Reference

ATS Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the terms that come up when you apply through an applicant tracking system. For how these fit together on a real resume, see the ATS resume format guide.

Applicant tracking and parsing

Applicant tracking system (ATS): Software employers use to collect applications, store candidate records, and move candidates through hiring stages. Workday, Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby are common examples.
Resume parser: Software that turns an uploaded resume file into structured fields (name, contact details, work history, education, skills) so an ATS can store and search them. Some ATS vendors license a parser from a specialist company rather than building their own.
Candidate profile: The structured record an ATS builds from your application and your parsed resume. Recruiters often see this record before, or instead of, your original file, so parsing errors show up where they look first.
Text layer: The machine-readable text inside a PDF. A PDF exported from a word processor has one; a scanned or image-only PDF doesn't, and a parser sees it as blank. If you can't select and copy the text in your PDF, a parser can't read it either.
Reading order: The order in which software reads the text on a page. A PDF stores text as positioned fragments that a parser has to reassemble. A single-column layout leaves little room for error; columns, tables and text boxes can be reassembled out of order.
Section heading: A line such as "Experience" or "Education" that tells software where a section starts. Common wording is recognized more reliably than creative labels like "Where I've Made an Impact."
Private-use (icon font) characters: Unicode code points in the range U+E000–U+F8FF, which have no standard meaning. Icon fonts use them to draw phone, email and location symbols. To software reading the text, they're unknown characters that can land in the middle of your contact details.
Ligature: A single character that joins two or more letters, such as "ﬁ" (U+FB01). Some fonts and PDF exports store "fi" or "fl" this way, so a word like "profile" may not match a search for the same word typed normally.
Tagged PDF: A PDF that includes a structure tree (its /StructTreeRoot entry) marking headings, paragraphs, lists and tables. Screen readers rely on it, and it gives any software a dependable reading order.
Month-and-year dates: Writing each role's dates with both month and year (03/2021 or Mar 2021). Month-level dates let software and reviewers work out how long you held each role; year-only ranges like "2019 – 2021" could mean anywhere from one to three years.
Keyword matching: Comparing the words in a resume against the words in a job posting or a recruiter's search. Search can be literal: a recruiter searching for "Kubernetes" may only find resumes that contain that exact word.
Boolean search: A search that combines terms with AND, OR and NOT, for example (Python OR Go) AND Kubernetes. Recruiters use it in ATS and sourcing tools to narrow a large candidate pool.
Keyword stuffing: Repeating job-posting keywords, or hiding them in white or tiny text, to try to game matching. People reviewing the resume notice quickly, and it undercuts an otherwise credible application.
Screening question: A question on an application form, such as work authorization or years of experience, that employers can use to filter applications before a person reads the resume.
Data-center IP address: An internet address that belongs to a cloud or hosting provider rather than a home or mobile connection. Greenhouse's fraud detection treats applications from data-center IPs as strongly associated with fraud and flags them in a report to the employer; it does not reject them automatically. Source
AI fabrication (hallucination): When an AI writing tool states something that isn't true: an invented metric, tool, employer or title. On a resume it's a credibility risk that tends to surface in interviews and reference checks.

Axiom Tailor terms

Grounding: Keeping AI-generated text tied to facts from a known source. Axiom Tailor builds every tailored resume from your saved master resume, and never changes your dates, employers, degrees or contact details.
Master resume: The full resume you save in Axiom Tailor. It's parsed once, without AI, and every tailored resume and cover letter is built from it.
Candidate Shield: Axiom Tailor's pre-screen that sets aside jobs you've ruled out (by title, location, required credentials or salary floor) before any tailoring happens. It uses no AI and is unlimited on every plan.
Fit score: Axiom Tailor's 0–100 estimate of how well your master resume matches a job posting, graded high, medium, low or none.
Autonomy score: Axiom Tailor's 0–100 rating of how much autonomy a role appears to offer, shown as High Autonomy (80 and above), Moderate Async (60–79) or Low OE Fit (below 60).