What you didn't know you didn't know about resumes.

First of all, what is the purpose of a resume?

It is NOT a biography. It is NOT the story of your professional journey.

It is a marketing document. It is meant to sell the hiring team on why you are the best match for the job.

So with this in mind:

• Everything you put on the resume needs to support your candidacy for the role in a calculated way; everything else is a distraction and a point against you. So go line by line and ask yourself if the content is actually adding the right kind of value.
• Get to the point. We don't want to have to sift through a paragraph to find what we are looking for.
• We love metrics! They are the best way to sum up your impact.
• The "how" is very important. The reader shouldn't be left trying to figure out how you accomplished what you did.
• A good formula is this "Accomplishment [as a metric] by doing XYZ." For example, "Increased customer NPS scores from 3.4 to 8.7 by reducing wait times, investing in soft skills training, and implementing stronger escalation procedures.
• Don't use weak verbs like participate, collaborated, planned, etc. Words matter. Describe what you did in a powerful way. You didn't just "collaborate," you "drove deep engagement."
• Focus on results. Too many candidate just describe their day-to-day or responsibilities, which is important information, but we also want to see what you achieved.
• The skills section is really for calling out key terms that you weren’t able to capture in your professional experience section or that it’s critical to reiterate. It's not a place to catalog everything you know now to do.
• No one cares about your interests and hobbies. There. I said it. It doesn't help us understand how you're going to excel at the job.

Formatting also matters. Most recruiters look at dozens if not 100s of resumes a day. Their eyes get tired. So if you want to avoid activating subconscious bias against your resume, you need to keep the recruiter in mind.

• Don't crowd the page. It's overwhelming. Leave plenty of spacing and white space.
• Don't go smaller than 12 font. We don't want to have to lean in and squint.
• The 1-page resume rule is a myth. But I recommend not going over 2 unless you're a seasoned, senior leaders. If you're a fresh grad or only have a few years of experience, you don't need more than one page.
• Don't change the standard margins to squeeze more on the page.
• Use bullet points instead of paragraphs. Paragraphs make it harder to find what we want.
• Keep it short and sweet. 3-5 bullet points is more than enough and the shorter the tenure, the fewer bullet points you need. A 2 month internship doesn't need 5 bullets.
• Older experience (usually more than 7 years old) should get less real estate because it's usually less relevant.
• Listing out soft skills like “problem solver” isn’t really that useful. You should talk about your professional experience in a way that communicates the reader that you have the skills they are looking for. ?It's kind of like being famous; if you have to tell people you're famous, you probably aren't, so let your work experience communicate your skills.
• Lead with what is most important. For example, the job you held is more important that the company you worked for, so don't put the company first.
• Don't split the resume vertically. Use an ATS-friendly format that is horizontal. Since most resumes are horizontal, our eyes are set up to find information that way.
• Don't use fancy resume formats when applying. Just use a clean, crisp resume with a boring format. You can upload your fancy version as a supplemental document if you wish.

Phew. That's a lot but I hope it helps. And this represents my own point of view, and not that of all recruiters.