Alright, let’s just get this out of the way. Your resume probably sucks.
No, seriously. It’s just that after two decades of wading through literal mountains of these things, you start to see patterns. And the overwhelming pattern is a kind of soul-crushing mediocrity. A sea of beige documents that scream, “I meet the minimum requirements for a job I’m not that excited about.”
It’s the document you drag out of its digital crypt every few years, blow the dust off, bolt on your last job title, and then fling into the abyss of online application portals, hoping—praying—that some algorithm or some poor, overworked HR person will see your glimmer of potential.
But they don’t. Why? Because your resume is boring. It’s a tranquilizer dart in paper form.
And the worst part? You probably followed all the rules. You used a “professional” template. You listed your responsibilities. You checked for typos. You did everything the career counselor in college told you to do back in 2005. And that—right there—is the problem. You’re playing a game that’s changed, but you’re still using the original, dog-eared rulebook.
So, let’s burn the rulebook. Let’s talk about what actually works. Right now.
The Cardinal Sin: You’re Just Listing Stuff
This is the big one. The absolute king of resume mistakes. I’m talking about the bullet points that start with that soul-sucking phrase: “Responsible for…”
- Responsible for managing social media accounts.
- Responsible for preparing weekly reports.
- Responsible for customer service and support.
I’m falling asleep just typing that. You know what that tells a hiring manager? It tells them you showed up. You occupied a chair. You performed the baseline duties of your job without, presumably, setting the building on fire. Congratulations. So did everyone else who applied.
This isn’t a list of your job duties. It’s not a legal document outlining your employment contract. It’s a marketing brochure. For you. And the product is awesome. But your brochure reads like the ingredients list on a box of generic saltine crackers.
Stop Stating, Start Proving
Every single bullet point on your resume needs to answer the “so what?” question. You managed social media accounts? So what? Did anything happen?
Let’s do a live-action transformation.
The Suck:
- Responsible for managing the company’s Instagram account.
The Fix:
- Grew the company’s Instagram account from 500 to 15,000 followers in six months, which directly led to a 20% increase in online sales leads.
See the difference? The first one says, “I did a task.” The second one says, “I made a freaking difference.” One is passive; the other is a goddamn superhero origin story.
Go through your resume right now. Find every instance of “responsible for,” “duties included,” or any other weak, passive phrase. Kill it with fire. Replace it with an action verb—a strong one—and a number. A metric. A result. Something that makes them go, “Huh. Okay. This person doesn’t just do things; they accomplish things.”
Your “Professional Summary” is a Lie
Right at the top of your resume, you probably have this little paragraph. The “Professional Summary” or—God forbid—the “Objective.” It probably says something like:
“A highly motivated and results-oriented professional with five years of experience seeking a challenging role in a dynamic company to leverage my skills in…”
Zzzzzzzzz.
Who are you trying to fool with that? It’s a paragraph of pure, unadulterated fluff. It’s a bunch of buzzwords you think they want to hear, stitched together into a Frankenstein’s monster of corporate jargon. It has zero personality. Zero actual information. It’s just… there. Taking up space.
What is a “results-oriented professional”? As opposed to what, a “failure-oriented slacker”? It’s meaningless.
Write a Damn Headline
Forget the summary. Think of this section as a headline. It’s the title of the movie that is you. It needs to be punchy, confident, and specific. It should tell them exactly who you are and what you bring to the table in two or three lines. Max.
The Suck:
- Experienced marketing professional with a proven track record of success in project management and team leadership.
The Fix:
- Marketing Manager who specializes in turning struggling B2B brands into market leaders. I live to build campaigns that don’t just get clicks—they build communities and drive revenue.
The first one is a robot. The second one is a person. A person I might actually want to have a conversation with. It’s got a little swagger. A little voice. It tells me what you do and what you care about. It’s a thousand times more effective. Be bold. Have a take. What’s your professional headline?
You’re Scared to Be a Human Being
This ties into everything else, really. In an effort to be “professional,” you’ve sanded off all your interesting edges. You’ve become a smooth, featureless orb of employability. You’ve used a template you downloaded from a site that 10,000 other people also used this week. Your font is Times New Roman because someone, somewhere, said it was “safe.”
Your entire resume is built around the fear of being disqualified. But by playing it so safe, you disqualify yourself from being interesting.
Think about it from the other side of the desk. The hiring manager has a stack of 200 resumes. They all look the same. They all use the same words. It’s a nightmare. After the 50th one, their eyes just glaze over. Then they get to yours. What if it was… different?
What if it was clean, elegantly designed, and easy to read? What if, at the very bottom, it had a single line that said:
Interests: Third-wave coffee, building ridiculously oversized Lego models, and trying to keep my houseplants alive.
Suddenly, you’re not just a collection of bullet points anymore. You’re a person. A real, three-dimensional human who might—just might—be someone they’d want to work with for 40 hours a week. I know, I know, some people say this is risky. To them I say: do you really want to work for a company that would hold your Lego hobby against you? Probably not.
It’s a calculated risk, I guess. But in a sea of sameness, being memorable is the only thing that matters.
The 10-Minute Triage: What to Fix Right Now
Okay, no more philosophy. Let’s get tactical. You’ve got ten minutes before you have to send this thing off. Here’s your emergency checklist.
- Kill the Objective/Summary. Delete it. All of it. Write a two-sentence, punchy headline instead. Be confident. (2 minutes)
- Hunt and Destroy “Responsible For.” Use Ctrl+F. Find every passive, wimpy phrase. Replace it with a power verb. Led. Created. Built. Grew. Increased. Reduced. Launched. Transformed. (3 minutes)
- The Number Game. Go through your new, powerful bullet points. Add a number to at least half of them. A percentage, a dollar amount, a timeframe, a number of people. Don’t have the exact number? Estimate. An educated guess is better than nothing. Be honest, but be bold. (3 minutes)
- The Six-Second Skim. Zoom out so you can see the whole page. Glance at it for just six seconds. What pops out? Is it your name? Your most recent job title? The impressive numbers you just added? Or is it a giant, ugly block of text? If your key accomplishments aren’t immediately obvious, you need more white space. Break up those paragraphs. Use bolding—strategically. (2 minutes)
There. In ten minutes, your resume is already 100 times better than it was. It’s not perfect, maybe, but it’s no longer actively sabotaging your chances.
A Final, Heretical Thought
Your resume isn’t a sacred document. It’s not a comprehensive history of your life. It’s a tool. And it should be a flexible one. You should be tweaking it for every single job you apply for. Not a massive overhaul, but a little nip and tuck. Reordering bullet points to highlight the most relevant skills. Swapping out a few words in your headline to match the language in the job description.
It’s a pain, I know. It’s so much easier to just have one version and blast it everywhere. But that’s what everyone else is doing. That’s why you’re getting lost in the noise.
Stop treating your resume like an obituary and start treating it like what it is: an advertisement. Make it bold. Make it interesting. Make it sound like a human wrote it. Because a human is going to read it. And for the love of God, give that poor, tired human something worth their time.
