Resume Analysis 101

Quinncia combines Quinn with a sophisticated Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that most employers use to receive and process resumes. If Quinn identifies problems with your resume, the company you apply to will do the same. They may even discard your resume immediately if it does not parse correctly. Quinn provides the following useful suggestions and improvements to help your resume make it through a company's ATS: 

Flags: If you see flags on your resume, you SHOULD make those edits. These are things that the ATS may identify and then immediately discard your resume. Quinn highlights these flags to give your resume a better chance of parsing the ATS. Make sure your resume has 0 flags before submitting it to employers. 

Improvements: Quinn generates an extensive list of improvements that you can make to your resume. She also provides a detailed analysis of how you can implement these improvements. Even though there is no limit to the number of improvements Quinn can suggest, we recommend that you have no more than 10 to meet your school’s benchmark.

Resume score: Quinn generates an overall resume score for each student and compares it to other students at your school. This benchmark resume score is tailored to your grade level and the highest scoring resume at your school. Quinn calculates your score based on the number of improvements on your resume, so there is no upper limit to the score you can receive. However, we suggest that you aim for a score above 200 to meet your school’s benchmark.

Skills clouds: Employers look for two different types of skills: technical and essential. Technical skills include knowledge of particular software or industry, while essential skills are non-technical skills like leadership and cooperation. Quinn scans your resume, identifies the essential and technical skills, and compiles them into skills clouds. The larger the skill is written in the cloud, the more prevalent it is in your resume. Keep in mind that the skills Quinn pulls from your resume are the same ones employers will also take away. Ensure that the skills you want to advertise are the largest ones in your skills cloud. 

Technical skills search: Technical skills need to be written in a specific way for ATS to recognize them. You can use this search engine to optimize how you showcase your technical skills throughout your resume. Type different tools, industries, majors, or general skills to find the best way to format technical skills in your resume. 

Detailed analysis: Here Quinn provides three different types of in-depth feedback on your resume: generic, formatting, and content. Quinn walks you through the problems she found in each section and offers you suggestions for improvement.

• Generic: Quinn assesses whether or not your resume includes all of the key sections, like education, corresponding dates, work experience, and possibly a summary. 

• Formatting: Quinn identifies specific errors, like spelling and grammar mistakes, word repetition, and areas where you should write more concisely.
• Content: Quinn goes line by line through your experience to identify places where you could make your bullet points more powerful by quantifying your achievements and structuring them more effectively. Quinn learns from model resumes from your school and creates examples of bullet points that you can use to restructure your own.