Resume Builder

Writing bullets that actually land

The difference between a weak resume and a strong one is almost entirely in the bullets. Weak bullets describe duties; strong bullets describe results.

• Weak: "Responsible for managing the company social media accounts."
• Strong: "Grew Instagram following from 2,000 to 45,000 in 14 months, driving a 31% increase in referral traffic."
• Weak: "Worked on the checkout team."
• Strong: "Rebuilt the checkout flow in React, cutting cart abandonment from 68% to 51% and adding roughly $400k in annual revenue."

The pattern is: strong verb + what you did + measurable outcome. If you genuinely have no metric, use scale or scope instead — team size, budget, number of users, volume handled.

What applicant tracking systems break on

Length, and what belongs on it

One page for under ten years of experience; two pages is acceptable beyond that, and normal in academia and senior technical roles. Anything longer is not read.

Cut the things that add nothing: an objective statement saying you want a challenging role, "references available on request", every job from more than fifteen years ago, and skills nobody assesses like "Microsoft Word" or "team player". Each line should give a reason to interview you.

Tailoring to the job description

Sending one resume to fifty listings is the least effective strategy available. Tailoring three applications properly beats twenty generic ones consistently.

Read the job description and note the exact terms it uses for the skills you have. If it says "PostgreSQL" and your resume says "Postgres", match theirs — keyword matching is literal in most screening systems. Reorder your bullets so the most relevant achievements appear first in each role.

Never invent skills to match keywords. It fails at the technical interview stage, and in some jurisdictions misrepresenting qualifications is grounds for dismissal after hiring.

What not to include on a US resume

• A photograph — US employers usually discard resumes with photos to avoid discrimination claims. Normal in much of Europe, Asia and Latin America; check local convention.
• Date of birth, marital status, nationality — same reason.
• Your full street address — city and state is sufficient and safer.
• References or their contact details — provide them when asked.
• Salary history — illegal for employers to ask in a growing number of US states.
• Skill rating bars — a self-assessed "8/10 in Python" means nothing to a reader and parses as noise.

Before you send it

• Proofread twice, then have someone else read it. Typos in a document about your attention to detail are disproportionately damaging.
• Save as PDF unless the listing explicitly requests .docx — PDF preserves layout everywhere.
• Name the file properly. resume-final-v3.pdf looks careless; Priya-Raman-Resume.pdf does not.
• Check it parses by opening the PDF and selecting all the text — if you cannot copy it out cleanly, neither can a parser.
• Match your LinkedIn — dates and titles that disagree are a common and easily avoided red flag.