Course Content
How to Write a Good Resume
15 sections · 30 lessons
Recruiter screens, application routes and your own funnel
The previous lesson named the readers. This one is practical: what the fastest and least forgiving of them actually checks, how the route your application takes changes the game, and how to read your own results so you fix the right stage.
All three ideas lead to the same habit. Before you rewrite anything, find out where you are being eliminated.
What a recruiter screens on
Since the recruiter screen is the fastest and most eliminating read, it is worth knowing what is actually being checked.
The checklist
Most recruiter screens run on roughly this list, in roughly this order:
- Level fit. Do the years of experience and titles match the requisition? A resume that reads senior for a mid-level role gets passed over almost as often as the reverse, because they cannot afford your expected compensation.
- Technology overlap. Do the core technologies in the job description appear in your recent roles? Recent matters — something you used six years ago carries much less weight.
- Work-history coherence. Does the sequence make sense? Are there unexplained gaps? Are there several roles of a few months each with no explanation?
- Location and authorisation. Are you in a location that works, and can you legally work there without sponsorship the company does not offer?
- Company context. Fairly or not, recognisable previous employers act as a shortcut.
What you can do about each
| Filter | What helps |
|---|---|
| Level fit | Use standard titles; make years of experience easy to total |
| Technology overlap | Name technologies inside the role where you used them, not only in a skills list |
| Coherence | Add a one-line explanation for a gap or a short stint, rather than hoping it goes unnoticed |
| Location | State your city, and say explicitly if you are open to relocating |
| Company context | If your employer is not well known, add a five-word descriptor: (B2B logistics SaaS, 200 staff) |
That last one is underused and cheap. "Senior Engineer, Kestrel Systems" tells a recruiter nothing. "Senior Engineer, Kestrel Systems (B2B logistics SaaS, 200 staff)" tells them the domain and the scale in five words.
Referral, cold application, and inbound
The same resume performs very differently depending on how it arrives. This is worth understanding before you conclude your resume is the problem.
The three routes
Cold application. You apply through the careers page. Your resume competes with everyone else's, and it must survive the recruiter screen on its own.
Referral. An employee submits you. Referred candidates are typically reviewed by a human much earlier and with more attention, and referral pipelines usually convert far better than cold ones. Your resume still has to be good — a referral gets it read, it does not get it approved.
Inbound. A recruiter contacts you. Here the resume's job changes almost completely: they have already decided you are interesting. Now the resume's job is to confirm level and avoid raising doubts.
How the document should differ
Mostly it should not. Do not maintain three different resumes by route — that is maintenance burden for little gain. But the emphasis shifts:
- For cold applications, tailoring matters most. The reader has no context on you, so the match to the job description has to be obvious in the top third.
- For referrals, give your referrer something to work with. Send your resume plus two or three sentences they can paste into the internal form explaining why you are a fit. Most referrers will not write that themselves.
- For inbound, make level and scope unmissable. The recruiter already believes you are relevant; the risk is now being screened at the wrong level.
Asking for a referral covers how to ask for one in a way that makes it easy to say yes.
Reading your own funnel
If you are getting rejected, the useful question is not "is my resume bad?" It is "where am I being eliminated?" Different failure points call for completely different fixes.
The numbers in the funnel are illustrative — a plausible shape, not a benchmark. Real rates vary hugely by market, seniority, and route. The point is the diagnosis, which depends on where your own numbers fall off.
Diagnosing from your own numbers
| Symptom | Likely cause | Where to go |
|---|---|---|
| Very few responses to applications | Resume, or route, or role mismatch | Sections 4–7; try referrals |
| Responses, but calls go nowhere | Level or expectation mismatch | Section 8; recheck the roles you target |
| Failing technical screens | Not a resume problem | Coding Interview Patterns |
| Passing screens, failing loops | Not a resume problem | Behavioral Interview, Object-Oriented Design Interview, System Design Interview |
| Reaching offer rarely from many loops | Behavioral or level calibration | Behavioral Interview |
The most common mistake is spending another twenty hours on algorithm practice when the funnel is failing before the first phone call — where algorithm skill is never tested.
The threshold worth acting on
If you have sent roughly thirty applications through ordinary channels and had fewer than two or three responses, treat the resume as the prime suspect and work through Sections 4 through 9. Before you rewrite it a fourth time, though, check the route: a poor response rate on cold applications is sometimes fixed by referrals rather than by the document.
Thirty is enough that bad luck is an unlikely explanation, and few enough that you have not wasted months first.