Blog & Engineering Notes
Things we built, measured, or got wrong. Written by the developer, dated, and updated in place when code or benchmarks change.
Articles (8)
#resumesRezi Alternative: Free ATS Resume Builder Without Export Paywalls
Rezi locks clean PDF/DOCX downloads and AI generation behind credits and subscription paywalls. Ravina is a 100% free, zero-signup alternative providing unlimited ATS-compliant single-column exports, local diagnostics, and BYOK AI directly in your browser.
Resume Worded Alternative: Free ATS Bullet and Layout Checking
Resume Worded locks line-by-line bullet rewriting and full scoring behind a $49 monthly paywall. Ravina is a 100% free, zero-signup alternative that runs 13 deterministic ATS formatting and bullet syntax checks locally in your browser with unlimited scans.
The Unquantified Bullet Penalty: Eye-Tracking Data on Recruiter 6-Second Scans
Eye-tracking research proves initial recruiter resume scans follow an F-pattern lasting between 6 and 8 seconds. Experience bullets lacking leading numerals suffer an 80%+ skip rate. Here is the Action Verb + Technical Scope + Measured Outcome syntax formula enforced by Ravina's deterministic bullet checker.
Why LaTeX Resumes Fail ATS Parsers: The pdflatex Ligature and Virtual Font Pitfall
Default pdflatex builds convert character pairs like 'fi' and 'fl' into composite ligatures that legacy ATS extractors drop or turn into whitespace. Here is why 'efficient' becomes 'e cient' in recruiter databases, and how to fix your LaTeX preamble.
Why Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK) Architecture Protects Candidates from AI Training Loops
When candidates upload resumes to closed AI SaaS platforms, personal salary history and patent drafts often enter fine-tuning pipelines. Here is how direct client-side BYOK API calls enforce enterprise zero-retention policies, reduce audit costs to $0.003, and protect candidate privacy.
Why ATS PDF Parsers Break on Hyphens and Em-Dashes (and Drop Minus Signs in Equity Models)
Word processors silently convert standard ASCII hyphens into Unicode en-dashes and em-dashes. Here is how that corrupts date parsing in legacy ATS pipelines, drops negative numbers in equity models, and how to verify your PDF in five seconds.
The Invisible ATS Trap in AI-Generated Resumes: Letter-Spacing and Broken Parsing
Why ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini produce PDF resumes that look visually pristine to humans but extract as disconnected glyphs in enterprise applicant tracking systems like Greenhouse and Workday.
How an ATS Actually Reads Your PDF (and Why Two Columns Break It)
A technical walk-through of PDF text extraction (content streams, reading order, and why a layout that looks fine to you arrives scrambled in the recruiter's database). With a five-second self-test.