You’ve probably heard that your resume isn’t being seen, and the blame for not making it to the interview stage of a potential job is likely due to AI. It is true that more and more larger companies are using AI to help them get started with the process of picking candidates. The question to ask is: is my resume good enough for people and AI?

The truth is, tools have been doing keyword searches on resumes for many years, looking for specific skills. AI can’t be much worse than that process was. Ideally it will mean that the tools are comprehending what you have written far better than ever. Rather than just looking specifically for twenty years of experience with a three-year-old product.

More and more it is important for you to create the best resume possible, and tailor it to the jobs you are looking for. Whether AI is involved in choosing candidates or not, humans are still reviewing your resume, you need to please their eyes as well.

Luckily, the AI that can seem to make it impossible to be seen, can help you make your resume better! The tips and tricks below will help your resume get seen and stand out to busy recruiters and hiring managers.

Important considerations for your resume

In this section, I want to cover some of the things I have learned about making a resume that stands out.

Note that these are only suggestions, and there may be cases where you want to ignore any of these tips but do so with care.

Be careful with terminology

It is especially important to make sure the terms you use are universally understood. If your resume includes jargon from a proprietary system used at a previous job, it’s better to list the relevant skills acquired from that job instead. An outside person reviewing your resume might not understand internal jargon.

You may not even realize the terms and acronyms you are using aren’t universally understood, so unless you know the source and commonness of a term, check it out.

Keep it short

In almost every case, your resume should be no more than two pages, and one if possible.

I know what you may be thinking, “I have a lot of stuff to tell people!” You may, but lengthy, intricate job descriptions and job histories aren’t necessary. Keep your resume clear and concise with only the most important pertinent information.

Hiring professionals review hundreds of resumes daily. If your key experience is hidden in excessive detail, the important details may be missed.

Limit history

Your job history needs to only go back a maximum of 10 years.

Your resume should highlight your most recent jobs and skills. Listing only the last 10 years of job history helps to ensure that your latest positions and abilities are showcased, even if you have 20 years of experience in the field for which you are applying.

Include a LinkedIn profile

This is where those extra details that won’t fit on your resume go. By the time they are interested enough to go check you out, they may be interested in everything you have done. Of course, this makes it imperative to keep your profile up to date.

LinkedIn is your friend. Network, network, network. Find someone who does what you want to do at the company you want to do and connect with them. Ask them what it takes to do that role and what the company is looking for in an employee for that role.

Ask for recommendations on LinkedIn from people you have worked with. Recommendations give recruiters/hiring managers proof of your skills, but also recommendations are someone vouching for your experience. Also, make sure to give recommendations to others that you have worked with.

Use LinkedIn to add additional details for your job history/experience that wouldn’t fit on your resume. The About section of LinkedIn is 250 characters worth of space that you can use to showcase your talents. If you have volunteer information, add it to your LinkedIn profile in the volunteer section. This shows the causes you are passionate about and your community involvement.

Put clear, concise, actionable items on your resume.

Include quantifiable results of your work and experience on your resume.

For instance, a completed project increased sales by 40%, or requirements written for a project resulted in a 143% increase in revenue-generating actions when implemented, or database optimization led to a reduction in downtime by 25%.

However, be careful not to sound overly pompous, certainly not at every company. Even if everything you say is not embellished, coming off as having done everything yourself on every project you have worked on will come off as if you aren’t a team player or you are less truthful than they are looking for in employees. Neither is good.

Review your resume many times

Finally, put yourself in the position of having to find someone to work for you. Would you want to hire yourself? Ask others to review your resume too and have them answer the same thing.

Use AI to Your Advantage

In these next sections, I will show you a few techniques I use to check to see how my resume seems to fit with potential jobs, and how to adjust the copy of my resume I send to different companies.

Use AI as an editor

Without letting AI do too much of the work (rendering your resume boring), use something like ChatGPT, Co-Pilot, Gemini, grok, etc., to shorten and clean up your resume. Ask it what it can tell you from the text, let it do some rewriting, etc.

The most important thing is to make sure that in the end, the writing still feels like you. Consider using a tool like ZeroGPT and check for plagiarism and AI-sounding text. You don’t have to listen to its advice if it highlights stuff, but if it does that for your entire document… that is a significant sign you may need to make a few changes. In any case, if AI thinks it wrote it, you might want to see why.

For example, I used Co-Pilot in Word to improve the bullet points of my job experience on my resume, making them clearer and more concise. This resulted in shorter bullet points and a reduced overall length of my resume. I reviewed the edited bullet points to ensure that Copilot accurately summarized each point without exaggerating my experience.

Using AI to see how well your resume aligns with a potential job description

Upload your resume to your favorite AI tool and compare it to a job description for a job that you want to apply for. Let AI tell you where the gaps in your resume are versus the description of the job you are applying for.

If AI identifies gaps in your resume with skills that you possess versus the description of the job you are applying for, then update your resume to fill in the gaps (assuming you actually possess these skills!)

This is one method I have used to do this with ChatGPT:

First, upload the resume and job description are uploaded to ChatGPT:

Prompt

Response

It also returned the strengths of the applicant compared to the job description:

Perhaps even more importatntly, it returned the weaknesses and areas that need to be strengthened:

AI concluded that this resume compared to this job description, this candidate is a good fit for the job:

Use AI to help search for specific types of jobs

Use an AI tool to upload your resume and ask it to find jobs for you that might be a good fit. Be aware that AI is only as good as the prompt you feed it, so make sure you add specifics to your prompt, such as specific location, or fully remote, and salary requirements.

AI returns a list of potential jobs that it feels would be a good fit based on the resume:

Use AI to recommend jobs based on your resume

Ask AI to find specific job types that, based on your resume, you would be a good fit for.

Just upload your resume and ask AI to search for a specific type of job based on your uploaded resume.

Ask AI to recommend jobs based on your resume:

AI returns a list of jobs it feels you would be a good fit for based on your resume:

In Conclusion:

Searching for employment can be disheartening, and the prospects of AI doing a lot of the processing of resumes is disheartening. So, use AI to help you align with the types of jobs you are not only qualified for, but also those that you want.

It is important to remain optimistic despite the ongoing discussions regarding AI and to remember that, ultimately, humans continue to play a significant role in the hiring process.