Write a resume that gets interviews

A resume has one job: convince a recruiter, in under a minute, that you are worth a phone screen. This guide is general advice for software engineering roles; adapt it to your market and seniority. Reviewed October 11, 2026.

Structure

• One page for most candidates with under about ten years of experience; two at most.
• Order: contact details and links, experience (most recent first), projects if they add evidence, education, skills.
• A clean single-column layout with standard section headings parses reliably in applicant tracking systems.

Bullet points that carry evidence

Write each bullet as action, scope and result:

Weak:   Worked on the payments service.
Better: Rebuilt the payments retry pipeline in Go, cutting failed charges from 1.8% to 0.6% across 2M daily transactions.

Lead with the verb, include the technology only when it matters to the reader, and quantify honestly. If you have no number, describe a verifiable outcome: "adopted by four teams", "removed a weekly manual migration". Every bullet is a possible interview question; do not list anything you cannot discuss in depth.

Tailoring

Keep a longer master resume and tailor a copy for each role. Mirror the job description's important terms where they are true for you, and move the most relevant experience to the top of each section.

Checklist

• No typos, consistent tense and dates.
• Links to GitHub or a portfolio work and show something you are proud of.
• No photos, birth dates or other personal details unless they are normal in the target country.