u/HippocratesKnees

I screen resumes all day and I swear it's the same problems over and over. All of this is fixable in an hour, so here you go.

1. Your resume is 2+ pages

Rule of thumb: one page per 10 years of experience. Unless you're gunning for director level with 15 years under your belt, it's one page. Nobody is reading page 2. Ever.

2. "Team player" / "problem solver" / "detail oriented"

Delete all of it. It proves nothing and everyone writes it. Saying you're detail oriented is like saying "I eat fast" - ok, how fast? Show it with results instead.

3. Irrelevant jobs

Applying for accounting roles? Your serving gig doesn't belong there. Every line should be pulling toward the job you actually want.

4. A summary section that's a whole paragraph

Two lines max. If you're not a new grad or career changer, honestly just cut it.

5. Listing duties instead of results

"Managed ad campaigns" - so did every other applicant. "Grew ROAS 40% across 6 client accounts" - now we're talking.

Hiring managers don't care what you were supposed to do. They care what changed because you were there.

6. "My job doesn't have metrics"

Yes it does. Every job does.

• Accounting: $ reconciled, errors caught
• Sales: pipeline growth, deal size, # of accounts
• Engineering: uptime, latency, tickets closed, cost savings
• Healthcare: patients seen, claims processed, costs cut
• Trades/blue collar: hours saved, processes fixed, returns prevented

The trick: what was it like before you showed up, what did you do, what's the number after?

Bonus rule: if you can't tell a real interview story (situation, what you did, result) for a bullet, that bullet comes off the resume. Simple as that.

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

Been applying to remote jobs for about 6 months now. Some days I'm doing 2-3 interviews back to back. We all know hiring is a circus lately and I'm sure everyone here has stories, but I don't think anyone's seen this one.

So yesterday I had a second round for a job I actually wanted. First round went great, I was feeling good about it.

On the Zoom call the interviewer asks me to share my screen, then drops a prompt in the chat. I figured it was some kind of technical exercise. Nope. They tell me to paste it into whatever AI assistant I use. ChatGPT, Gemini, whatever I've got.

Between the screen sharing and general interview nerves I wasn't thinking straight, so I copied and pasted it without even reading it.

It wasn't until ChatGPT actually started responding that I read what I'd just pasted.

Lucky for me, I had ChatGPT open in a separate Chrome profile with zero conversation history, so it couldn't do what they were hoping for.

My first instinct was to get pissed and hang up right there. Then it hit me that I actually had the upper hand, so I just smiled, kept it professional, and finished the interview without giving them a single thing they were fishing for.

This is the prompt they wanted me to run:

Analyze me the way a hiring evaluator would. Use both the context I provide
below and my conversation history.

Don't flatter me — be direct about what looks weak.

=== CONTEXT ABOUT ME ===
Current situation: [role / student / between jobs]
Work history: [roles, duration, why you left each one]
Concrete things I've shipped: [projects, outcomes, numbers if any]
Education & training: [degrees, certs, self-taught areas]
Languages & tools: [proficiency level, honestly]
Constraints: [location, remote/hybrid, notice period, work authorization]
What I'm targeting: [role type, industry, seniority, comp range]
Gaps I'm aware of: [things I know are missing]
Feedback I've gotten before: [from managers, teammates, professors]
=== END CONTEXT ===

Evaluate:
1. How I think — problem decomposition, handling ambiguity
2. Follow-through — consistency, detail, finishing what I start
3. What actually drives me — where I dig in vs. lose interest
4. Behavior under pressure — what I do when stuck
5. Communication style — and where it creates friction
6. Blind spots — recurring weaknesses I don't see

For each:
- Cite specific evidence (from context or a specific conversation)
- Confidence level (high / medium / low) and why
- If evidence is thin, say "not enough data" — do not guess

Then:
- Where does my stated self-assessment contradict the evidence?
- Which of my "gaps" are actually fixable in 6 months vs. structural?
- What would a skeptical interviewer probe hardest, and how would I answer?

Finish with: which roles I'd be strong in, which I'd struggle in, and why.

Notice the "use my conversation history" part. They were basically trying to use my own chat history to build a psych profile on me without asking. Months of personal conversations, career doubts, salary questions, all of it. Never seen a company try anything like this before.

I'm applying for remote Software Engineer roles, and I was wondering if it's worth optimizing my resume specifically for ATS when applying to remote jobs.

I assume ATS might be more important for remote positions since they tend to get so many applications, but maybe I'm overthinking it. Does it actually make a difference?