Their words. Your real experience.

Sometimes, but it's only one possible reason. Many applicant systems mainly store, rank and search applications, and some widely shared statistics about software rejecting most CVs are poorly sourced. Other common causes: screening questions such as work authorisation or location, missing a hard requirement, high volume, internal candidates, and human judgement. The first step helps you work out which applies to you.

It extracts required and preferred terms from the job ad — titles, skills, tools, qualifications — and checks which appear in your CV in the same wording. Where you genuinely have a skill, it shows where to use the ad's exact phrasing, including both acronym and full form. It never suggests adding skills you don't have, since those tend to fall apart in interviews.

No. Recruiters can see hidden text when they open or copy a CV, it can look deceptive, and it may end the application. The same goes for pasting the job ad in. Using the terms naturally in your summary, skills and achievement lines works better for both systems and people.

A single column, standard section headings, standard fonts, and contact details in the main body rather than a header. Avoid putting key information in images, text boxes, charts or skill-rating bars, and never send a scanned PDF. Follow the file type the ad asks for. Keep a designed version for handing to people directly if you like.

No tool honestly can — systems differ by vendor and by how each employer configures them, and not every rejection is about the CV. What it does is remove the common, fixable reasons a strong CV gets missed, and make sure the human who reads it next sees results, not just keywords.