Is there a free CV check?
Updated:
In short
Yes, in three shapes, and they measure different things. Instant machine scans are free and take seconds — Resume Worded's own page says «You get a free ATS scan with detailed feedback in about 30 seconds», with the condition printed beside the upload box: «English resumes in PDF or DOCX only.» Free expert reviews such as TopResume's arrive by email «in less than 48 hours», from a company that also sells resume-writing packages. And Switzerland has a public route almost nobody counts: arbeit.swiss tells jobseekers to sign on with their RAV for personal advice, and the cantonal careers offices check application files for free.
What separates the three is not the price but the yardstick. A scan measures your CV against a generic template, an expert review against one reviewer's experience, and a check against a specific advert against what that one employer actually asked for. Only the third answers the question you really have, which is whether this document clears this vacancy.
That distinction is not pedantic — it is measurable. Among job titles currently open at two or more different employers, the languages demanded differ in 40.6 percent of cases, the level demanded in 46.2 percent, and the type of employment in 58.3 percent. Same job title, different gates. A single score for «your CV» cannot carry that information.
Share of title groups whose open adverts contradict each other. Basis: job titles open at two or more different employers, counting only adverts that state a language requirement. Ongoing analysis, August 2026.
- Resume Worded offers «a free ATS scan with detailed feedback in about 30 seconds» — and states the limit on the same page: «English resumes in PDF or DOCX only.»
- TopResume answers its own FAQ question «Is the resume review really free?» with «Yes», and gives the timing: «around 48 hours», delivered to your inbox. The same navigation sells resume writing.
- arbeit.swiss, in English: «For professional and personal advice on applying for jobs, you can sign on with your local regional employment centre (RAV).»
- The same official page carries a free pre-send checklist: «spelling and formatting errors», «completeness of documents», «clear and correct file names» — and «Save and send your application documents as PDF files.»
- Of the adverts that state a language requirement at all, 68.1 percent want German in some form and 19.3 percent English alone — so an English-only checker reads past most of the market.
- Our own check is in the free tier, and the CV editor goes further: building, tailoring and the first export need no account at all — no email, no card. Saving a document or a second export asks for a free account. Premium is CHF 15 a month or CHF 95 a year, with 7 days free first.
Three things called free
The first is the instant scan. You upload a file, a machine parses it, and seconds later you get a score and a list of missing keywords. Resume Worded describes it plainly: «You get a free ATS scan with detailed feedback in about 30 seconds, and you can scan multiple versions of your resume.» For what it does, it is genuinely free and genuinely fast.
The second is the free expert review. TopResume advertises «Get a free, confidential review from a resume expert» and promises «personalized and actionable feedback in less than 48 hours». Its FAQ confirms it twice — the review is free, and the results are emailed to you. What sits in the same menu is the paid product: resume writing, executive resume writing, LinkedIn profile writers. The free review is the front door of a writing service. That is not a scandal, it is context you should hold while reading the feedback.
The third is the public route, and it is invisible because nobody markets it as a «CV check». arbeit.swiss puts it on the application-tips page itself: sign on with your regional employment centre and you get professional, personal advice on your applications. The cantonal careers offices — the BIZ, and their French and Italian equivalents — do the same for anyone who books an appointment. No upload, no account, no subscription.
The free scanner that will not take your file
The most-recommended free scanner on the internet carries a restriction that matters enormously in Switzerland, printed right beside the upload field: «English resumes in PDF or DOCX only.» If your CV is in German, French or Italian, this tool is not the wrong choice because it is bad — it is the wrong choice because its reference market is elsewhere.
The size of that mismatch is measurable. Roughly three in four open adverts state a language requirement. Among those, 43.9 percent ask for German alone, 19.3 percent for English alone, 13.2 percent for English and German together, and 7.6 percent for French alone. German in any combination reaches 68.1 percent. An English-only checker therefore covers about a fifth of the market cleanly and guesses at the rest.
There is a second layer no free scan can see, because it is written in the advert rather than in your CV: the level. Of the German requirements, 88.9 percent are pitched at professional level and only 8.2 percent at conversational. «Good German» on a CV is not an answer to that — it is an omission. A check that never mentions it has skipped the part that decides most Swiss applications.
Why a score for «your CV» is the wrong number
A score assumes there is a fixed bar to score against. In the Swiss stock there is not, not even inside one occupation. Take the job titles currently open at two or more different employers, compare only adverts that genuinely state a language requirement, and the adverts disagree with each other in 40.6 percent of title groups on which languages are needed, in 46.2 percent once the level is counted, and in 58.3 percent on the type of employment.
One example from the live stock: ten open adverts carry the title «HR Business Partner», spread across nine different employers, and between them they demand seven different language combinations — from German alone, through English plus French, to one role asking for German, Italian and Romansh. One job title, seven different gates.
The practical rule follows directly: the check belongs to the application, not to the document. A score awarded in January and still displayed in June is measuring something that does not exist. The useful question is whether this file fits this advert, and it has to be asked again for every advert.
The free official check nobody uses
The English version of arbeit.swiss carries a section called «Checking and sending your application». It lists what to look at before you send: spelling and formatting errors, completeness of documents, clear and correct file names — and it tells you to save and send everything as PDF. That is an official checklist, it costs nothing, and it catches exactly the class of mistake that makes an application look careless in an inbox.
For substance rather than form, the same page names the route: sign on with your regional employment centre for professional and personal advice on your applications. If you are entitled to register as a jobseeker, that advice comes with the registration — and it comes from someone who has read hundreds of files aimed at the same regional labour market.
The cantonal careers portal is the second public channel. Its own guidance on assembling an application says to have the documents checked by another person — a teacher, a family member, or a specialist at the careers office — and lists the offices' addresses on the same page. It is a public service run on behalf of the cantons. Anyone hunting for a tool tends to miss the person sitting two streets away.
What free costs you in exchange
Every free check wants the same thing: the complete file. Name, address, every employer with dates. In the case of an expert review that goes to a company whose business is writing and rewriting CVs. It is a fair trade as long as you know you are making it. Two precautions are enough: know who receives the file, and do not upload the same document to five vendors at once just to collect five opinions.
The second cost is timing. Feedback that lands in your inbox about forty-eight hours later is a good periodic audit, but it is no help at the moment you press «submit». For a single application you need something that answers immediately; for the underlying shape of the document, the slow careful read is the better instrument. They are not competitors.
And sometimes there is simply nothing to read. Jobscan advertises a free scan on its own pages but publishes neither a price nor how many free scans a month you get; on 22 August 2026 its homepage answered our request with a 403. Where a vendor does not write its limits down, «free» is an announcement rather than a commitment — and that test applies to everyone, us included.
What is free here, and what is not
Checking a CV against a specific advert sits in our free tier, along with the CV generator and the export. There is no paywall at the download button: the export runs through your browser's own print dialogue and the document carries no vendor name. What it does require is a free account with an email address — no card. That belongs in the same sentence as the word «free», otherwise the sentence is incomplete.
What you pay for is scope of use, not the check itself: Premium is CHF 15 a month or CHF 95 a year, with seven days free first. And here is what no tier can do — tell you whether you will get the job. A check measures the fit between a document and an advert. Everything after that is decided by a person no tool has met.
If you would rather compare than take our word for it, our comparison page sets the known checkers side by side, with each vendor's own quotes and the date they were read.
The five-minute check you can run yourself
One: read the language requirement in this advert, not in last week's one. Because of the 40.6 percent disagreement inside a single job title, this is the step most often skipped and the one that costs most. Two: state your languages as A1 to C2 rather than «fluent» or «good» — with 88.9 percent of German requirements pitched at professional level, that is the scale you are being measured on.
Three: put permit status and place of residence in the top half of page one. Four: workload. Among titles advertised by several employers, 58.3 percent disagree on the type of employment, so your own flexibility should be written down rather than assumed. Five: run the official list — spelling, completeness, clean file names, PDF.
Those five cost nothing, genuinely take five minutes, and cover more ground than any number between zero and one hundred. Only once they hold does a tool add anything — and then preferably one that checks against the advert you are applying to today.
Market figures come from the ongoing analysis of adverts open on SwissJobs.app, as at 22 August 2026. The language figures are based on the adverts that state a language requirement at all — just under three quarters of them. Statements about other vendors were read off those vendors' own pages on 22 August 2026 and kept as quotes. Our own prices come from the code rather than from marketing copy.
Check how your CV fits a job — and the Swiss market
Free checker: languages, work permit, skills and more — scored against a specific posting.
ATS CV checker: against a specific advert, freeSources
Related questions
What our job index says about the Swiss market
Computed live from our own index, not quoted from a study. Shares only, as of today.
Language the advert is written in
- Deutsch
- 60%
- English
- 23%
- Français
- 13%
- Italiano
- 3%
Of adverts that state a language requirement, the share asking for
- Deutsch
- 70%
- English
- 43%
- Français
- 21%
- Italiano
- 3%
19% posted in the last 7 days · Largest markets: Zürich 18% · Bern 10% · Genève 5% · Basel 5%