What ATS Score Do Pilots Need?
Most Pilot resumes score around 55 — well below the 72+ needed to pass ATS filters at most employers. Here's exactly what the numbers mean and how to improve yours.
ATS Score Benchmarks — Pilot
Where does your score put you in the hiring funnel for Pilot roles?
| Score Range | What It Means | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 80–100 | 78–100: ATP/CPL named, type ratings listed, hours quantified by category, CRM and safety keywords present | Shortlisted ✓ |
| 72–79 | 60–77: License and hours clear, missing type rating or specific safety programme detail | Usually passes ATS |
| 45–71 | 42–59: General aviation background without hour breakdown or certification specificity | At risk of filtering |
| Below 45 | Below 42: Will not pass initial ATS screening at any commercial airline | Filtered out ✗ |
Average Pilot resume score: 55. This means the majority of applicants are filtered before a recruiter sees their resume.
How ATS Calculates Your Score
ATS systems don't grade your writing — they measure keyword match, section completeness, and formatting parseability. For Pilot roles, Airline ATS systems (Workday at major carriers, Taleo at legacy airlines) are uniquely metric-driven — total flight hours, PIC hours, type ratings, and certificate numbers are all separately filtered fields. Many airline applications have structured forms for hour categories (multi-engine, turbine, night, IFR). The resume itself must mirror these exact categories for keyword matching. CRM certification, medical class (First Class or equivalent), and recency requirements are binary pass/fail filters.
~50%
Keyword Match
How many of the Pilot-specific keywords from the job description appear in your resume
~30%
Section Completeness
Presence and correct labelling of Summary, Experience, Skills, Education sections
~20%
Format Parseability
Whether ATS can read your resume — columns, tables, and images often cause parsing failures
Why Most Pilot Resumes Score 55
The average score of 55 comes down to three consistent patterns we see across thousands of Pilot resumes:
Generic skills section
Pilot resumes frequently list broad terms when ATS is filtering for specific tool and platform names. Exact keyword matching matters.
Missing role-critical keywords
Resumes submitted without tailoring miss the specific terminology used in each job description, cutting keyword-match scores dramatically.
ATS-unfriendly formatting
Multi-column layouts, tables, and custom fonts prevent ATS from parsing the resume at all — resulting in a near-zero score even for a highly qualified candidate.
ATS Platforms Used for Pilot Hiring
Each platform has slightly different parsing logic, but all perform keyword matching against the job description.
More Pilot Resume Tools
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