Recruiters decide in ~7 seconds. The deciding element is the bullet: verb + scope + metric. "Managed customer outreach" fails; "Rebuilt outreach sequence, lifting reply rate 30% across 12 accounts" passes.
Situation, Task, Action, Result. In a bullet, Situation/Task collapse into context, Action becomes the verb, Result becomes the number. Template: [Action verb] [scope/what you built], [method], [quantified result]. Every bullet should answer "so what?" with a number: %, $, headcount, time.
ATS Rules
- No tables, columns, icons, or graphics — ATS parses plain text.
- Mirror the job posting's exact keywords (skills section + bullet text).
- File name: "Lastname-Firstname-Role.pdf" — many ATS display the filename to recruiters.
- One page under 10 years' experience; two pages beyond.
25 High-Signal Action Verbs
Launch, scale, automate, consolidate, cut, recover, negotiate, close, ship, redesign, mentor, forecast, audit, migrate, onboard, centralize, standardize, optimize, launch, prototype, vet, price, contract, pilot, champion. Replace "helped" and "assisted" — passive verbs read as zero ownership.
Metrics When You Have No Numbers
Proxy metrics count: headcount served, tickets/day, portfolio size, budget, team size, time saved ("reduced report cycle from 5 days to 2"), scale ("supported 3x growth"). Estimates are acceptable if defensible in interviews.
LinkedIn + Bio Consistency
Your resume, LinkedIn summary, and professional bio should share the same metric spine. Generate bullets with the free resume bullet generator, align your profile with the LinkedIn summary generator, and keep the executive bio in the same voice with the professional bio generator.
Rewrite Weak Bullets Line By Line
A bullet fails when it describes a duty instead of an outcome. Fix it in three edits rather than rewriting from scratch.
- Replace the duty verb with an ownership verb: rebuilt, migrated, consolidated, negotiated, cut.
- Add scope: how many accounts, users, tickets, systems, dollars, or people.
- Add the result with a number and, where possible, a baseline, such as from five days to two.
Keep the shape: verb, scope, method, result. Cut anything that reads as attendance, like helped, assisted, worked on, participated. If the result is unknown, use a defensible proxy: team size, portfolio value, tickets per day, time saved, or growth multiple. Build the drafts with the STAR resume bullet polisher, then re-read each line and delete any bullet that a coworker could claim identically.
Order The Bullets Inside Each Role
Recruiters read the first two bullets of a role and skim the rest, so ordering is a scoring decision.
- Bullet one: the largest measured outcome you own in that role.
- Bullet two: the scope claim, such as team size, budget, or systems owned.
- Bullets three and four: the skills the posting names, matched with evidence.
- Bullet five: leadership or process creation, which is what promotions are argued with.
- Cut anything older than the role or duplicative of another bullet.
Three to five bullets per role is enough for most careers, and six is usually too many. Put the leadership bullet before the maintenance bullet. Rebuild the profile so the same metric spine appears in your LinkedIn summary with the LinkedIn summary generator and in your third-person bio with the speaker and executive bio generator, because a reference call compares those three documents against each other.
Tailor Per Posting Without Inflating
Tailoring is reordering and vocabulary matching, not invention. The reference check verifies what you claim, so keep every number defensible.
- List the five skills named in the posting, in the posting order.
- Map each skill to one existing bullet, then rewrite the vocabulary to match the posting wording.
- Move the mapped bullets to positions one and two.
- Change nothing about dates, titles, or employment length.
- Keep a note of what you changed per application so an interview question lands on the version you sent.
Where a keyword is genuinely absent from your history, add a cover-letter paragraph instead of a bullet, using the cover letter builder. Do not inflate a title to pass a filter: a mismatch between your resume and the verified record is a failed reference check, described in the hiring, references and non-compete section.
| Weak Bullet | The Problem | Rewritten Version |
|---|
| Managed customer outreach | Duty verb, no scope, no result | Rebuilt outreach sequence, lifting reply rate 30 percent across 12 accounts |
|---|
| Helped with migration project | Attendance, not ownership | Migrated 40 legacy reports to the new warehouse, cutting refresh time from 6 hours to 40 minutes |
|---|
| Responsible for team meetings | No outcome at all | Introduced a weekly intake review that cut duplicate tickets by 25 percent |
|---|
| Assisted with hiring | Passive verb, unclear role | Screened 60 candidates and hired 4 engineers, filling two teams before quarter close |
|---|
| Worked on cost reduction | No number, no baseline | Consolidated three vendor contracts, reducing annual spend by 18 percent |
|---|
The live rule text sits on the California job exit rules page and the New York job exit rules page, along with the At-Will Employment definition. Confirm there before you put a date or a dollar amount in writing.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- How many bullets should each job have?
- Three to five for most roles, with the strongest measured outcome first. More bullets dilute the top two lines, which is where recruiters spend almost all of their reading time on a role.
- What if I cannot attach a real number?
- Use a defensible proxy: headcount served, volume per day, budget owned, time saved, or a growth multiple. State it as an estimate you can explain in an interview, never as a fabricated precise figure.
- Should I mirror the exact job posting words?
- Yes for skills vocabulary, since applicant tracking systems match terms. Reorder and rename what is already true about your work. Do not add skills you cannot evidence, because references verify claims.
- Do resume dates have to match employment records?
- They should match within a month. Background checks verify titles and dates, and a mismatch on the record is a common reason a contingent offer is withdrawn after you resign elsewhere. Keep the role, the posting, and each follow-up date in the application tracker.