See weak vs. excellent — then score your own.
No keyword-stuffing tricks for an imaginary robot. This is what makes a skimming human stop and say "interview." Learn it by contrast, then run your own resume through the scorer — privately, in your browser.
The fear that drives most resume advice is mostly false. Recruiters overwhelmingly say their systems don't auto-reject — they organize applications for humans to review. The real bottleneck is volume and weak relevance, not a robot deleting your file.
How long should your resume be?
There's no universal rule — there's a rule per situation. Match yours to the closest case.
One page
Early career, under ~10 years of relevant experience, or any role where focus matters. If you're agonizing, it's almost certainly one page.
Two pages
10+ years with a deep, relevant track record. Use the second page only if every line earns its place — not to pad.
Three+ pages
Academic CVs, federal (USAJobs) resumes, or senior technical roles with publications, patents, or clearances. Here, length is expected.
The federal resume is the big exception — it's meant to be long and detailed. More on that in Job Search Strategy.
General vs. targeted.
Relevance beats volume — the research is consistent on this. Here's the honest trade-off.
Saves time, lets you apply widely fast.
But it converts poorly — it rarely matches any one role closely, so it reads as generic to the human reviewing it.
Best for: high-volume speculative applications, or a baseline to tailor from.Wins interviews — it mirrors the role's language and surfaces the most relevant experience first.
Costs more effort per application, so reserve it for roles you actually want.
Best for: every job you genuinely care about landing.The move most people miss: keep one strong general version for volume, and tailor hard for the short list you really want. Don't add to the volume problem with 200 generic applications.
The example library.
Ten roles, three versions each — poor, average, excellent — with the reason each works and a recruiter's honest take. Pick a role.
Bullets are teaching samples. Notice the pattern across all ten: poor lists duties, average adds specifics but no outcome, excellent adds numbers, scope, and results. That's the whole game.
Score your resume.
Paste your resume text below. The scorer checks the things that actually matter to a skimming human and hands you a fix list, worst first. Nothing is uploaded — it runs entirely in your browser.
Resume sharpened. What's the real bottleneck?
Maybe it's the resume — maybe it's visibility or interviews. Start Here tells you where to spend your energy.
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