How to use the keyword checker
Copy the full job posting into the first box, including the requirements and responsibilities sections, since that's where most of the signal lives. Paste your résumé as plain text into the second box. Copying from your document or a PDF viewer is fine; formatting doesn't matter. Click Check keywords. The checker pulls out the skills, tools and phrases the employer emphasizes, then looks for each one in your résumé.
What keyword coverage means
Coverage is the share of the posting's keywords that also appear in your résumé, weighted by importance. A term the employer repeats, or lists under requirements, counts for more than one mentioned once in passing, and benefits or legal boilerplate counts for almost nothing. Common skills are matched with their variants, so JS counts as JavaScript and ML as machine learning.
It is not an ATS score, and nothing outside an employer's own system can give you one. The popular claim that tracking software rejects most résumés before a human sees them has no published study behind it. Read our breakdown of the ATS rejection myth. What keywords do affect is search and skimming: recruiters filter candidates by terms like a tool or certification, then scan for the language of the role. Coverage is a quick way to see whether your résumé speaks that language.
Why keyword stuffing backfires
Pasting the job description in white text, or listing every missing term in a skills block, might nudge a score up, but people read résumés. A recruiter who spots a wall of keywords with no evidence behind them assumes the rest is padded too. Every keyword you add is also a question you may be asked in an interview, and a skill you can't talk about is worse than one you left off. A 100% match isn't the goal. Honest coverage of the requirements that fit you is.
How to add missing keywords honestly
- Check it's true. Only add a keyword if you have actually done the work. Skip the rest; they tell you where the role stretches you.
- Use the posting's words. If you wrote “customer research” and the posting says “user research” for the same work, use their term.
- Put it where you used it. A tool belongs in your skills list and in the bullet that shows what you did with it. A practice like stakeholder management needs an example, not a label.
- Add proof. Pair the keyword with a result: “Built Tableau dashboards that cut weekly reporting time by six hours” says far more than “Tableau” alone.