I finished my second resume marathon
800 resumes in 65 hours, here are common mistakes and best practice
OCTOBER 15 - NOVEMBER 1:
Hey everyone, I hope your day is amazing. I’ve finished checking 800 resumes and here are 6 insights that may help you to upgrade your resume
I find these mistakes pretty often during reviews:
1. Lack of quantifiable achievements (85% of resumes had this issue)
2. Repetition of action verbs (72%)
3. Weak action verbs (56%)
4. Responsibilities are not accomplishments (32%)
5. Resume length is too short/long (17%)
6. Couldn’t parse data (2.5% will never be seen by recruiters)
Here’s how to fix them. Six easy rules will do it:
💡 Quantify each bullet point (if you can), e.g. "Deployed XYZ at 90+ Telecom operators in 80+ countries; processed 1 Billion+ messages per year"
DON’T describe your experience without giving numbers, percentages or values
DO: Quantify your biggest achievements
💡 Be creative and use synonyms, instead of saying "developed" multiple times, consider using "designed", "innovated", "advanced", “automated” etc.
DON’T duplicate action verbs or make it verbose
DO: Use strong action verbs and make it straight to the point
💡 Start with a strong action verb, e.g. “Improved“, "Led", "Managed", "Spearheaded" etc., say "Improved X by 10% doing Y and Z"
DON’T use weak verbs that describe processes rather than achievements
DO: Use verbs that demonstrate your quantifiable impact
💡 Your resume is a story about the results, not responsibilities. Put the most exciting bullet points on top
DON’T describe what were your responsibilities
DO: Demonstrate your impact and start with the most important achievements
💡 Cut back everything that’s irrelevant to getting the job. A recommended size of a resume is 450-650 words
DON’T use long paragraphs of text, this is not an essay
DO: Use 2-5 bullet points (1-3 lines each)
💡 Use correct section titles, e.g. "Work Experience", instead of "Work Experience >6.5 years" or “Professional Exposure“. Never use tables, charts, icons or images of any kind
DON’T use tables, charts, icons or images of any kind
DO: Show multiple dimensions of your experience: product, engineering and leadership
All applicants should receive a reply from me by now, please check your mailbox. Otherwise, contact me. I organize Marathons eventually, please follow my updates on LinkedIn
Here are the results and overall scores 0-100:
Mean: 59.7/100, Mode: 72/100, Median: 65/100, Standard Deviation: 21.9
85th percentile - 82, 90th percentile - 85, 95th percentile - 89, 99th percentile - 93.5
If you need my premium resume reviews and ATS/keyword optimization to make your resume shine, please submit the form on my website (www.eugenehayden.com/marathon2), please scroll to the bottom. And I will follow up with quotes, a timeline and ideas on how I can make it better.
For those, who joined the Marathon, thanks for your participation!