Resume Advice Recruiters Want You to Know

Most resume advice online is generic, "use action verbs," "keep it to one page." True, but not that useful on its own. Here's advice organized by the actual reasons resumes get rejected, based on what shows up over and over in ATS scans and recruiter feedback.

Format & Structure

• Use standard section headings ("Experience," "Education," "Skills"), creative headings like "My Journey" can confuse ATS parsers.
• Stick to one column. Multi-column layouts and text boxes often get scrambled or skipped entirely by ATS software.
• Save as .docx or a text-based PDF, never a scanned image or a PDF exported from a design tool without selectable text.
• Use a standard font (Arial, Calibri, Georgia) at 10-12pt, not for looks, but because unusual fonts sometimes fail to parse.
• One page for under 10 years of experience; two is fine beyond that. Three is rarely justified.

Content That Actually Persuades

• Every bullet should answer "so what?", not just what you did, but the outcome of doing it.
• Quantify wherever you honestly can: percentages, dollar amounts, team sizes, time saved.
• Cut the objective statement. A 3-4 line professional summary that states your role and top strength does more work.
• Match the job description's exact terms. If they say "stakeholder management" and you wrote "worked with clients," change it, ATS keyword matching is literal.
• Remove anything from more than 15 years ago unless it's directly relevant. Recency matters more than length of history.

What Recruiters Actually Notice First

In the first 6-7 seconds, a recruiter is scanning for three things: your most recent job title, whether your experience level roughly matches the role, and 2-3 keywords from the posting. Everything below the fold of that scan is secondary, which is why your top third of the page matters more than any other section.

• Put your strongest, most relevant job first, reverse chronological order, no exceptions.
• Don't bury a career-defining achievement in bullet six. Lead with it.
• If you're changing careers, a short summary bridging your old and new field prevents the recruiter from dismissing you at first glance.

Common Mistakes That Quietly Kill Applications

1. Sending the same resume to every job (the single biggest one, see our full breakdown of why generic resumes get rejected).
2. Listing responsibilities instead of results.
3. Inconsistent date formats or gaps left unexplained.
4. Typos in the first paragraph, the part most likely to actually get read.
5. Contact info missing or buried in a header/footer that some ATS systems can't read.