Resume tips that actually change your response rate

Most resume advice is either too vague to act on ("be concise") or too cosmetic to matter ("use a modern font"). What follows is neither. Each item names a specific change, and the sections are ordered by how much difference they make.

Fix the parse first (tips 1 to 6)

None of the wording advice matters if the document does not extract cleanly. These six take under an hour and are the difference between being in the search results and being invisible.

1. 1Use a single column. Sidebars are the most common cause of scrambled parsing. A parser can read straight across both columns and interleave your skills into a job description.
2. 2Put contact details in the body, not the header. Header and footer regions are routinely skipped, which produces a perfect record nobody can contact.
3. 3Delete tables and text boxes. They parse inconsistently and can destroy reading order entirely.
4. 4Remove graphics, photos, and skill-rating dots. They carry no text, so a parser sees nothing and the space is wasted.
5. 5Export a text-based PDF. Not a scan, not a print-to-image. Test by trying to select a line of text.
6. 6Use standard section headings. Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications, Projects. "Where I've Made an Impact" matches nothing.

The ATS-friendly resume guide explains why each of these breaks, if you want the mechanism rather than the rule.

Get found (tips 7 to 12)

1. 1Use the market job title, not your internal one. "Growth Wizard" matches nothing; put the real title first and the internal one in brackets.
2. 2Take vocabulary from the posting verbatim. Recruiters search literal strings, not meanings.
3. 3Write acronyms both ways once. "Search engine optimisation (SEO)" catches searches for either.
4. 4Put important keywords inside bullets, not only in a skills list. A list is a claim; a bullet is evidence.
5. 5Name the tools explicitly. Salesforce, dbt, Figma, NetSuite, Kubernetes. Proper nouns are searched directly.
6. 6Never hide keywords in white text. It is trivially visible on copy, some systems flag it, and it converts a maybe into a no.

Make the bullets work (tips 13 to 19)

1. 1Lead with a verb, never with "Responsible for". Responsibility describes the job you were given, not what you did with it.
2. 2Attach a number wherever one honestly exists: percentage, volume, time, revenue, headcount, error rate.
3. 3Name the scope. Team size, budget, region, user count. Scope is what separates two people with the same title.
4. 4Cut duties everyone in your role performs. Keep only what you specifically changed.
5. 5One idea per bullet. Two achievements crammed into one sentence means neither lands.
6. 6Keep bullets to two lines. Anything longer gets skimmed past.
7. 7Vary your verbs, but do not reach. Repeating the right verb beats an odd synonym. The action verbs series has lists by industry.

Structure and relevance (tips 20 to 24)

1. 1Put the most relevant role first within reverse-chronological order. If your most relevant experience is older, add a short "Relevant experience" section above it.
2. 2Lead each role with its strongest matching bullet. Most readers get two bullets deep.
3. 3Write a three-line summary naming your target title, level, and one result. Delete any summary that could describe someone else.
4. 4Compress old and irrelevant roles to a single line each rather than deleting them and creating unexplained gaps.
5. 5Give month and year for every date. "2021 to 2023" across three roles forces the reader to guess.

Before you send (tips 25 to 27)

1. 1Run the copy-paste test. Select all in your exported PDF, paste into a plain text editor, and read what arrives. That is what the parser sees.
2. 2Do the six-second scan. Cover everything below the top third of page one. Does what remains say what you do, at what level, and why you fit this role?
3. 3Score the keyword overlap against the actual posting. Eyeballing misses synonyms and acronyms. The free ATS resume checker does it in seconds.

The one that outweighs the rest

Tailor per role. A CV that answers the specific posting beats a beautifully written generic one every time, and it is the only item on this list that compounds. Every application you tailor is a fresh chance rather than the same lottery ticket.

The catch is time: twenty to forty minutes per role by hand. If that is what makes you stop, tailoring from the job link does the first pass in about a minute and leaves you to review it.