Resume Writing Tips: How to Write a Resume That Gets Interviews

1. How Long Should a Resume Be?

For most job seekers, one page is the gold standard - particularly if you have fewer than 10 years of professional experience. Recruiters routinely review hundreds of applications and typically spend only a handful of seconds on each resume during the initial screen. A concise, single-page document respects their time and forces you to prioritise your most relevant experience.

Two pages are appropriate when you have a long, relevant career history - typically 10+ years - or if you're applying for senior, academic, research, or executive roles where a comprehensive record of publications, projects, or leadership positions is expected.

The key rule: every line on your resume should earn its place. If removing a bullet point doesn't weaken your case for the job, remove it.

Further reading: Indeed – How Long Should a Resume Be?

2. How to Write a Strong Professional Summary

The professional summary sits at the top of your resume and is often the first thing a recruiter reads. Think of it as your 30-second pitch in written form. A well-crafted summary answers three questions:

• Who are you? Your role and years of experience.
• What do you bring? Your core skills or area of expertise.
• What's your biggest win? One concrete, specific achievement that signals your value.

Keep it to 2–4 sentences. Write it in the third person without the pronoun ("Results-driven marketer..." not "I am a results-driven marketer..."). Avoid generic filler phrases like "team player," "go-getter," or "passionate professional" - these add noise without signal.

Further reading: LinkedIn Talent Blog – What Recruiters Really Want to See

3. Quantify Your Achievements

The single most effective upgrade you can make to a resume is replacing vague duty-descriptions with specific, measurable outcomes. Hiring managers want evidence of impact, not a list of responsibilities that could appear on any job description.

Use this structure as a starting point: Action verb + what you did + measurable result.

• Weak: "Responsible for managing social media accounts."
• Strong: "Grew Instagram following from 4,000 to 28,000 in 9 months through consistent content strategy and paid amplification."

• Weak: "Helped improve sales performance."
• Strong: "Exceeded quarterly sales target by 18% three consecutive quarters, contributing to the team's highest-grossing year."

If you don't have exact numbers, use approximations ("roughly 40%", "over $2M in pipeline") or scope indicators ("team of 12", "across 5 markets"). Even imprecise numbers are more compelling than no numbers at all.

Further reading: Harvard Business Review – How to Write a Resume That Stands Out

4. How to Beat Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

Most medium and large employers use Applicant Tracking Systems to automatically screen resumes before a human ever sees them. An ATS parses your resume for keywords, formatting, and structure. A resume that looks beautiful on screen can still fail an ATS scan if it's built incorrectly.

Key rules for ATS compatibility:

• Use standard section headings. Stick to "Work Experience," "Education," and "Skills" - not creative alternatives like "Where I've Been" or "What I Know."
• Mirror the job description's language. If the posting says "project management," use that phrase, not just "led projects."
• Avoid tables, text boxes, and headers/footers. Many ATS systems skip content inside these elements entirely.
• Don't put critical info only in a graphic or image. ATS cannot read images.
• Submit as PDF or .docx. Check the job posting - both formats are widely supported, but some systems still prefer Word. Resumint generates clean, ATS-optimised PDFs.

All five Resumint templates are designed to pass ATS screening. The Classic, Minimal, and Executive templates offer the highest compatibility due to their simple single-column structures.

Further reading: Jobscan – 8 Things You Need to Know About ATS

5. Choosing the Right Resume Template

Your template should match the expectations of your target industry and role. Here's a quick guide to the five Resumint templates:

When in doubt, the Minimal template is the safest choice - it works for virtually every role and industry, and its clean formatting is easy for ATS to parse. You can preview all templates with sample data here.

6. How to List Skills Effectively

A skills section helps both ATS systems and human recruiters quickly see whether you have the core capabilities for the role. Here's how to do it well:

• List hard skills first. Technical, measurable skills (software tools, programming languages, certifications) carry more weight than soft skills.
• Match skills to the job description. If a posting mentions "Salesforce CRM," list it by name if you have experience with it - don't just write "CRM tools."
• Don't list obvious skills. Skills like "Microsoft Word" or "email" are assumed for most professional roles. Use your limited space for skills that differentiate you.
• Avoid rating your own skills. Self-assigned ratings (e.g., "Python ★★★★☆") are subjective and can work against you - if you rate yourself 4/5 in Python, an interviewer may focus on the 1/5 gap.

Further reading: SHRM – How to Identify Job Skills Candidates Need

7. Tailor Your Resume for Every Job

Sending the same resume to every application is one of the most common - and most costly - resume mistakes. Tailoring doesn't mean rewriting from scratch every time. It means making targeted adjustments for each role:

• Update your professional summary to reflect the specific role and company.
• Reorder bullet points so the most relevant achievements appear first.
• Add or emphasise the specific skills and tools mentioned in the job description.
• Use the exact job title from the posting in your summary if it's accurate to your experience.

This approach significantly increases both your ATS match score and the likelihood that a recruiter will see an immediate fit between your background and their needs.

Further reading: Indeed – How to Tailor Your Resume

8. Common Resume Mistakes to Avoid

• Typos and grammatical errors. Errors signal carelessness. Proofread at least twice, then ask someone else to read it.
• Using an unprofessional email address. Create a simple firstname.lastname@gmail.com address if needed.
• Including a photo. In most English-speaking countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia), photos on resumes are not expected and can introduce unconscious bias. Leave it off unless you're applying in a region where it's standard.
• Listing every job you've ever had. Irrelevant early-career experience (e.g., a retail job from 15 years ago when applying for a senior tech role) adds length without value.
• Using the same resume for every job (see Section 7 above).
• Dense blocks of text. Use concise bullet points, not paragraphs, for experience descriptions. Scannable beats comprehensive.
• Omitting LinkedIn. A complete, up-to-date LinkedIn profile reinforces your resume and allows recruiters to learn more. Include the URL.
• Saving as an incompatible file format. Always download as PDF (Resumint does this automatically) unless the job posting specifically requests .docx.

Further reading: Glassdoor – Common Resume Mistakes