What's new

This page tracks user-facing improvements to AskTheRecruiter — new features, quality upgrades, and fixes that change what you see or how the tools behave.

Internal infrastructure, security hardening, and compliance scaffolding are omitted unless they directly affect the product experience.

June 2026 — A fairer estimated match

Your free estimated match is now fairer. A job posting's location and work arrangement (for example "Seattle, WA" or "Onsite") are no longer mistaken for missing skills — so they won't drag your score down or clutter the "Biggest lifts" list with things that aren't about your experience. The lifts you see are now the real, skill-based gaps worth closing. (v1.0.287)

June 2026 — "Why this score?" on your estimated match

Your free estimated match score now explains itself. Expand Why this score? under the ring to see exactly how the number is built — for each category the job posting lists (must-haves, preferred, keywords), how many your resume already covers and the points that earns (for example, "Must-haves: 2 of 3 covered · +40 / 60 pts"). The score is no longer a black box — you can see why it is what it is. (v1.0.282)

June 2026 — Chrome extension: your resume as a real document

The Chrome side-panel now shows your adapted resume as a proper document — section headings and bullets — instead of one wall of plain text. And the bullets the AI tailored to the job are highlighted in green, with a Done ✓ / See what changed toggle so you can switch between a clean copy view and a "show me what you changed" view — the same treatment the web app has. (v1.0.280–281)

June 2026 — A clearer adapt workspace

The adapt results page now shows a single, focused "add what's missing" list instead of two overlapping ones. You see the count of remaining gaps up top with a jump down to add them line-by-line, where they flow straight into your final downloaded resume. (v1.0.278)

June 2026 — Your resume, rendered as a real page

The adapted-resume preview now renders as paper on a desk — a true letter-width page with margins and a soft shadow — so what you review reads like the actual document you'll download, in both light and dark mode. (v1.0.274)

June 2026 — Rename and export from your phone

The dashboard's saved cover letters and interview prep cards now support inline rename and per-item export (PDF / DOCX / Copy) on mobile, matching what desktop already had. (v1.0.273)

June 2026 — See exactly what the AI changed

Adapted drafts now colour each line by how it changed — green for added, yellow for reworded, purple for an injected keyword, plain for untouched — driven by the real rewrite, not a guess, with a labelled legend. You can trust which lines were actually tailored. (v1.0.271)

June 2026 — A friendlier, more honest match score

The match score was reworked around your upside: it leads with "+N points to gain" rather than a deficit, the rough pre-adapt estimate is clearly labelled (and notes your real match is usually higher once we read your full experience), and a live ring climbs as you add missing items — so the score feels like progress to make, not a grade. (v1.0.254–270)

June 2026 — Check your fit before you spend

You can now see a free estimated match — your fit score plus the required and preferred items your resume doesn't yet cover — before spending a credit on the full adapt, so you know what you're working with up front. (v1.0.220+)

June 2026 — Smoother resume uploads on mobile

PDF uploads were hardened across mobile browsers (iOS Safari, Chrome, Brave), including a more reliable reading-order fix so a PDF resume comes in cleanly rather than as scrambled or word-per-line text. (v1.0.244–247)

May 2026 — Chrome extension visual refresh

The Chrome side-panel extension went through two rounds of visual polish to match the web app's warm paper-on-desk identity.

Phase 1 (v1.0.034) — Colour tokens and contrast:

Text, border, and primary-button colours now match the web app exactly.
WCAG AA contrast fix on the credits badge (was failing at 2.7:1; now 6.6:1).
Status colour tokens added for analysis result badges in light and dark modes.
Spacing improvements: section gaps, textarea height, card padding, and result text all adjusted for readability in the narrow side-panel.

Phase 2 (v1.0.046) — Compact actions and timestamps:

The four stacked download buttons (Copy · TXT · PDF · DOCX) are replaced with a compact inline footer row — cleaner, more web-app-like in the side-panel.
Saved jobs in the extension now show a two-part timestamp: Saved May 26, 2026 · 3d ago — absolute date plus relative age so you can scan the list without mental date arithmetic.

May 2026 — Dashboard pagination

Cover letters and interview prep sessions can now scroll across pages on the dashboard. Previously, the tabs showed a stub note when you had more than 20 items. Now a Prev/Next pager appears at the bottom of each list, with a "Items N–M of total" range indicator and automatic last-page detection. (v1.0.037)

May 2026 — Faster analysis for strong-match resumes

When your resume is already a strong match for the job (all required skills present and directly evidenced), the analysis engine now skips the deep LLM pass and returns the result immediately. The output is identical — you just get it faster. Strong-match resumes typically see a 30–50% reduction in analysis time. The slower path is still used whenever the result is ambiguous. (v1.0.068)

May 2026 — Enhanced AI for complex resume types

Federal resumes, academic CVs, executive bios, medical CVs, and military transition resumes now route to a dedicated AI configuration tuned for their conventions. Previously all resume types shared the same model. The change is automatic — no settings to toggle. (v1.0.069)

An invisible bot-protection check (Cloudflare Turnstile) was added to the magic-link sign-in form. Legitimate users see no change — no checkbox, no image puzzle. Automated sign-up attempts are blocked before an OTP is ever sent. (v1.0.004)

May 2026 — New privacy rights (Colorado, Canada, Brazil)

The Privacy Policy was updated to document rights under three additional jurisdictions:

Colorado AI Act (SB 205) — consumer notice explaining ATR's non-high-risk classification, human oversight, and opt-out path. Effective Feb 2026.
Canada (PIPEDA) — access, correction, and consent withdrawal rights; OPC complaint path; 72-hour breach notification commitment.
Brazil (LGPD) — all Art 18 rights; legal basis; ANPD complaint path.

These join the existing GDPR, CCPA, and Nevada disclosures. (v1.0.066)

May 2026 — Interview prep saved to dashboard

Quick Drafts, Cover Letters, and Interview Prep sessions are all now auto-saved to your account and visible in the Dashboard. Previously only Quick Drafts were persisted; Cover Letters and Interview Prep were session-only. All three tool types now support reopen, download, and delete from the Dashboard. (v0.9.113)

May 2026 — Dashboard launched

The /dashboard page went live — a home for every saved draft tied to your account. Six states: loading skeleton, signed-out prompt, empty state with a "Start your first draft" call-to-action, filled list with tool-type badges, error state, and a deletion confirmation flow. Previously drafts existed only as server-side records with no user-facing surface to view or manage them. (v0.9.110)

Earlier — Core tools

The three core tools launched during the v0.9.x development window:

Quick Draft — paste your resume and a job description, get an adapted draft in seconds. Eleven resume-class templates (federal KSA format, academic CV layout, corporate bullet rewrite, and more) with automatic classification and a manual override.
Cover Letter — generated from the same resume + JD inputs, matching tone and targeting the specific role. Option to add a custom opening paragraph.
Interview Prep — generates a question bank from the JD, with guidance notes adapted to your resume's evidence map.

All three tools run through the same evidence-grounding and anti-fabrication pipeline described on the How it works page.

Questions about a specific change? Contact us.