Resume Tips
Short, direct answers to the questions that come up most often. Listing Python or AWS, getting past an ATS, explaining gaps, reframing for a career change.
ATS & Keywords
Formatting Rules That Get You Past the ATS
Most ATS rejections come down to a handful of formatting choices. Fix these and your parse rate jumps. No magic keywords needed.
PDF or DOCX: Which Resume Format Should You Send?
There isn't a universal answer, but there is a right answer for each application. Short version: PDF unless the application form asks for Word.
How to Tailor Your Resume to a Job Description
Tailoring is not rewriting. It's reordering and lightly editing. With a structured master resume in place, you can adapt it for a specific role in about fifteen minutes.
Skills
How to List Python on Your Resume
Putting the word "Python" under Skills tells a recruiter almost nothing. They want to know what you've built with it, at what scale, and which parts of the ecosystem you actually use day to day.
How to List AWS on Your Resume
Hiring managers don't care that you've heard of AWS. They want to know which services you've shipped against, how much infrastructure you've owned, and whether you've ever held a cloud bill in your hands.
Bullets & Content
How to Quantify Achievements (Even Without Hard Numbers)
The fastest meaningful upgrade you can make to most resumes is replacing duty language with quantified outcomes. Most roles, even ones that don't feel data-heavy, have measurable surface area if you go looking for it.
Resume Action Verbs That Move the Needle
Recruiters skim resumes in roughly seven seconds before deciding whether to read further. The verb at the start of each bullet is the first signal they pick up. The wrong verb can quietly downgrade strong work.
How to Structure a Resume Bullet (Action, Scope, Result)
Every bullet that lands has roughly the same shape. An active verb. A scoped object. A measurable result. Once that pattern is in your head, drafting a publishable bullet takes about a minute.
Resume Summary vs. Objective
Resume objectives have been dead for at least a decade. Summaries replaced them, but a lot of summaries still read like objectives. Here's what a useful one looks like in practice.
How to Show Remote Work on Your Resume
Remote experience is something hiring managers explicitly look for now, especially for roles that will stay remote. Make it easy to spot.
Formatting
Career Change
Employment Gaps & Freelance
How to Handle Employment Gaps on Your Resume
Gaps are far less stigmatized than they were ten years ago, especially after 2020. The mistake isn't having a gap. The mistake is leaving it blank and letting the reader fill in the worst-case story.
How to List Freelance Work Without It Looking Like a Gap
Freelance work reads like a gap when it's described vaguely. The fix is to treat your freelance period as a single role with a portfolio of clients underneath it.