The Canadian Resume Report: what real ATS scores look like
By ResumeNorth
Most advice about applicant tracking systems is opinion. This page is data: aggregate, anonymized results from every resume analyzed on ResumeNorth, refreshed automatically every week, so you can see where the typical Canadian resume actually lands — and what the top-scoring resumes do differently.
In short
Across 124 real Canadian resumes analyzed against actual job postings, the average ATS score is 77 out of 100. The typical resume matches 35 of the keywords a posting screens for and misses 7. About 40% of resumes score 85 or higher and are genuinely interview-ready; roughly 32% score under 70, where keyword gaps — not formatting — are the main reason they get screened out.
124
Resumes analyzed
77 / 100
Average ATS score
7
Missing keywords per resume (average)
35
Matched keywords per resume (average)
How the scores break down
Interview-ready: strong keyword match and clean formatting
Competitive but leaving points on the table
Usually screened out on keyword gaps
Formatting or parsing problems, not just keywords
What the data says
The average resume misses 7 keywords the posting screens for
Those missing terms are almost always job-specific — the exact software, certification or methodology named in the posting — not generic skills. A resume that scores 95 against one posting can score 68 against another, which is why tailoring per application matters more than any single rewrite.
Low scores are usually keyword gaps, not bad resumes
Resumes scoring 50–69 are typically well-written documents aimed at the wrong keyword set. Only a small minority — about 4% — score under 50, where genuine parsing or formatting problems (multi-column layouts, headers in text boxes, image-based PDFs) are usually the cause.
The top band is reachable
49 of 124 resumes (40%) score 85 or higher. The consistent pattern in that band: the resume mirrors the posting's exact terminology, quantifies results, and uses a clean single-column layout an ATS can parse without guessing.
Methodology
Figures are aggregated and fully anonymized from resume analyses run on ResumeNorth, and this page refreshes automatically once a week (last refresh: September 2026). Each analysis scores one resume against one real Canadian job posting on keyword match, formatting and structure. No personal information, resume text or individual scores are published — only aggregate counts and averages. You are free to cite these figures with a link to this page (CC BY 4.0).
This is a live snapshot, not a longitudinal study: the sample is people who chose to check their resume, so it skews toward active job seekers. The numbers shift week to week as the sample grows.
Where does your resume land?
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