resume audit checklist before you hit apply

what actually got mine past ATS after months of nothing back

Run it through an ATS checker before submitting anywhere

I use Jobscan, the free tier catches the big stuff

Match keywords from the actual job posting, not a generic list

Standard section headers only: Experience, Education, Skills

no "my journey" as a header, ATS has no idea what that means

No tables, columns, or text boxes

parsers choke on them and you never find out why you got filtered

Contact info as plain text, never inside a header or footer

Quantify everything you can

"managed a team" vs "managed a team of 6, cut onboarding time 30%". guess which one calls back

Cut the objective statement, replace with a 2 line summary

Past tense for past roles, present tense only for the current one

Consistent date formatting top to bottom

Spell out acronyms the first time you use them

Drop anything past 10-15 years unless it's genuinely relevant

Customize your LinkedIn url and make sure it's actually on there

Tailor the top third for every single application

networking > applying but the resume still has to survive the filter first

Keep it to one page unless you have 10+ years

Read it out loud before sending

you catch the clunky sentences your eyes skip right over

Get a read from someone outside your industry

a friend caught something three recruiters missed. ask me how

Save the final version as the file type the posting actually asks for

some ATS still choke on plain text resumes, check first

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