250 a week.
AI credits reset on your refresh day rather than rolling over, so whatever is left is replaced by the new allowance instead of being added to it. That is the opposite of how scan credits behave.
See How AI credits work.
ATS
Applicant tracking system: the software an employer uses to read, store, and filter the resumes it receives. Your resume is usually read by one before a person sees it, and it is looking for the terms the posting used.
Also seen in the app as: hiring software (ATS) in upload errors, applicant tracking system in full, and ATS systems in a few older strings.
ATS compliance
Whether a resume file can actually be read by that software. It is a property of the file, not of your career: real selectable text rather than a picture of text, no password protection, one column, and nothing important hidden in a table, text box, header, or footer.
A resume that fails those tests is the same resume that uploads badly here, since both come down to whether the text can be pulled out of the file at all.
See Why some resumes don't read in cleanly.
Auto Optimize Resume
The one-pass AI rewrite in the classic scan editor. It costs 5 AI credits, works missing keywords into your text, and bolds what it added.
Unlike the Smart Report tools, it applies its changes in one go rather than offering them to you one at a time.
See Auto Optimize Resume.
Base resume
Your master copy, the resume you keep complete and up to date. Scanning never changes it, because each scan copies it into a job-tailored resume and edits the copy instead.
Also seen in the app as: Base on the resume filter tab, and "your master template" in the builder tour.
See Base resumes and job-tailored resumes.
Bullet point
One achievement line under a work, project, or volunteer entry. Bullets are what the content quality checks read most closely.
The target length is 40 to 250 characters, and the target count is at least 3 per entry.
Also seen in the app as: accomplishments and achievements.
Bullet Point Generator
The AI tool that writes 3 sample bullet points built around keywords your resume is missing. At 1 AI credit it is the cheapest of the AI tools.
The samples are examples to adapt, not claims to paste.
Buzzword
A claim with no evidence attached: results-driven, team player, thought leader, best of breed. The check grades them by density, so one in a long resume barely registers.
Usually written as one word, so a search for "buzz word" and a search for "buzzword" turn up the same thing.
Also seen in the app as: Buzz Words and Word Choice on the scan report.
Classic Scan
A scan for when you do not want to use our resume builder. You paste your text in and get your match score, your missing keywords, and AI rewriting. You can edit the text here with live scoring, but it is held as plain text with no template, so your own document keeps its design and you carry changes back to it or export the plain version.
It costs the same as a Smart Scan and finds the same keywords. Resume scoring, in-place issue marking, and a tailored download need structured sections, so they are not part of it.
See Should I use a Smart Scan or a Classic Scan?
Coach
A role on a team. A coach can run job match scans on behalf of the members assigned to them and open the scans those members ran.
A coach takes up a seat on the plan like anyone else on the team.
Completion score
Half of your resume score. It asks whether the facts are there: work experience, skills, education, professional summary, email, name, headline, phone, and location. That is 9 checks, with weights that add up to 100.
It deliberately ignores how well any of it is written, because that is the content quality score's job.
Also seen in the app as: Completion Checks, Completion, and "completeness" in prose.
See Your resume score explained.
Content quality score
The other half of your resume score. It reads your professional summary, experience, projects, and volunteer entries and scores the writing: measurements, bullet count, gaps, verbs, pronouns, buzzwords, filler, and length.
Also seen in the app as: Content Score, Content Quality, Content, and "content quality issues".
See Every content quality check, and how to pass it.
Degree match
One of the 5 parts the match score is made of, worth 10 points. It compares the highest degree found on your resume with the highest one the posting asks for.
You get 10 if yours meets or exceeds it, 5 if you have a degree but a lower one, and 0 if no degree was found on your resume at all.
See Reading your match report.
Exclusion
A keyword you have taken out of scoring because it does not apply to you. The match score recalculates without it.
Exclusions are global: excluding a keyword on one scan excludes it on every future scan until you remove it in Settings.
Also seen in the app as: Exclude from scoring on the button that creates one.
See Excluding skills and keywords.
Experience gap
Two or more whole empty calendar months between the end of one role and the start of the next. The check has only two outcomes: no gaps scores full marks and any gap scores half, so a second gap costs you nothing more.
Also seen in the app as: Employment gap warnings on the pricing page.
Filler word
A word that occupies space without adding information: responsible for, duties included, various, basically. Removing them usually shortens a bullet and strengthens its verb at the same time.
Also seen in the app as: bare filler.
First-person language
Pronouns on a resume: I, my, me, mine, myself, and the contractions. Resume convention is to drop the subject entirely, so "Managed a team of 6" rather than "I managed a team of 6".
Pronouns in your professional summary cost more than pronouns anywhere else on the page.
Also seen in the app as: Personal Pronouns and First-person Language Check.
Full Rewrite
The AI tool that rewrites your bullets against a specific job posting and can add new ones. It costs 5 AI credits and takes roughly 40 to 60 seconds.
Every change is shown next to your original and nothing is applied until you accept it.
See Full Rewrite.
Hard skill
A concrete, teachable capability the posting names: a language, a tool, a certification, a method. Hard skills carry the most weight in the match score, 60 of the 100 points.
Skills are ranked for you by that weight and by how often the posting asks for each one, so the ones at the top of the list are the ones worth fixing first.
Headline
The one-line professional title under your name, for example "Senior Data Analyst". It is a scored completion field, and it is the usual place to put the posting's exact job title so the job title match finds it.
It is not the same thing as your professional summary.
See What belongs in each resume section.
Improve Resume Quality
A Premium AI tool that fixes weak verbs, filler words, and bullets missing numbers across your whole resume in one pass, for 5 AI credits.
It is the only AI tool that requires a Premium plan.
Job
One entry on your Job Tracker. A job is not a separate record: it is one of your scans with a list assigned to it, which is why it carries a match score and why deleting it deletes the scan.
Never called: a ticket or a task.
See Trackers, lists, and jobs.
Job description
The text of the posting you are applying to, pasted or imported into a scan. Every keyword in your report comes out of this text and nowhere else.
The responsibilities and qualifications sections are the parts that matter, because that is where the requirements are spelled out. Company blurb, benefits, and legal disclaimers only add noise.
Job title match
One of the 5 parts the match score is made of, worth 10 points, all or nothing. It checks whether the job title you entered appears on your resume.
Enter the posting's exact title rather than your own wording, or the check has nothing to find.
Job-tailored resume
The copy of your base resume that a Smart Scan creates for one specific posting. You edit it freely, and your base resume stays as it was.
Also seen in the app as: Job-Tailored on the badge and filter tab, tailored resume, and "tailored copy".
See Base resumes and job-tailored resumes.
Keyword
Any word or phrase that describes experience the posting is asking for. It can be a single word like "Technology" or a phrase like "Agile Project Management".
Every keyword in your report was taken from the job description you pasted in. The more of them your resume covers, in the posting's own wording, the higher your match score.
Keyword Boost
The AI tool that works missing keywords into the bullets you already have, without adding new bullets or sections. It costs 3 AI credits and takes roughly 15 to 30 seconds.
It needs a scan first, because the keywords come from the posting.
See Keyword Boost.
List
A group of jobs inside a tracker, for example APPLIED or INTERVIEW. You create, rename, reorder, and delete lists, and you move jobs between them by dragging.
Never called: a column.
See Trackers, lists, and jobs.
Match score
How closely one resume matches one job posting, out of 100. It is 100 points split five ways: hard skills 60, soft skills 15, other keywords 5, job title 10, degree 10.
Aim for 80 before you apply.
Also seen in the app as: Job Match Score, Job Match on the builder tab, and Job Match Scans on the pricing page.
See How your match score is calculated.
Matched skill
A keyword the posting asked for that your resume also contains. Mentioning a keyword at least once earns at least half its weight, and matching the posting's frequency earns the rest.
A matched keyword you use less often than the posting does shows as needs review, not as missing.
Missing skill
A keyword the posting asked for that your resume mentions zero times. Only zero counts as missing, and missing is the one state that earns no points at all.
A skill you are sure is on your resume usually shows as missing because the wording differs, for example NodeJS on your side against Node.js in the posting.
See Why does it say I'm missing a skill that's already on my resume?
Other keyword
The third keyword tier, worth 5 of the 100 points. Terms that matter to the posting without being a hard or a soft skill: tools, domains, industry words, credentials.
Also seen in the app as: Other Skills on the older report and the skills graph.
Parsed job
A job posting whose title, company, and description were filled in for you from a URL instead of being pasted by hand. The importer covers a large number of job boards.
Some sites refuse an automated reader, and when that happens you can paste the description in yourself and report the site so we can add support for it.
See Importing a job from a URL.
Quantifiable measurement
A number in a bullet point: a percentage, a currency amount, a duration, a headcount, a volume. "Cut onboarding time from 6 weeks to 9 days" carries one. "Improved onboarding" does not.
It is the heaviest content quality check, and it scores the share of your bullets that carry a measurement, so half of them scores 50.
Also seen in the app as: Quantifiable Results, quantified results, Accomplishments, missing metrics, bullets missing numbers, and "no quantifiable achievements". Those are all this one check.
Resume parsing
Reading an uploaded file and turning it into structured sections you can edit: your header, summary, experience, education, skills, and the rest.
Parsing is why you upload rather than retype. When a section comes back empty, the file it came from is almost always the reason.
See Upload your resume and we read it into sections.
Resume score
How good your resume is on its own, before any job posting is involved. It is your completion score multiplied by your content quality score, divided by 100, not an average of the two.
That multiplication is why 90 and 50 gives 45 rather than 70: a resume that is complete but weakly written is a weak resume.
See Your resume score explained.
Scan
One comparison of one resume against one job posting. It runs while you wait and returns in a few seconds, and it gives you a match score, a keyword breakdown, and a set of resume checks.
Also seen in the app as: Job Scans in the sidebar and Job Match Scans on the pricing page.
See How a scan works.
Scan credit
The currency that pays to run a scan. Free accounts get 2 a week, they roll over, and the balance caps at 10. Premium accounts have unlimited scans and spend no credits at all.
One scan costs 1 scan credit, whichever scan type you pick. Re-reading a report, editing inside a scan, and rescoring all cost nothing.
Also seen in the app as: Scans Left in the account menu, Scans Remaining in the low-balance warning, free scans in the sidebar, and bare scans. All the same balance.
Retired: unlock credit was the old name for a different model, where a credit revealed the keywords hidden on a locked report. That model is gone, so if you come across the phrase anywhere it means you are out of scan credits.
Seat
One person on a team, whether that person is a coach or a client. A 10-seat plan is 10 people in total, in whatever mix you choose.
Section order preset
A one-click reordering of your whole resume, chosen from the Section order... dropdown in the Details tab. There are 4: Entry Level / New Graduate, Mid-Career Professional, Senior / Executive, and Career Changer.
Dragging a section yourself puts you on a custom order instead.
See Section order and presets.
Smart Scan
A scan run against a resume you keep on SkillSyncer, so every finding is marked in place on the resume and can be fixed without leaving the page.
It also gives you a resume score, per-bullet feedback, and a tailored resume you can download. It is the scan type selected by default.
See Should I use a Smart Scan or a Classic Scan?
Soft skill
A way of working the posting names: communication, leadership, collaboration, problem solving. Soft skills carry medium weight in the match score, 15 of the 100 points.
Summary
The professional summary at the top of your resume, written as a paragraph rather than as bullets. The target length is 150 to 800 characters, roughly 2 to 5 sentences.
Work entries have their own shorter summaries, which follow the same "prose, not bullets" rule. Neither is the same thing as your headline.
Team
One coach plan, one owner, and the group of people who get premium access through it. Members keep their own accounts, resumes, and scans.
See What a coach team is and who it's for.
Tracker
A set of lists holding the jobs you have scanned. Your account starts with one called My First Tracker, and you can create more.
Also seen in the app as: Job Tracker, Job Trackers in the sidebar, and Job Board Tracker on the pricing page.
See What the Job Tracker does.
Weak verb
A bullet opener that describes presence rather than achievement: handled, helped, assisted, worked on, responsible for. Replacing one is usually the fastest single improvement you can make to a bullet.
Also seen in the app as: Weak Action Verb, Verb Choice on the scan report, and bare "weak verbs" in prose.