Frequently asked questions

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Getting started

What is Cipher?

Cipher is a career intelligence platform built on a simple rule: every word on every resume traces back to something you actually did and confirmed in your own words. You build a private Career Record from your full career history, and Cipher works from that record: decomposing each job description into what it actually asks for, showing you the evidence you have for each requirement, and letting you decide what appears on the page. Cipher does not invent, inflate, or guess.

How is Cipher different from other resume tools?

Most resume tools rewrite whatever you give them, and the result is a resume you can't fully speak to in an interview. Cipher inverts that. It starts with a private Career Record built from your own words, breaks each job description into individual requirements, and shows you which pieces of your history could answer each one. You choose the evidence. Cipher structures, advises, and formats, but the selection is yours, which means every line on the final resume is something you chose because it's true. That's the difference you feel in the interview.

Do I need to start from scratch?

No. Upload every version of your resume you have: old ones, tailored variants, LinkedIn exports. Cipher reads them all, extracts your full career history, and builds your master resume from everything you've already written. The Career Record session then fills in what resumes never captured: the context, the specifics, the work you never wrote down because you didn't know it counted.

Is there a free trial?

Yes, and it requires no payment card.

The free trial includes a set number of tailored resumes and career alignment scores. Both are lifetime totals for the account: they don't reset and they don't expire. The current numbers are on the pricing page, which is where every count and price lives, so there is only ever one copy of them to keep true.

Everything else is open. The full master resume builder, unlimited uploads, the complete Career Record session, filter probability and shortlist strength on any resume you generate, whenever you ask for them, full score disclosure, DOCX and PDF downloads, and an unlimited library. Downloads are never metered. You can also submit as many job descriptions as you like and read what each one requires. Reviewing a role costs nothing.

What happens when I've used my trial resumes?

Nothing happens automatically. The free trial never converts to a paid subscription on its own, and Cipher has no payment card to charge. You only pay if you actively choose to subscribe.

Your profile, Career Record, master resume and every resume you've already made stay exactly where you left them. Nothing is deleted. You just can't generate new tailored resumes until you upgrade. Plans and pricing are on the pricing page.

Is the free trial a limited version of the product?

No. It's the same engine, the same build station, the same three scores and the same disclosure. What differs is how many tailored resumes and career alignment scores you get, and the cover letter advisor, which is Membership only. Everything else works the same way at both tiers.

The Career Record

What is the Career Record?

Your Career Record is a private, permanent record of everything you actually did at every job, written in your own words. It is not a resume. It is not optimized. It belongs entirely to you and is never shared with anyone. It is the source of truth every resume Cipher builds traces back to: no bullet reaches a resume unless it's grounded in your record.

What happens during a Career Record session?

It's a private conversation, not a form and not a quiz. Cipher asks warm, unhurried questions to help you remember what you actually did at a job: what you walked into, what took up most of your time, what was harder than it looked from the outside, what you never put on a resume because you didn't know it counted. You type your answers. There are no wrong answers and no time pressure, and you can return to add more anytime.

Can I see my Career Record?

Yes. From your master resume page, click "your record" on any role to open the Career Record for that job. It renders as a private document. You can add to it anytime by continuing the conversation.

Does my master resume show everything?

Yes, and that's deliberate. Your master resume shows every item you hold, whether or not you've confirmed it. Confirmation controls what can reach a tailored resume. It does not control what you can see. Nothing is hidden from you in your own workspace, and nothing is dropped for want of a decision.

Is my Career Record private?

Completely. Your Career Record never appears on any resume unless you explicitly choose content from it. When you use AI features, relevant Career Record content is sent to Cipher's AI processing providers (currently Anthropic and Google) solely to generate your outputs. Your Career Record content is never used to train AI models. Cipher does not share your Career Record with employers, job boards, or other third parties. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

How do I add a new role?

From your master resume page, use the add position flow to enter the role details, then start a Career Record session for that role.

Building a tailored resume

How does tailoring work?

You paste a job description and Cipher reads it word for word, decomposing it into individual needs: what the role requires, what it encourages, and what it implies. Before you build anything, Cipher runs a career alignment check: does this role actually advance the direction you're building toward? That comes first, because the most expensive application is the one you shouldn't have made.

Then comes the build. For each need in the job description, Cipher surfaces the strongest candidate evidence from your Career Record (bullets, skills, certifications, projects) and you select what answers it. You can also browse your full record beyond the suggestions. When every need is answered or deliberately left unaddressed, Cipher assembles the resume: formatted, ordered, and fully yours, because you chose every piece of evidence on it.

What if I don't have evidence for a requirement?

Cipher tells you honestly. No padding, no stretching unrelated experience into apparent relevance. When a requirement comes up empty, Cipher asks a simple question: is this a genuine gap, or do you have something for it that just isn't in your record yet? If it's a genuine gap, you mark it and move on with clear eyes. That's useful signal about the role, not a failure. If you do have something, Cipher opens a short capture conversation right there, adds the result to your Career Record, and only then makes it selectable. New content always flows through your record first. Nothing is ever written straight onto a resume.

Will Cipher write my resume for me?

Cipher does the structural work (decomposing the job description, retrieving your evidence, formatting, ordering, and drafting connective prose like the summary), but it will never manufacture substance. It won't pad a weak match, reword unrelated experience to look relevant, or pressure you to select evidence that isn't honest. If the honest answer to a requirement is "I haven't done that," Cipher respects it. That discipline is the point: it's what makes the finished resume one you can defend line by line.

Will Cipher ever build my resume automatically?

Maybe, someday, as an option and never as a replacement. We test continuously what AI can actually do, and right now our judgment is that building your resume in lock-step with you is the right approach given AI's current limitations. If we find that AI can genuinely match or exceed what you and Cipher produce together, we may offer an autonomous build as an additional way to work, but the partnership build isn't going anywhere. It's not a placeholder for something better; it's the core of the product. And whatever options exist, the ground rule never changes: every word traces back to something you actually did and confirmed.

Can I edit my resume after it's built?

Not inside Cipher yet. To change what a tailored resume says, go back to the build station for that job, change what you selected, and generate it again, which counts as a new resume. Or download the DOCX and edit it in Word. Cipher never alters your Career Record or your master resume on its own. It does cut a tailored resume to the length you asked for, automatically and in a fixed order, and it names every cut. Nothing you change in a downloaded file reaches your Career Record or master resume.

What if my resume runs long?

Cipher cuts to the length you asked for by itself, in a fixed order, and never at the cost of the only evidence you have for something the job asked for. If it still runs over, Cipher tells you how long it is and why, and recommends one to two pages for an application. Everything it removed is named, and one action puts it all back. If you decide the longer version is the right version, that's your call.

Can I make multiple versions for the same job?

Yes. Build as many versions as you like, score each independently, and compare before choosing which to download. Two things are counted and only two: a generated resume, and a career alignment score. Editing, revising, re-scoring, downloading and working inside your record are never counted.

Can I leave partway through and come back?

Yes. Every job description gets a persistent workspace. Your parsed requirements, alignment result, evidence selections, editor state, versions and score history are all saved. You can navigate freely between steps, log out, and return days later without redoing anything.

Fit scoring

How does scoring work?

Three separate scores, each answering a different question, deliberately never blended into a single number, because the three questions are genuinely different and a composite would hide exactly what you need to see.

Career alignment runs first, before you build anything: does this role advance the direction you've told Cipher you're building toward? It's the "should I even pursue this?" checkpoint, and it's independent of any resume.

Filter probability asks: how likely is this resume to get through automated screening and reach a human?

Shortlist strength asks: if a recruiter reads this resume, how likely are they to schedule the call?

A role can score high on one and low on another. That's not a flaw, it's the information.

Do I get all three scores on the free trial?

Yes. All three, at every tier. Filter probability and shortlist strength are offered once the resume exists, one of each, and run when you ask for them. They are never metered. Career alignment is metered, and the counts are on the pricing page.

Can I see how a score was calculated?

Yes, at every tier. Every factor in every score is documented, labelled by evidence type, and available to you. Open any score and you can see what drove it. We publish the methodology too: the research behind each factor, sources named, caveats disclosed.

By default a score shows as a zone, a label and a one-line interpretation rather than a bare number, because a number without its reasoning is the thing we're trying to replace. The full breakdown is always one click away.

Can I re-run scores?

Yes, and re-scoring is never metered. Filter probability and shortlist strength run against the current state of your resume, on your request. Re-score after you restore what Cipher cut, or score each version you build, and compare. Score reports are saved to your account with the state they scored, so you can track improvement across a session.

What does it mean if my filter probability is low but my shortlist strength is high?

It means the resume itself reads as genuinely strong, with real depth and a real capability match, but it's likely to be screened out by a literal keyword-and-requirements pass. This usually happens when a job description conflates time with expertise: JDs are often written expecting that years equal skill, but you can be excellent at something you've done for two years and mediocre at something you've done for ten. A literal screen can't see that difference; a human reading your resume can. The move here: this is exactly the situation where getting a human to actually look at your resume matters more than the standard pipeline. Pursue a referral, an internal contact, or any path around the literal screen.

And the opposite: high filter probability, low shortlist strength?

That combination is worth pausing on. It means the resume clears the mechanical screen but doesn't read as substantively strong once a human evaluates it. In plain terms: it may be leaning on coverage without enough depth behind it. Don't treat the filter pass as validation. Go back to the build, look at which evidence you selected, and ask whether each bullet carries real substance (specific work, concrete results) or whether it's matching words. This is the disagreement a single blended score would have hidden entirely.

Career alignment sits apart from this pairing. It's a judgment call that's always yours: sometimes the right role isn't on your stated path and is still worth pursuing, and sometimes a role that clears both other scores still deserves a "this takes you further from where you said you want to be" moment before you invest the time.

What is a knockout?

A knockout is a hard requirement the role demands that your record does not show: a required certification, licence, or clearance you don't have. Cipher surfaces knockouts above the score, before anything else, because they matter more than the number. A knockout doesn't mean "don't apply." It means go in with your eyes open, and it never stops Cipher from building you the resume.

A years-of-experience shortfall is deliberately not a knockout. Being a year or two short of a stated minimum is one of the most common reasons people talk themselves out of applying, and one of the weakest predictors of whether they'd get the job. Cipher flags it so you can see it, and still gives you credit for the experience you do have.

Why can't I adjust the score weightings?

There are no weightings to adjust. The three scores are never combined, so there's nothing to weight. Each stands on its own, and Cipher's report helps you read them together.

The cover letter advisor

Does Cipher write my cover letter?

No, and that's a deliberate choice.

For every role you score, Cipher surfaces the specific Career Record passages and anecdotes most relevant to what that job description is actually asking for, with a note on why each one belongs in your letter. The project you led under constraint. The problem you solved twice at different companies. The thing you mentioned in passing that is exactly what this hiring manager is looking for.

You write the letter. Cipher makes sure you don't forget the part that would have made it memorable.

The cover letter advisor is included with Membership. On the free trial you can see a worked example, a sample Career Record and what the advisor surfaces from it, so you know exactly what you'd be getting.

Resumes, formats, and applicant tracking systems (ATS)

What is an ATS, actually? Does it reject resumes automatically?

An ATS is the database and workflow software employers use to manage applications: it stores your resume, parses it into structured fields, and lets recruiters search, sort, and rank candidates. Here's what most resume advice gets wrong: an ATS rarely rejects anyone automatically. The famous claim that most resumes are auto-rejected by software before a human sees them traces back to a vendor sales pitch, not to any published study. What actually filters candidates is application volume plus human triage (a recruiter searching the database, skimming results, and stopping once a shortlist forms), along with any knockout criteria a human configured.

So the real game isn't beating the robot. It's making sure your resume parses cleanly into that database, genuinely reflects the requirements that matter, and reads with real substance in the human skim that follows. That's exactly the sequence Cipher's filter probability and shortlist strength scores mirror.

How does Cipher handle ATS systems?

Cipher's resumes are built to move through them cleanly: single column only, standard section headings, contact information in the document body, consistent date formats, no tables or graphics that break parsing. The DOCX export is optimized for ATS submission. The PDF export is designed for human-direct delivery: recruiter email, networking handoffs, portfolio submissions.

Can I download my master resume?

Not yet. Today, downloads are the tailored resumes you build for specific roles, in DOCX and PDF. Your master resume and Career Record are always viewable in full inside the product, and everything on any tailored resume traces back to them. A direct master-resume export is something we want to offer. If you need your complete data in the meantime, a full portable copy is always available as described in our Privacy Policy.

Why do Cipher resumes look the way they do?

Every visual decision serves either readability or ATS parsing, never decoration. The single-column layout is the only format that parses cleanly across every major ATS without exception. Line length, margins, and spacing are set for the way a human eye actually reads a page.

Do downloads include the scores?

No. Your exports are clean documents: no scores, no watermarks, no Cipher branding, no disclaimers. Scores and reports live in your account; the resume is yours to send.

Is there a limit on how many resumes I can keep?

No. Your library holds every resume you've made, indefinitely, with its saved score report. Deleting one doesn't give you a generation back, and nothing requires you to delete anything. What's metered is making a new one.

Account and billing

What does Membership include?

Membership releases tailored resumes and career alignment scores with each charge that pays for a term. The counts are on the pricing page, which is where every number has its one home.

Everything else is unlimited: re-scoring, downloads, saved reports, and your library. Submitting a job description and reading what it requires costs nothing. Checking whether a role is worth pursuing is always free.

Need more in a heavy month? Resume packs are available as posted on the pricing page. A pack is bought outright: those resumes never expire, no cadence touches them, and they survive a pause of any length.

How does the monthly resume allowance work?

Resumes are released by the charge that pays for them. A monthly charge releases a month's worth, and a six-month charge releases the whole term's on the day you buy it, and each release carries its own last day.

Two releases can be open at once, so you'll sometimes hold more than one release's worth. But they don't add up indefinitely. An unused release expires on its last day. Your balance shows each release separately with the last day it works, so you always know what you're holding and how long you have.

Resumes you buy in a pack never expire.

Why a fixed allowance? Why not unlimited?

Because the allowance works out to roughly two seriously pursued applications per week, and serious pursuit is the whole design. Cipher is built for depth over volume: reading the JD closely, checking alignment before you invest, selecting honest evidence for every requirement, editing, scoring, and re-scoring until the resume is genuinely right. That loop takes real attention, and it's what actually moves your odds. An unlimited quota would quietly reward the opposite behaviour.

That said, your Cipher resumes are yours, everywhere. If you also want to run a high-volume strategy through the quick-apply platforms, download your Cipher resume and upload it to as many as you like. There's no lock-in and no penalty.

How do I end my membership?

In the app, under Settings. One action ends it, with no form to fill in and no one to email. Your membership runs to the end of the period you've already paid for; nothing is taken away before then. After that your account pauses: your Career Record, your master resume and every resume you've built stay exactly where they are, and you can start again whenever you want without rebuilding anything. You won't be charged again once you've ended it.

Deleting your account is a separate action. You do not need to delete anything to stop being billed.

Is there a billing portal?

No. Everything you'd go to a billing portal for is in Settings: your plan, what you've been charged, and ending your membership. Cipher doesn't send you somewhere else to do it.

Can I pause my subscription?

Yes. Pausing is free and indefinite, from Settings. And you land in pause automatically if you end your subscription: your access runs to the end of the term you've paid for, and then the account pauses rather than closing.

While paused, billing stops and you keep your Career Record, your master resume and your whole resume library. You can view and download them at any time, and resumes you bought in a pack can still be used to build, score and download. Everything else waits until you resume, which you can do whenever you want, with your work intact.

One thing pausing doesn't stop: allowance already released to you keeps its own last day. If a release runs out while you're paused, it's gone. It doesn't come back when you return. Resumes you've bought in a pack never expire, paused or not.

What is the refund policy?

Cipher does not offer refunds. The free trial exists so you can fully evaluate the product, without submitting any payment card information, before choosing to subscribe. For questions about the no-refund policy before subscribing, email hello@cipherresume.ai.

How do I change my email address?

Email changes are handled through support. Reach out at hello@cipherresume.ai.

How do I delete my account?

From Settings → Danger zone, click "delete my account."

If you close your account, we permanently delete your account, your data and your uploaded files from our active database and file storage right away. Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone. We keep rolling daily backups of our database for seven days, so no backup containing your data survives more than seven days after deletion. Uploaded files are not included in those database backups.

We also remove your personal data from our analytics and email tools. We currently do that by hand as part of processing your request, within the response time in our Privacy Policy.

Two things deletion doesn't reach, and we'd rather say so. Our error-monitoring tool doesn't support deleting one person's records on request. We limit what's sent there, remove what we can, and the rest expires on that provider's schedule, currently no more than thirty days. And if you've written to us through the contact form, we keep that message and the details you sent with it as a record of the correspondence.

None of that limits your deletion rights under the law. If you want something removed that survives account deletion, make a deletion request and we'll handle it under those rights, not under this list.

Download anything you want to keep first.

Your data

Is my data safe?

Your Career Record and resume data are stored securely with row-level security. No other user can access your data. Cipher does not sell your data, does not share it with employers or job boards, and does not use your Career Record content to train AI models. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Is Cipher AI?

Partly, and deliberately only partly. Cipher uses AI where the work genuinely requires judgment about language: reading a job description the way a person would, weighing whether your evidence honestly answers a requirement, assessing how a resume reads. Everything that can be done reliably by ordinary software (formatting, ordering, allowances, parsing rules, the guardrails that keep every bullet traceable to your record) is done by ordinary software. We don't use AI for the sake of using it, and you'll notice Cipher doesn't perform its AI at you. The rule underneath everything: AI helps express what you actually did. It never invents what you didn't.

Whose AI does Cipher use, and what does it see?

Cipher uses third-party AI providers, currently Anthropic and Google. When you use an AI-powered feature, the relevant content (resume text, Career Record entries, the job description) is sent to a provider solely to generate your result, in real time. If one provider is unavailable, the other may process your request so the product keeps working. Your Career Record content is never used to train AI models, ours or anyone's.

What happens if the AI is unavailable?

Cipher tells you, honestly. If an AI-powered step can't run, the product says so and gives you a real path forward. For example, if evidence suggestions are unavailable during a build, you can browse your full record manually and keep working. Cipher never pretends an AI step ran when it didn't, and never silently degrades your results. And it never charges you for a generation it couldn't complete.

Can Cipher be wrong?

Yes, and we'd rather say so than pretend otherwise. Cipher is built so that it can't invent experience you don't have. Every bullet traces to something you wrote and confirmed, and that guardrail runs in ordinary code, not AI. But the parts that do use AI make judgment calls about language: what a job description is really asking for, whether a piece of your evidence honestly answers it, how a line reads to a recruiter. Those judgments can be off.

That's exactly why you're in the loop at every step. You confirm what Cipher read in the job description, you choose every piece of evidence, and you can edit every word before you download. Cipher shows you its reasoning so you can check it, not so you'll trust it. Read your resume before you send it. It's your name on it.

Does Cipher learn from my data?

Not from your identifiable data, ever.

Separately, Cipher offers an optional contribution program, off by default, where, with your consent, we use de-identified, aggregate patterns drawn from two categories of data, never your personally identifiable individual records. The first is application outcomes. The second is product-usage patterns: how members interact with the Services, such as how members select evidence from their Career Record or sequence the steps of building a resume. We study usage patterns to understand how the product is used and to inform future features.

It's a toggle in Settings: opt in anytime, opt out anytime. Opting out, closing your account, or deleting an outcome removes your contribution from the next nightly rebuild. Your own outcome history is never affected by the toggle, only your contribution to the aggregate. We do not draw conclusions from groups smaller than fifty people, we take reasonable measures to ensure the data can't be associated with you, we never sell it, and we publicly commit to using it only in de-identified form and to never attempting to re-identify it. Anyone we share it with is contractually held to the same commitments or stronger.

Does Cipher make decisions about me?

No. Your scores are yours.

Fit scoring and job-description matching are profiling in the legal sense: automated analysis of your data to evaluate something about you. But they're self-assessment tools you control. Cipher is not an employer, doesn't participate in anyone's hiring decisions, and never shares your scores or your Career Record with employers, job boards, or any third party. Nobody but you can use a Cipher score to decide anything about you.

That's why the profiling opt-out right doesn't bite here. There's no decision being made about you to opt out of. If you'd still rather Cipher didn't profile at all, write to us and we'll talk through your options.

What about sensitive information in my uploads?

Some of what you upload or type may reveal sensitive things: health, disability, immigration status, protected-class information. We do not screen that out before processing it, because filtering your own words before you've seen them would break the product and we'd rather tell you plainly.

By submitting that content you're consenting to us processing it to deliver the service you asked for. If content you submit reveals a health condition, diagnosis or status, we treat it as consumer health data and apply extra safeguards: only people bound by a confidentiality obligation can access it, our providers handle it under written data processing agreements, and we do not sell it. We don't sell any personal data.

Don't include sensitive information you don't want processed unless it matters for your use of Cipher.

Can I get a copy of my data?

Yes. You can download your resumes and exports anytime from within the product, and you can request a complete portable copy of your personal data, including everything in your Career Record, sensitive content and all, as described in our Privacy Policy. We respond within 45 days, and it's free once every twelve months.

Troubleshooting

Something is not working. How do I report a bug?

Use the contact page and select "Bug report." Describe what happened, what you expected, and what page you were on. We investigate every report.

The Career Record session is not starting. What should I do?

Refresh the page and try again. If the issue persists, report it via the contact page. Make sure you're on a supported browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, current versions).

I completed a Career Record session but my content is not showing up.

Everything from a session appears on your master resume immediately. Your master shows everything you hold. New items arrive unconfirmed, and confirming them is what makes them available to a tailored resume. Look for the role on your master resume page and confirm any pending items. If nothing is showing at all, contact us at hello@cipherresume.ai.

My build session disappeared. Did I lose my work?

You shouldn't have. Build sessions persist, including across logout. Return to the job description from your library and your selections, versions and scores should all be there. If they aren't, that's a bug we want to know about immediately: report it via the contact page.