General resume advice that actually gets more interviews (from reviewing a lot of CVs)

Here’s a longer, SEO-optimised post that still reads like a normal community member, not promo-heavy. The link is included naturally and once.

Title:

Post:

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at resumes lately, and one thing keeps coming up:

Most resumes don’t fail because the person isn’t qualified.

They fail because the value isn’t immediately obvious.

Some general resume advice that works across almost every industry:

1. Lead with impact, not responsibilities

Hiring managers don’t care what you were “responsible for.”

They care about what changed because you were there.

Compare:

“Responsible for managing marketing campaigns”
vs
“Managed paid campaigns that increased signups by 38% in 6 months”

Same job. Very different signal.

2. Quantify wherever possible

Numbers make your experience concrete and believable.

Revenue, growth, users, time saved, costs reduced, scale of work.

If you can’t add a number, at least make the outcome clear.

3. Optimise for skimming, not reading

Resumes are skimmed in seconds, not read like documents.

That means:

Short bullets
No paragraphs
Strong verbs at the start
White space is your friend

If someone only reads the top third of your resume, they should still understand why you’re worth interviewing.

4. One strong page beats two weak ones

Especially for most roles under senior leadership level.

Cut:

Old roles that aren’t relevant
Generic skills lists
Anything that doesn’t help you get this job

Clarity beats completeness.

5. Tailor structure, not just wording

Most people “tailor” by swapping a few keywords.

What actually helps is re-ordering bullets so the most relevant experience appears first.

Make it easy for someone to say yes.

If you’re struggling with structure, starting from a solid base helps. I’ve found having clean, simple resume templates makes it much easier to focus on content rather than layout

Final thought:

A good resume doesn’t try to impress.

It tries to be obvious.

Clarity converts.