Most resume advice is about formatting. The resumes we fix on Feedback Friday are usually formatted fine. The problem is story — what a recruiter learns in ten seconds, and whether an ATS can match you to the job description at all.
This is what keeps coming up when we review résumés live.
Recruiters are not reading your resume
They are skimming it, running a mental checklist, and moving on. Hiring managers do the same thing on case studies — they scroll the headings, stop on one section, maybe read a paragraph, keep scrolling. Your resume needs to work for skimmers. That means every bullet should stand alone, and the first clause of each bullet should carry the reason someone would hire you.
Lead with why, not what
We use a why → how → what order on bullets (sometimes described as outcome first):
- Bad: “Designed agentic AI experiences at Microsoft Azure…”
- Better: “Enabled 60% of users to make faster, more informed cost decisions by designing agentic AI workflows at Microsoft Azure…”
Starting with the outcome forces each bullet to open differently. It also solves the “are my action verbs strong enough?” problem — you stop writing designed, designed, developed, designed in a row because the sentences are anchored on different results.
Customize bullets toward the job description. Pull out the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) recruiters and ATS systems are matching on, and reflect them in your experience section — not as keyword stuffing, but as honest overlap between what they need and what you have done.
More content beats clever layout
ATS systems score overlap between your resume and the job description. Candidates with three times your bullet count often rank higher — not because they are better, but because they gave the matcher more signal. If your experience section is thin, expand it before you redesign the template. Two pages is fine for most levels now. The old one-page rule dates from when resumes were printed and hand-delivered.
Entry-level candidates have a harder time justifying two pages. If you are early career, density matters more than length — but empty space is still wasted space.
The summary section is optional — and risky
We asked recruiters and hiring managers whether personal summaries help. The consensus: at best they help a little; at worst they are a waste of the only pixels above the fold.
If you keep a summary:
- Make it objective, not aspirational fluff
- Move the keywords into your experience bullets where ATS parsers are more likely to catch them
- Cut anything that reads like “passionate designer seeking challenging opportunities”
When in doubt, delete the summary and spend the space on bullets with outcomes.
Formatting traps that break ATS parsing
These come up almost every resume review:
- Tags under job titles (e.g. “e-commerce · remote · contract”) — parsers and auto-fill tools get confused. Work those details into the bullets or drop them.
- Inconsistent location formatting — if some roles say “Remote” and others list a city, employers cannot tell where you live. Put location once at the top (Name · Title · City) if you need it at all.
- Multi-column layouts and light gray text — some ATS systems parse PDFs like screenshots. Single column, single typeface, black text is the safe default.
- Tables for dates — if you use them, make sure dates align visibly with the correct role. Parsers are not forgiving.
Tell one story per application
A generic resume is a weak resume. The strongest candidates we see tailor toward each job description — same skeleton, different emphasis in the bullets.
You are not lying. You are choosing which true story to lead with.
