Resume Writing

Why this matters: Clear writing helps employers ascertain ability. An NBER experiment (n ≈ 500k) found better writing = 8% more hires + 10% higher wages, with no drop in employer satisfaction.

Strategic framing: A resume is a pitch document for your future, not a historical record of your past. Every bullet must answer the hiring manager's subconscious question: "Can this person make us money, save us money, or save us time?" When pivoting roles (e.g., engineer to manager), highlight transferable proof like leadership and cross-functional delivery, not the old domain. The goal: look expensive, indispensable, and risk-free.

Bullet composition:

• Draw from 7 possible elements: quantitative result, what, how (methods), need, downstream impact, context, industry keyword(s). Pick ≤ 3. Four collapses into jargon.
• Every bullet must pass the "So what?" test: strip the business outcome, if the sentence still feels complete, the outcome is missing.
• A useful scaffold is XYZ: "Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]." Amateur: "Managed the marketing budget." Elite: "Drove a 24% increase in Q3 revenue ($1.2M) by reallocating a $500k budget into high-converting paid social, reducing CAC by 15%."
• Never list soft skills (Leadership, Communication, Problem Solving) in a Skills section. Prove them through experience: "Mentored 4 junior developers through weekly code reviews, reducing critical production bugs by 30% over 6 months" proves leadership without naming it.

Bullet priority: The first bullet under each role is your headline. If it bores a recruiter, they stop reading. Lead every role with your biggest, most quantifiable win. Never open with "Responsible for daily operations," open with the time you saved $500k or shipped to 100k users.

Bullet length: