Guides
Applying
The resume, tailoring, cover letters and the forms.
Apply through Ashby
A one page form on the company's job board, a resume that autofills, custom questions, and a confirmation. Where it differs from Greenhouse and Lever, and what to check before you send.
Apply through Greenhouse
One page, a resume upload that fills the fields, custom questions, the voluntary questions at the end, and the email that confirms it. What to check before you send.
Apply through iCIMS
An account per employer, a multi-step form, a resume parse into profile fields, and a dashboard that shows status. The common errors, and what to check before you send.
Apply through Lever
No account, one page, a resume that fills the fields, the employer's question cards, and what happens after. The common failures, and what to check before you send.
Apply through SmartRecruiters
A resume that prefills the form, screening questions, an optional profile, and a candidate portal that shows status. What to check, and the common fixes.
Apply through Taleo
The oldest form still in wide use: an account per employer, many steps, a parse that fails on anything but plain text, and a session that expires. The fixes, and what to check before you send.
Apply through Workable
A single page with autofill, yes or no screening questions that end an application, an optional profile, and a confirmation. The common fixes, and what to check before you send.
Apply through Workday
An account, five pages, a resume parse that mangles dates, a candidate home that shows status, and the errors everyone hits. The fixes, and what to check before you send.
Buzzwords to cut from your resume
Twenty words that have stopped meaning anything, the plain replacement for each, and the one test that catches every new one.
Can AI apply to jobs for you
What a tool can fill, what it cannot answer, what the employer sees, and the three things a tool that applies for you must show you before it sends anything.
Check a free resume builder first
Most free builders charge at the download. The checks that find out in two minutes: the export, the ownership, the parse, the privacy, the template, the edit, the price.
CV or resume
In most of the world the words mean the same two-page document. In the US and in academia they do not. The difference, the academic CV, and what to send where.
Explain the gap on your resume
A gap is a question, not a verdict. Year-only dates, the one line that answers it on the resume, and the sentence for the interview, by kind of gap.
How far back your resume goes
Fifteen years in detail, everything before in a line. The rules for short roles, the one old role that still matters, and when to leave a date off.
Make your resume readable by an ATS
What a hiring system's parser needs from the file, from the vendors' own documentation. Nine rules, five myths, and the parse check on this site.
One page or two
Where the eye stops, what the second page is for, the three cases that earn it, and how to get a two-page resume onto one without losing the roles.
Pick the right resume format
Three formats, what each one is for, how a parser reads each, and why the functional format reads as hiding to the person after the parser.
Put freelance work on your resume
One heading for the freelance period, your own name or a trading name as the company, the clients as bullets, and the one line that stops it reading as a gap.
Put the right keywords in your resume
The terms a screener searches for come from the posting. How to pull them, where on the resume each one goes, and what keyword match measures and does not.
Show your transferable skills
A three-column method that maps what you did in the old role to what the new one asks for, and the bullet that proves it. The phrase "transferable skills" never appears on the resume.
Tailor your resume in fifteen minutes
Pick the five requirements that matter, change four things, and keep every fact true. The method by hand, then the version that takes one click.
Ten resume mistakes that cost interviews
Ten things that stop a resume at the screen, in the order a screener meets them, each with the fix. Then a proofreading pass that takes five minutes.
What an ATS does with your application
An applicant tracking system stores, sorts and routes applications. What it keeps, how a knockout question works, what a recruiter sees, and the three things it never does.
When you can change a job title
When a title can be translated, when it cannot be touched, what a background check compares, and the one format that lets you do both.
Where certifications go on your resume
Which certifications a reader notices, where on the page each kind goes, how to write one that is in progress or expired, and the ones to leave off.
Which skills go on your resume
Pick the skills from the posting, group them, say them in the posting's words, and put the evidence in a bullet. Why one line sometimes beats three columns.
Write a cover letter in four paragraphs
Four short paragraphs, under 250 words, written for the one person who reads it after the resume passed. An example, and the three openings that work.
Write a resume summary that gets read
Three sentences at the top of the page: what you do, what you are known for, what you want next. Six examples, from a first job to a director, none of them results-driven.
Write bullets that prove it
Verb, scope, result. Why most bullets stop after the verb, where the number comes from when you do not have one, and what the ATS score on this site checks for.
Write your resume section by section
Seven sections, the order a screener reads them in, what goes in each, one worked example, and the three checks before you send it anywhere.
Your career change resume
The summary that explains the move in one sentence, the bullets translated into the new field's words, a short skills block on top, and the order that makes the old career the reason.
Your first cover letter
Evidence without a job history: the project, the course, the part-time work. A four paragraph shape, a template, and a full example for a first role.
Your first resume
An education-first layout, projects and volunteering written as roles, a skills list with evidence, and the one page it fits on. A full example at the end.
Your resume after graduation
The year after graduation has its own layout: education up top with the project that matters, internships as roles, and a summary that says what you want to do first.
Your technical resume
How to group a stack so a non-engineer can read it, present projects with the stack and the result, link code that is worth opening, and write impact a screener understands.