Resume Help

Make every line earn its place

The fundamentals that separate a resume that opens doors from one that gets archived. Skim the topics or read in order — both work.

Win the first 90 seconds

Recruiters skim resumes in roughly 7–10 seconds before deciding whether to read closely. Design every part of the page so a skim still tells a clear story.

Lead with an outcome line. Under your name, write a single sentence that names your role, your years of relevant experience, and the kind of work you want next. Keep it under 25 words. Skip generic adjectives — specifics earn the second look.
Front-load the headline number. Move your most impressive metric into the first bullet of your most recent role. The bullet that gets read first should be the one you'd lead with in an interview.
Use whitespace as a signal. A wall of text reads as effort, not value. Generous spacing between sections trains the eye to find headings, dates, and the bullets you want them to land on.

Start every bullet with a verb

Bullets that start with verbs like Led, Shipped, Reduced, Owned read as ownership. Bullets that start with 'Was responsible for…' read as a job description. Recruiters know the difference.

Pick verbs that match the work. Built / Shipped / Designed for makers. Led / Coached / Mentored for managers. Negotiated / Closed / Forecasted for sales. Reduced / Saved / Cut for ops. The right verb does half the work of the bullet.
Avoid 'helped' and 'assisted'. These imply a supporting role. If you really did help someone else lead the work, name what your specific contribution was — 'Wrote the QA test plan that…' is stronger than 'Assisted with QA…'.
Vary your verbs. Repeating the same verb in every bullet makes a section read flat. Aim for three to four distinct verbs per role.

Quantify whenever you can

Numbers convert vague claims into evidence. A bullet with a number in it is instantly more credible than the same bullet without one — even if the number is small.

Use the metric the team cared about. If your team measured conversion, use conversion. If it measured tickets-resolved, use that. The right metric is the one your manager would have quoted in a review.
Compare against a baseline. 'Reduced p95 latency by 40%' is stronger than 'Made the API faster.' If you don't have a percentage, try magnitude (from / to), volume (per week / month), or scope (across N teams).
Don't fake precision. If you don't remember the exact number, round it (≈) or describe scale instead ('millions of users', 'eight-figure ARR'). Made-up numbers crater your credibility in interviews.

Tailor for the role you actually want

A generic resume sent to ten companies usually gets fewer responses than five resumes lightly tailored to each. The good news: tailoring rarely needs more than 15 minutes.

Mirror the language of the JD. Read the job description twice and underline the verbs and skills it uses. Where you've done the equivalent work, use those exact words. ATS systems and human readers both pattern-match on language they recognise.
Reorder, don't rewrite. Most tailoring is moving your most relevant bullets to the top of each role. You rarely need to write new ones — you just need to surface the ones that fit this job.
Drop what doesn't fit. If a bullet or even a whole side project doesn't reinforce the story you're telling for this job, cut it. A tighter resume reads as more focused.

Stay ATS-friendly without being boring

Most resumes pass through an Applicant Tracking System before a human sees them. You can have a beautifully designed resume AND parse cleanly — they aren't in conflict.

Use real text, not images. Your name, contact info, and section headings should all be selectable text — not graphics. If a recruiter can't copy-paste your email, neither can their ATS.
Stick to standard section names. Use 'Experience', 'Education', 'Skills' — not 'My Journey' or 'What I'm About'. Standard section names are what ATS parsers look for; creative ones get categorised as 'Other'.
Keep dates consistent. Pick one date format (Mon YYYY or YYYY-MM) and use it everywhere. Mixing formats confuses parsers and makes humans subconsciously discount the resume.

Skip first-person pronouns

Resume bullets are an industry convention: implied first person, no pronouns. Writing 'I led' or 'My team shipped' looks unfamiliar to recruiters and eats characters you could spend on substance.

Drop the I. Instead of 'I led the migration', write 'Led the migration.' The 'I' is implied — every bullet under your name is about you.
Use past tense for past roles. Present tense for your current role ('Lead a team of 6'), past tense for everything before that ('Led the launch of…'). Mixing tenses inside a single role reads sloppy.
Avoid 'we' for your own work. If you collaborated, say 'Partnered with marketing to…' or 'Co-led with the design team…'. 'We launched X' makes recruiters wonder which part was you.

One page until you really need two

One-page resumes work for almost everyone with under ~10 years of experience. Two pages are fine for senior IC and management roles, but every line on page two should earn its place.

Cut roles older than 10 years. Once a role is more than a decade old, summarise it in a single line under 'Earlier roles' or drop it entirely. Recruiters care about your last three roles most.
Trim the bullets, not the spacing. If you're tight on space, cut a weak bullet — don't shrink the font or remove whitespace. A cramped resume looks worse than a focused one.
Put the contact info one line, not five. Email · phone · city · LinkedIn — separated by dots — fits on one line and saves an inch of vertical space at the top.

What to cut in 2026

Some resume conventions earned their place decades ago and now do nothing for you. Cut these and the resume reads more current immediately.

Objective statements. Replaced by your headline summary. An objective like 'Seeking a challenging role…' is generic by definition — the headline outcome line does this job better.
References available on request. Recruiters assume references will be available. The line just takes up space.
Full mailing addresses. City and state (or city and country) is enough. A full street address is unnecessary and a privacy risk.
Hobbies that don't connect to the role. Hobbies are great when they reinforce something about you that matters for the job. 'Reading' as a hobby line tells the recruiter nothing.

Skip the writing

Tailor your resume to a job in under a minute

Paste any job description into the Tailor tool and our AI rewrites your bullets to mirror what the role asks for — using your real experience, not made-up claims.

Try Tailor my resume