About JobScoutly
Built by someone who built the software that screens you
Most advice about getting past an applicant tracking system is written from the outside, inferring how these systems behave from their results. JobScoutly is written from the other side of it.
Why it exists
Most mid-size and large employers screen applications with software before a person opens them — Harvard Business School research puts it at 99% of Fortune 500 companies. The failure that follows is invisible: a resume looks correct on screen while the parser has quietly dropped half of it, or attached your dates to the wrong employer.
The second problem is cost. Most resume tools are free right up until the download button, then ask $20–40 a month, or stamp a watermark across the file you just spent an hour on. The people with the least room for a surprise charge are the ones being charged, at the exact moment they can least absorb it.
JobScoutly exists to remove both. The templates are built against what a parser actually extracts rather than how a page looks, and there is no paid tier to upgrade into.
Who's behind it
Gerardo Barrera is the founder of JobScoutly. He has spent roughly ten years building HR software, work that has included applicant tracking systems and the resume parsers inside them — the software that reads an uploaded file, decides which text is a job title and which is a date, and hands a structured record to a recruiter.
That's an unusual vantage point for resume advice. Most guidance about "beating the ATS" is written from the outside, inferring how these systems behave from their results. JobScoutly's guides are written from the other side of it: what a parser actually extracts, which layout choices reliably break it, and what hiring teams see once a resume has been through the pipeline.
He writes JobScoutly's guides on resume formatting, ATS screening, and how AI tools fit into a job search.
How we work
The standards behind every guide, review, and resume example on this site.
Claims are sourced, not asserted
Where a guide cites a statistic, it links the primary source — Harvard Business School, the EEOC, university career centres — rather than the blog post that repeated it. Where a widely-quoted number is wrong, we say so instead of passing it along.
Tools are tested hands-on before we write about them
Every competitor review comes from building a real resume on the free plan and attempting a real export, with the date we tested it stated on the page. We record what was gated, what was watermarked, and what it cost.
We name what the product does not do
No tool clears every applicant tracking system, because every employer configures theirs differently. Guides say that plainly rather than promising a pass rate no one can guarantee.
Pages get revised, not just published
Advice that stops being true gets corrected at the source. Guides carry an updated date so you can see when a page was last looked at rather than when it first went live.
What we stand for
Free means free
There is no paid tier at all — not a generous trial, not a cheap plan. That is a structural commitment rather than a pricing decision, because there is no upgrade path to route you into later.
AI should help, not replace
The writing assistant drafts from what you actually did rather than inventing a career you did not have. Every word stays yours to edit or delete. The goal is getting past a blank page faster, not outsourcing your history to a model.
Your data belongs to you
We do not sell your information and we do not send your resume to employers without your say-so. You can delete a resume, or your whole account, whenever you want.
Access should not depend on your budget
Job searching costs money at precisely the moment most people have least of it. A graduate and a senior executive should reach the same tools, and charging for the download is the part we most wanted to remove.
Get in touch
Questions, corrections, or something on the site that's wrong — we'd rather hear it. Email support@jobscoutly.com.