Troubleshoot your resume with 11 questions in this resume checklist

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy. I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Welcome back to another episode of the Career Strategy Podcast.

Sarah Doody [00:00:42]: And today, we have a very actionable episode for you all about how to improve your resume as in, you know, in the next 15, 20 minutes as you are listening to this episode. So if you’re driving or walking or something right now, make sure you save this episode so you can come back to it later because we’re gonna walk through these 11 questions in this checklist to help you optimize your resume. Chances are you are making some of these mistakes. And if you have a friend who needs help with their resume, this would be, like, an incredible episode to send to them because it’s super actionable. It’s gonna help them make instant changes to their resume. And I will say, though, the career coaching I do primarily focuses on people who work in technology, in user experience, in product design. Recently, I’ve also been helping people in software engineering, even people who work in, nonprofit jobs. And guess what? All of these questions and this checklist still applies to them.

Sarah Doody [00:01:59]: Alright. So sometimes we do these episodes as videos also. And today, we’re gonna do that because I wanna share my screen. So I’m gonna get that share set up right now. And if you wanna grab this checklist, just go to career strategy lab.com/ resume checklist, and you can grab it or send that link to a friend who needs it. We’ll also link it in the show notes at the bottom of this episode. Alright. So I’m gonna run through these 11 questions in our checklist.

Sarah Doody [00:02:41]: And if you really wanna be an action taker, you could pause this episode in between each question and literally make these changes. Because if you do that, you’ll actually make the changes. Versus if you just listen to this episode and think, I’ll come back to this in a few days. For many of you, you’re not gonna come back because because you’re gonna get busy, other things are gonna take priority, etcetera. So feel free to pause this in between each question. Alright. Let’s get started. Question number 1 in our checklist.

Sarah Doody [00:03:15]: I want you to confirm that your resume bullet points start with action verbs. So what are some examples of action verbs? They could be things like increased, decreased, facilitated, optimized, streamlined, designed. Those are all examples of action verbs. Now I’m not gonna give you a big list of action verbs because frankly, you can go Google that. And using generative AI or chat gpt is also a great resource to help you brainstorm action verbs because here is the thing. When someone is reading your resume, if a bunch of your resume bullet points are starting with the same action verbs that gets repetitive really quickly. Right? And many resumes say, I was responsible for or designed or created or managed. And though those action verbs may be true of what you did in that role, if you put yourself in the shoes of recruiters and hiring managers, it just gets boring and repetitive if they just see managed, managed, managed, managed, managed.

Sarah Doody [00:04:31]: Right? So we wanna make sure the resume bullet points are starting with action verbs, and we are trying not to repeat action verbs. Now you will know if your resume bullet points don’t start with an action verb if each bullet point starts with I. That again is a signal that you’re not starting it with action verbs. Right? So we just wanna get to the point and start with an action verb like streamlined, facilitated, increased, decreased, managed, all these other verbs that you can go Google. So why are we doing this though? Why are we putting an action verb at the beginning of the bullet? Well the action verb can either communicate the outcome or a specific skill that we have. So if we think of an action verb like increased and maybe the bullet point, let’s say it’s a salesperson, maybe the bullet point is like increase quarterly sales by 25% by, you know, streamlining operations and automating a bunch of steps in the follow-up process. That is not grammatically perfect, but you get my point. So increased sales by whatever percent I said.

Sarah Doody [00:05:49]: I think 25 or something. Increased sales by 25%. That is an example of an outcome. And if I’m a busy recruiter or hiring manager and I’m skimming, scanning the resume and I see increased sales by 25%, that could spark my interest and attention and get me to pay more attention and maybe actually start reading the bullet points, not just skimming and scanning them. Right? Alternatively, if a bullet point starts with something like managed a team of 10 salespeople in 4 time zones and grew the team to 20 people by the end of the year, something like that. So that example of managed the team etcetera etcetera is highlighting one of my core skills as a salesperson. So the action verb at the beginning of the resume bullet point is designed to help highlight an outcome or a skill. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:06:55]: So if you’re following along this would be a great time to pause and look at your resume bullet points and see, do they start with the word I? If so, get rid of that I and get an action verb in there. And if you notice you’re using the same action verbs over and over, let’s swap them out for other words that we could insert so it’s not so repetitive. Alright. Number 2. We wanna quantify the scope and or impact of what you did. Now I know some of you might be thinking, I can’t do that because when I hear people tell me that I need to include numbers and metrics on my resume, I just think I can’t do that because I don’t have cool numbers like I saved the company a $1,000,000 or I made the company a $1,000,000. But here’s the thing, quantifying what you did and using numbers in your resume is not just about the final outcome. These numbers can be used to help people understand the scope of what you did.

Sarah Doody [00:08:00]: So I work with a lot of researchers in the career coaching that I do. And researchers might insert numbers into their resume resume by telling me, for example, well, how many people did you conduct in person research interviews with? How many people responded to that survey? Right? Because if there is a resume bullet point that just says something to the effect of, like, planned, facilitated, and analyzed a research survey, that’s nice. But it’s a lot more interesting if you tell me that it was a research survey that had 500 or 5000 respondents. Right? But if you don’t tell me that, I won’t know. And if I’m looking at a resume and I see a bullet point about a survey that 5,000 people responded to, that might kinda spark my interest because as someone who does research, I think, man, that is a lot of data to go through. Right? It’s really impressive. So quantify the scope and impact of what you did now. We have a whole other podcast episode all about how to do this.

Sarah Doody [00:09:12]: So we will link it in the show notes below, so you can go easily find it if you wanna dive deeper into the nitty gritty of how to do that. Alright. Number 3 is we wanna update the title at the top of your resume to match the job description. So at the top of your resume, obviously, your name, then we wanna put whatever your title is and ideally an about me statement. Basically, 1 to 2 sentences, kinda like an elevator pitch of you. Now why do we wanna match the title at the top of your resume to what’s on the job description? Well, part of this has to do with understanding how recruiting and hiring software works. Okay? There’s something called the applicant tracking system. You can think of it as software that many recruiters and and hiring teams use to manage and organize candidates.

Sarah Doody [00:10:11]: And one of the things that the applicant tracking system does when you apply for a job, it is looking at your resume and at the job description and trying to assess how well does your resume match what is in the job description. Well, guess what? If you use the title that is on the job description, that is gonna help the software and the the algorithm see, okay, this person might be more of a match. Right? One of the mistakes I see people make is they kinda try to get, like, too cute and creative and, quote, show their personality in the title that they give themselves at the top of your resume. And you kind of need to think like an SEO, search engine optimization expert, when it comes to your resume. Because as we just talked about, we want our resume to really match that job description as much as possible. So that not only can that software hopefully realize that you have the skills and experience for the job, but of course also the humans that will eventually look at your resume. So that’s number 3. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:11:32]: Number 4 is we want to tailor your skills on your resume and the bullets in your work history to align with the job description. So first of all, this is gonna mean that you actually have to read the job description. And I know job descriptions are not the best pieces of writing. Let’s say that off the bat. Right? Oftentimes, they’re recycled. They have outdated requirements, things like that. So we just have to accept that, unfortunately, that is reality. However, job descriptions provide you with clues of what you should be putting in your skills and your work history to, you guessed it, signal to that software and the recruiters and hiring managers that you have what they are looking for.

Sarah Doody [00:12:29]: Now I really recommend that you are doing this for every job you apply to. Right? Because what’s in one job description may be different from what’s in another job description. So how do we tailor the skills and work experience on our resume? Well, a couple of really quick tips. You could be just simply reordering the skills that you list. Same thing with the bullets in your work history. You’re putting the most relevant ones based on the job description at the top of the list. Contrary to, you know, the whole save the best for last, don’t do that on your resume. Okay? So we wanna be tailoring those skills and the bullets in the work history.

Sarah Doody [00:13:12]: Apart from reordering, what else could we be doing? Well, we could be taking exact language from the job description. Are they mentioning certain software methodology, industries, business to business, business to consumer, etcetera? If so, let’s work those words, phrases, etcetera into either our skills or our work history. This also might mean you are simply removing some skills or some bullet points that maybe were really relevant to a different job you apply to. But for this one, maybe you’re removing them. Likewise, maybe you’re adding bullet points because based on the job description you realize, Job description is looking for x y z. I have that experience, but it’s not in my work history. So I’m gonna write a new bullet point for this custom resume I’m making for this specific role. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:14:15]: Next question. We are up to 5, I believe. Do not limit your resume to 1 page. I know if you go on social media or put this into Google, you are gonna get polarizing opinions that it should or should not be 1 page. But guess what? Most people don’t tell you why. I’m gonna tell you why a 1 page resume is not great. And the reason is when you limit yourself to 1 page, you are going to undersell yourself because you’re gonna leave out important information about your skills and experience, or you’re going to make the font size so incredibly tiny that literally people cannot read your resume. Right? And I know part of the reason people say to make your resume 1 page is because, well, recruiters and hiring managers are busy.

Sarah Doody [00:15:11]: They’re not gonna read it anyway, so why make it longer than 1 page? Well, here’s the thing. If you give them a reason to actually read it, they will spend longer than 6 seconds on it. Right? And how do we create a resume that people spend more than 6 seconds on? Well, by doing everything we’re talking about, by using action verbs to get their attention, to get to the point, by tailoring our resume to the job description, by using numbers, etcetera. Everything we have already gone through. We have a whole other podcast episode about why the one page resume is a myth. So if you want to listen to that we’ll link it in the show notes also. Alright, number 6: add vertical space between each bullet point. Okay, so this is a little bit of a design thing but the default in most word processing software like Google Docs or Pages or Microsoft Word, etcetera, when you make a bulleted list, by default, last I checked, all of those software do not put spaces in between bullet points.

Sarah Doody [00:16:24]: And when you do not have literal spaces between bullet points, what happens is the text just looks like a big dense chunk of text or what I often call a wall of text. And when our eyes see a big dense wall of text, our brains are like, can’t compute, like, cannot process, don’t wanna read. By simply adding space between each bullet point, that is adding some negative space that helps create breathing room between the bullets, and it makes them easier to skim and scan. And if you have downloaded this checklist, you’re gonna see there is a little bit of space between each of these items in the checklist. That is what I want you to do for your resume. And if you’re looking for the checklist, just go to careerstrategylab.com/resume checklist and you can see it for yourself. It’s on page 3 of the download. Alright, next question.

Sarah Doody [00:17:30]: Avoid columns when submitting your resume to an applicant tracking system. Now I don’t know the name of every applicant tracking system out there, but some of them maybe you’ve heard of include Workday, Greenhouse. Basically, if you’re applying for a job through a company’s website or through LinkedIn jobs, Indeed, etcetera, your resume is going into software, essentially a database that recruiters and hiring managers are going to use to then organize and manage all of these likely hundreds of candidates. Right? Because if you’re just a recruiter or hiring manager and everyone’s emailing you their resume, like, that gets complicated really quickly, which is why all this recruiting and hiring software exists. Now here’s the thing, in order for that software to be able to what’s called PARS, which essentially means read or scan and assess your resume, we should not make our resume 2 columns because essentially some of these applicant tracking systems can’t tell where a column starts and stops. And so if you’ve got a 2 column resume, when it is scanning and skimming or parsing your resume, once it gets to the end of the first column, it doesn’t stop. It just keeps going. And so because of that, the software’s ability to understand you as a candidate, it gets messed up because the information on your resume gets all garbled because the applicant tracking system didn’t know to stop at the end of that first column and then, you know, go back to the start of the first column.

Sarah Doody [00:19:26]: Right? Like a human would know how to read. We have a whole episode about this also, so we’ll link this one in the show notes. But as a general rule of thumb, when you’re applying for jobs through applicant tracking systems and company websites, etcetera, let’s stick to a 1 column or full width of a single page for your resume. Now if someone emails you or you’re talking to someone and they’re like, hey. Send me your resume. That would be a time when you could use a 2 column resume because a human is definitely going to be reading it. Alright. Next question.

Sarah Doody [00:20:06]: Proofread your resume. It sounds obvious at the same time. I have seen so many resumes for jobs that I was hiring for with a bunch of spelling mistakes. And it’s just not a great first impression. You know? It’s not showing level of detail that people are looking for. And do yourself a favor, reread your resume or use a tool like Grammarly to help catch some of these things, have a friend read your resume, and just don’t make these small mistakes. It can sometimes just impact that first impression that people have about you. Right? Okay.

Sarah Doody [00:20:49]: Next one is confirm that your resume is the right file type. So if you’re filling out a job application, there’s a field to upload your resume. Sometimes it tells you literally what they want, whether it’s a PDF or a doc or a docx or something else. Follow their directions. Again, if you were not following the directions in the job description, it tells me, the recruiter or hiring manager, that number 1, you didn’t read the job description, which is not a good signal. And number 2, that you can’t follow directions. And if I’m hiring someone, I wanna know you can follow directions because I don’t wanna have to tell you to do things multiple times or explain myself bunch of times for really basic stuff. So confirm that you are uploading the right file type for your resume and read the job description again or application just to make sure you’re not missing any of the things that might be included in instructions on the job description or the application.

Sarah Doody [00:22:01]: Alright. Number 10. Double check all of the links. So sometimes on people’s resumes, they’re linking out to their LinkedIn profile, maybe a website depending on, you know, the nature of their job, etcetera. Double check that all of these links work. There is nothing more frustrating. There probably is. But one of the frustrating things for recruiters and hiring managers is if they click on a link and it doesn’t work.

Sarah Doody [00:22:29]: Right? They’re super busy, and we should not put the burden on them to then go, for example, try and find you on LinkedIn. It just adds friction to their process. And, again, if they are going through 100, 200, 300 candidates, they don’t have time to be hunting around for the LinkedIn for, like, every 5th person who maybe had a broken link on their resume. Alright. Lastly, clean up the file name. Again, this is a simple simple thing, but let’s think of recruiters and hiring managers. Right? Ideally, we want your resume to just be your first and last name. Also, maybe the title of the job you’re applying to.

Sarah Doody [00:23:23]: I would eliminate words in the file name like final or draft or v 2 or, you know, final final final version. Also, I just read this article and I can’t remember where, but someone had said, like, a file name of a resume had something in it like AI or chat gpt or something that made them realize, like, it might have been written by gen AI, which is not a great look. It’s fine if you use generative AI to help you brainstorm things, but if you put that in your file name, again, it’s just not a good look. Plus, if we think of a busy recruiter or hiring manager, let’s say maybe they ended up downloading your resume and they’re trying to find it again. If your resume just has your first, last name, and job title, that makes it a lot easier for them to find your resume later if maybe they ended up saving it to their computer or their drive or something like that. Alright. There you have it. Our resume checklist to help you avoid these common mistakes and hopefully optimize your resume.

Sarah Doody [00:24:41]: So if you’re not getting interviews right now, maybe you can start getting more interviews. Or if you haven’t started applying yet or you don’t need to be applying yet, you are going to be ready to apply if you find yourself in an unexpected situation where you need to be looking for a job or if you’re in one of those situations where like you’re not looking but an awesome opportunity comes your way. If you go through this checklist that’s going to ensure that your resume is pretty much ready to go so you can apply more quickly and you don’t have to rush and rush to update your resume. Alright. That is all we have for you today. I hope this episode was helpful. I know it’s a little longer than our normal episodes, but I wanted to walk you through these 11 questions on our checklist. Again, if you want this checklist go to career strategy lab.com/resume checklist, and you can grab a copy for yourself or send that link to someone who keeps asking you for help on their resume, well, now you can just send them the checklist and save yourself some time.

Sarah Doody [00:25:55]: Alright. That is all. I hope you have a great rest of your day. And do me a quick favor. If you found this helpful, can you hit pause right now? And if you’re in Spotify or Apple or wherever you’re listening, give us a quick rating. That helps other people learn about this podcast and its signals to Apple and Spotify, etcetera, that you find this useful. And then we might be able to rise in the charts so other people find this. Alright.

Sarah Doody [00:26:26]: That’s all. I will talk to you next week. Have a good Thanks for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.