Evaluation
Two numbers, not one: why formatting must never look like fit
Published Reviewed by Hab Business Solutions
A well-formatted resume from a weak candidate outranks a plain one from a strong candidate in most keyword tools. Separating the two numbers is the fix.
Short answer
Why report a match score and a document quality score separately?
The failure is invisible until you look for it
Single-number tools do not tell you which of the two problems you are looking at. A candidate at 54 could be a poor fit, or a strong fit who wrote three bullet points. Both look identical on a leaderboard, and only one of them should be dropped.
This bias is not random. It runs against career changers, people writing in a second language, and technical candidates who treat a resume as a formality. Those are exactly the pools most companies say they want to widen.
What each number is actually measuring
The match score decomposes into eight dimensions: skills, tools, experience, education, certifications, projects, title similarity and semantic similarity. Each opens into the evidence behind it, including why a dimension scored zero.
The document quality score is about the artefact. Structure, completeness, whether claims carry any supporting detail. It is useful information for a recruiter and terrible information to rank on.
How a recruiter uses the pair
High match, low quality is a phone call. The fit evidence is there and the resume is underselling it.
Low match, high quality is a polite decline with a real reason you can write down. The document is fine and the role is not.
High on both moves to interview preparation, generated against the job and the evidence rather than a generic question bank.
Frequently asked
Can the document quality score reject someone?
No. No candidate is auto-rejected in MinMaxHR. Decisions are shortlist, select, reject or clear, each made by a named person with a written reason.
Is the match score reproducible?
Yes. The same resume against the same job description produces the same score on every run, which is what makes a recorded decision defensible months later.
Want this running on your next role?
Bring one job description and its applicants. You will see the ranked pool and the evidence behind it before the call ends.
No retainers to start · Pilot-first · Human-in-the-loop governance