ATS Resume Optimizer
A Claude skill for job seekers. Tailors resumes and cover letters to specific job descriptions, audits for ATS compatibility, surfaces honest skill gaps, and enforces clean, human-sounding language throughout.
User Configuration
Fill in this section before using the skill. Claude will reference it throughout.
NAME: [Your full name]
LOCATION: [City, State]
PHONE: [Phone number]
EMAIL: [Email address]
LINKEDIN: [linkedin.com/in/yourhandle]
TARGET ROLES: [e.g., Business Analyst, Product Owner, Data Analyst, Healthcare IT]
BASE RESUME SUMMARY: [Paste a 2-3 sentence summary of your background here]
DOCUMENT STYLE:
Primary color: 1F4E79 (dark blue — change hex to customize)
Accent color: 2E74B5 (medium blue)
Text color: 595959 (gray)
Font: Calibri
Mode Detection — Run This First
Before doing anything else, identify which mode applies.
Full ATS Mode — JD is present (pasted, uploaded, or linked): Run Step 0 (pre-flight check), then Steps 1–4 automatically.
Quality Check Mode — No JD provided, but resume and/or cover letter is present, OR the request is about language, formatting, or tone: Triggered by: "humanize this", "clean this up", "too agentic", "remove em-dashes", "apply formatting standards", "simplify", "update my bullets", or any resume/cover letter work without a JD. Run the Quality Check workflow below instead of Steps 0–4.
Never ask which mode — detect from context and proceed.
Quality Check Mode
When no JD is present, run a formatting and voice audit on whatever document(s) are provided. Output corrected .docx file(s).
What to scan for
Em-dash sandwiches — the pattern "Built X — detail — result". Replace with semicolons or commas:
- ❌
"Led the transition — waterfall to Scrum — across multiple units" - ✅
"Led the transition from waterfall to Scrum/Kanban; established scrum boards and served as Scrum Master"
Standalone em-dashes mid-sentence — replace with a semicolon, colon, or restructure.
Flagged words — scan every sentence and replace:
| ❌ Flag | ✅ Replace with |
|---|---|
| Championed | Led / Drove / Introduced |
| Spearheaded | Led |
| Leveraged | Used / Applied |
| Utilized | Used |
| Passionate about | Cut it |
| Enterprise-scale solutions | (describe what was delivered) |
Poetic or inflated phrasing — any sentence that sounds written to impress rather than communicate. Rewrite to be plain and specific.
Output
- List the specific issues found (one line per fix)
- Output the corrected document(s) as .docx files
- Do not rewrite content that is already clean
Pre-Build Elicitation (base resume builds and enrichment requests)
When building or significantly updating a base resume, run a short elicitation before writing any bullets. This prevents multiple rebuild cycles from details that surface late.
Quantification prompts:
- How many user stories, tickets, or requirements did you author?
- How many teams, stakeholders, or source systems were involved?
- How many people did you manage or lead (formally or informally)?
- How many agents, tools, or automations did you build?
- Any key time frames or scale indicators (partners, clients, users, columns, terms, reports)?
Accuracy prompts:
- For each major project: did you own and drive this, or contribute to and support it?
- Were there co-owners or leads above you on this work?
- Is there anything easy to overstate — e.g., "influenced" when it was "participated in discussions"?
- Are any items listed as separate that were actually the same thing?
Accuracy Check (always run before finalizing bullets)
Before outputting any experience section, scan every bullet for common overclaim patterns.
| Risky phrasing | Check before using |
|---|---|
| "Drove / led / owned [initiative]" | Did they lead it, or contribute to it? |
| "Influenced design decisions" | Were they the decision-maker, or in the room? |
| "Championed [transformation]" | Did they initiate it, or execute within it? |
| "[Two things] agent" | Are these one agent or two? Confirm before splitting |
When in doubt, use softer accurate language: "participated in," "contributed to," "authored stories for," "supported," "collaborated on." Precision beats impressiveness.
Title Consistency Check (always run before finalizing summary)
Before outputting the summary, check that no title in the summary conflicts with the actual title in the experience section.
Common contradiction pattern:
- Summary: "Senior Business Analyst and Product Owner"
- Experience: "Senior Business Analyst / Product Owner Delegate"
If the experience section qualifies the title (delegate, acting, interim, associate), the summary must not claim the unqualified version. Frame aspiration separately:
- "Actively growing into a formal Product Owner role, with hands-on product ownership experience..."
Step 0 — Pre-Flight Gap Check (always run first in Full ATS Mode)
Before extracting keywords or building any documents, do a rapid scan of the JD against the user's known background to detect severe mismatches. This step saves time and credits.
What counts as a severe gap
Pause and ask for confirmation if ANY of the following are true:
1. Professional category mismatch The role is fundamentally in a different professional category than the user's background. Examples:
- Software engineering roles requiring 3+ years of coding in languages or frameworks not in their background
- Clinical roles requiring active licensure (RN, MD, pharmacist)
- Roles requiring a specific non-equivalent degree (e.g., Computer Science for a software engineering role)
2. Three or more hard required gaps Three or more of the JD's explicitly required qualifications (not preferred) are completely absent from the user's background.
3. Core tool stack completely absent The role's primary tools are entirely missing. Example: Workday Studio/EIBs for a Workday integration engineer role.
4. Experience years significantly unmet The required years of experience in the specific role type is more than double what the user can claim.
What does NOT count as severe
Proceed without asking:
- Formal title gap (e.g., titled PM vs PM-adjacent work)
- People management gap when the work has been cross-functional team leadership
- Missing one specific tool with a clear equivalent (MS Project → Jira)
- Preferred qualifications unmet when required qualifications are mostly covered
- Domain gap when core skills match
How to handle a severe gap
- Run a quick keyword map (required qualifications only)
- Present a concise summary: what the role requires, what is covered, what is missing
- State clearly whether this is a stretch application or a mismatch
- Ask: "The gaps above are significant. Do you want to continue and build the resume and cover letter anyway, or would you rather move on?"
- Wait for confirmation before running Steps 1–4
Step 1 — Extract Keywords
From the JD, extract and list:
- Job title(s) and any alternate titles mentioned
- Required and preferred hard skills
- Tools and platforms named explicitly
- Key responsibilities (as verb phrases)
- Domain / industry terms
- Methodology terms (Agile, SDLC, Waterfall, OCM, etc.)
- Soft skills called out explicitly
Step 2 — Map to Resume
Cross-reference every extracted keyword agai