15 practical guides on what actually moves the needle now — ATS, format, content, structure, and strategy. No recycled LinkedIn advice, no fabricated stats.
2 tips.
Use a standard sans-serif (Arial, Helvetica, Calibri, Inter, Roboto) or a workhorse serif (Georgia, Cambria, Source Serif) at 10–12pt body / 14–16pt headings. Avoid display fonts, script fonts, and anything from a free-font marketplace.
Read the guide →Resume keywords matter, but not in the 'cram every JD term into a hidden white-text block' way. Modern ATS systems weight relevance and context. The right move is to use the JD's exact phrasing for skills you actually have, in places where the phrasing is natural.
Read the guide →4 tips.
Under 10 years of experience: one page, full stop. 10–20 years: one or two pages, depending on density. Over 20 years or for academic/federal/medical: two or more pages by convention. Length is not the goal; relevance is.
Read the guide →The biggest formatting mistakes in 2026 are: two-column layouts, contact info inside page headers, decorative fonts, text inside images, mixed font sizes, and PDFs exported with embedded forms. Each one is a parsing or scanning failure. Each has a fix.
Read the guide →Go to two pages when you have 10+ years of experience or a portfolio of varied roles that a one-pager would distort. Page two has to earn its place — every line directly relevant to the target role, no filler. Repeat your name and 'page 2' at the top.
Read the guide →Fit one page by cutting older roles to one line each, removing the skills wall, dropping the hobbies section, and tightening every bullet by ~30%. Don't shrink the font below 10pt or the margins below 0.6in — both signal you couldn't make the call.
Read the guide →3 tips.
Strong action verbs are specific and uncommon enough to carry meaning ('rebuilt,' 'shipped,' 'instrumented,' 'negotiated') without veering into thesaurus territory ('spearheaded,' 'orchestrated,' 'leveraged'). Pick the verb that names the actual action.
Read the guide →Strong bullets follow one shape: action verb → what you built or owned → who or what it was for → the number that proves the impact. 4–6 bullets per role, 1–2 lines each, no exceptions for senior roles.
Read the guide →Every achievement has a number attached if you look hard enough — time saved, scale handled, percent improved, frequency, headcount, error rate. The trick isn't inventing numbers, it's finding the ones that already exist in the work.
Read the guide →3 tips.
Keep the summary if you're a career switcher, returning to work, or have 10+ years of experience. Cut it if you're early-career with a clear linear story. When you keep it: 2–3 sentences max, no buzzwords, name the role and the strongest signal.
Read the guide →In the US: 'resume' = 1–2 page summary; 'CV' = long-form academic document. Outside the US (UK, EU, Australia, India): the words are often interchangeable and 'CV' usually means a 1–3 page summary. Send what the JD asks for; default to a US-style resume if the JD is unclear and the company is American.
Read the guide →Include: full name, professional email, phone, city + state (not full address), LinkedIn URL, and a portfolio URL if you have one. Leave off: home address, photo, age, marital status, secondary phone, second email. One line under your name, parseable by ATS.
Read the guide →3 tips.
Don't hide gaps; label them. A one-line entry with the dates and a plain reason ('Caregiving, 2023–2024' or 'Sabbatical / consulting, 2022') is more credible than a chronological gap. Gaps are normal in 2026 and most hiring managers don't care.
Read the guide →A career-change resume is built around three sections: a clear summary that names the transition, a 'Relevant Experience' section that reframes prior work in the language of the new role, and a 'Background' section for the rest. The story has to be honest, not invented.
Read the guide →Cut the hobbies section in most cases — it's almost always filler that takes space from real content. The exceptions: a hobby that's directly relevant to the role, a hobby that proves a hard-to-prove skill, or a hobby that's an icebreaker for a small-team culture-fit conversation. Three lines max.
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