#1 - Folks don’t design for Scannability.‍

We cannot stress this enough: use design and white space on your resume to your advantage! Big blocks of text are overwhelming to the reader and make it difficult to spot the important details quickly. Use bullets, indentations, bold headlines, and other formatting details to help the reader get the most out of your resume as quickly as possible. If you need help, use this template as a guide!

#2 - More words doesn’t always mean more value.

‍We’ve all been there: we become more verbose when writing and add more words to our documents as a way to make it feel more substantial. But the truth is, more words doesn’t always mean more value. It’s critical that you focus your resume on relevant skills for the role you’re applying to, and edit out filler words that don’t make your point stronger. Little adjustments add up to big space savings, so consider tweaks like:

• “In order to” → “that” or “to”
• “Worked in collaboration with” → “Collaborated with”
• “I am a technical expert with a proven track record” → “Technical expert who has built”

#3 - Your resumes isn’t optimized for systems.

Most job sites use back end tools that automatically transcribe your resume into their applicant tracking systems. These systems can get confused by overly complicated formatting or unfamiliar headlines/section headers. Remember to use clean - not cute - language for each section of your resume: When in doubt, use these simple headlines:

• “Summary”
• “Professional Experience”
• “Education and Awards”
• “Personal Interests”

Also consider adding key words from the job description into your resume for that role; doing so can help increase the chance your resume will be surfaced if a recruiter searches their database by key terms. Need some inspiration? Use this LinkedIn feature to help get your mind moving!

Ready to revamp your resume?

Use this template to get started. It’s a simple structure that is great for scanability and optimized for a variety of applicant tracking systems.