A resume has one job: get you to the interview. It doesn't need to tell your whole story — it needs to show a stranger, in under a minute, that you can do the job they posted.
What a resume needs
- Contact information. Name, email, phone, city (state is usually enough — a full street address isn't necessary). Add a LinkedIn or portfolio link if it's current and relevant.
- A summary, not an objective. Two or three lines describing who you are professionally and what you're looking for. This should be specific to you, not a generic statement that could sit on anyone's resume.
- Experience. Job title, company, dates, and a handful of bullet points per role. Lead with what you accomplished, not just what you were responsible for — a number or a concrete outcome does more work than a description of your duties.
- Education. Degree, school, and graduation year (or expected year). Early in a career this often sits near the top; later on it moves toward the bottom, since experience is doing more of the convincing by then.
- Skills. A short, honest list — tools, languages, certifications — kept relevant to the roles you're applying for rather than everything you've ever touched.
Why tailoring per posting matters
A resume written to apply everywhere reads as generic everywhere. The fastest way to improve a resume's odds is to match its language to the posting: if a job description says "cross-functional stakeholder management," and that's genuinely part of what you did, use that phrase rather than a looser synonym. Many employers screen applications with keyword matching before a person ever reads them, and even where a human is reading first, language that mirrors the posting reads as directly relevant rather than adjacent.
Tailoring doesn't mean rewriting the resume from scratch for every application — it means reordering bullet points so the most relevant ones lead, and adjusting the summary to speak to that specific role.
Common mistakes
- Objective statements. "Seeking a challenging position where I can grow my skills" tells an employer nothing about what you offer. A summary that states your actual experience and what you're looking for does more with the same space.
- Unexplained gaps. A gap in employment isn't disqualifying, but a resume that leaves it silent invites speculation. A one-line note — a caregiving period, further education, a layoff — closes the question before it becomes one.
- Inconsistent tense. Past roles should be past tense throughout; your current role should stay present tense throughout. Mixing the two inside a single bullet list reads as sloppy even when the content is strong.
- Length for its own sake. A resume padded to fill a second page with low-value detail is worse than a tight one page that only says what matters. Cut before you stretch.
A resume doesn't need to be perfect — it needs to be accurate, specific, and easy to skim. Get those three right and it will do its job.