How Fitread reads your CV

What we check

Every reading has these parts. Each one says what it found and, where it can, what to change.

Match rate: 70 + 15 + 15 points, worked out as shown under the next heading.
Skills: Every skill the advert asks for and whether your CV shows it. When at least 20 of this month's adverts for the role name skills, the reading also says how many of them name each skill, with the number and the month.
Job title: Whether your CV carries the advert's job title, or one like it.
Pay: Contract: the advert's day rate beside the role's median advertised day rate, when at least 20 adverts give one. Temp: the pay as the advert states it. Permanent: the salary as the advert states it.
IR35: Contract readings only. The status the advert states, or "not stated". Never guessed.
Searchability: Whether agency software can read your CV: contact details, location, section headings, profile or summary, education or qualifications, skills, objective, date format, full terms and short forms, text can be read, length, file type and file name.
Recruiter checks: Advice for the person who reads it next: measurable results, paragraph length, tone, overused phrases, repeated phrases, line openers, word count, UK conventions, web presence, job level, chronology, references, tense in dated roles, first-person line openings, repeated words, spaces and punctuation and skill names.
AI review and opener: Written by AI around the figures, labelled as AI, and checked against your CV. A sentence naming a skill, number, date or name your CV does not contain is removed.

The three parts add up to a hundred points.

Skills the advert names 70

The job title 15

The sector 15

Skills the advert names: Up to 70 points, for the share of the advert's skills that your CV shows. Skills named in the advert's title weigh more than the rest.
The job title: 15 points when your CV shows a skill named in the advert's title, or its opening lines carry a title like the advert's.
The sector: 15 points, which every reading gets, because your CV is counted as being in the advert's sector.
Two holds: Fewer than 3 skills we recognise in the advert holds the rate at 49% at most. Fewer than 2 of them in your CV, or too few of its specific skills (the one it names, or two when it names more; 3 general ones when it names no specific skill), holds it at 29% at most. The reading says when a hold applies.
Never points: Security clearances are shown as facts, never as points. The AI review is written after the rate and cannot change it.

There is no pass mark, and Fitread gives no target score. A band says how much of the advert your CV shows.

No pass mark: None of the agency systems we read documents a score that a CV must reach. Our view
The rejection claim: The popular claim that most CVs are rejected by software has no published study behind it. FP30

A reading is honest about its limits. These are the main ones.

Which system an agency uses: Adverts rarely say which system the agency uses or how it is set up, so Fitread never names one it has not been told.
Whether you will be shortlisted: A person decides. A reading tells you how much of the advert your CV shows, not what a recruiter will do.
Whether your CV is true: Fitread reads what your CV says. It cannot check it, and it never adds a skill or result you do not have.
What people are paid: Day rates are advertised rates, not rates paid.
IR35 status: Only the advert can state it. Fitread never works one out, and nothing in Fitread is tax or legal advice.
Layout, when you paste: Fonts, margins and columns need the file itself, so a pasted CV skips those checks.

Fitread checks for what UK agency systems and CV databases document about how they read a CV.

Agency systems: Much contract and temp work is filled through agencies, whose own systems turn your CV into a record before a person reads it. Our view
Parsers: A parser turns the file into that record. Bullhorn, Mercury and Colleague document Daxtra or Textkernel parsers, Bullhorn bought Textkernel, and JobAdder and Vincere offer Daxtra tools as add-ons. B1 B7 B8 B10 M1 M2 C1 J1 V4
Multiposters: Many agencies post one advert to many boards through a multiposter such as Broadbean, which routes the replies back into their system. BB1
Searches: Recruiters then search those records and job-board CV databases with keywords and Boolean strings, by title, skills, location and pay. B3 BB4 CV1 CV2
Layout: Guidance for a common UK parser asks for no tables, headers, text boxes, graphics or image files. M1
What that means for the checks: That is why Fitread checks that your CV's text can be read, that its headings and dates are standard, that it avoids tables and text boxes, and that it uses the advert's own words. Our view
Employers and the public sector: Some adverts send you to the employer's own system instead. NHS Jobs and Civil Service Jobs have their own forms, where you paste or type your history into set sections. FP24 FP25

Each was read on the date shown. Vendor documentation is a company describing its own product. No vendor was contacted.

B1 Bullhorn ATS, parsing updates Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
B3 Bullhorn ATS, Boolean logic Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
B7 Bullhorn for Salesforce, parsing with Daxtra Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
B8 Bullhorn for Salesforce, resume parsing process (Textkernel Extract!) Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
B10 Bullhorn acquires Textkernel Vendor announcement. Read on 26 September 2026.
M1 Mercury xRM, Daxtra CV guidance Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
M2 Mercury xRM, Textkernel parsing Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
C1 Colleague 7, CV parsing Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
J1 JobAdder, Daxtra integration Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
V4 Vincere help centre, Daxtra Styler Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
BB1 Broadbean Aplitrak Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
BB4 Broadbean Boolean guide Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
CV1 Totaljobs CV Database user guide Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
CV2 Reed, step-by-step CV searching Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
FP24 NHS Jobs, CV applications (NHSBSA) Vendor documentation. Read on 26 September 2026.
FP25 GOV.UK, using the Civil Service Jobs website Official guidance. Read on 26 September 2026.
FP30 Tracing the "75% of resumes are auto-rejected" claim Third party. Read on 26 September 2026.