Choose one real job posting before you begin. Keep your résumé and the posting side by side. The goal is to make your relevant experience easy to find while keeping every claim accurate.
1. Role fit: can a reader see why you applied?
- Does your headline or summary, if you use one, point toward the role?
- Are the most relevant skills and examples visible in the top half of the first page?
- Do you use the employer's wording where it truthfully describes your work, rather than pasting a list of keywords?
Quick fix: Move one relevant accomplishment from a crowded older role into a more prominent position. Remove a vague summary sentence that could describe almost anyone.
2. Evidence: what changed because of your work?
- For each recent role, can you point to at least one result, improvement, deliverable, or responsibility with clear scope?
- Can a reader tell what you did, rather than only what your team was assigned to do?
- Are numbers honest and explainable? If not, use concrete scope or outcome language instead.
For example, “Handled customer issues” gives little context. “Resolved billing questions by coordinating with finance and updating account notes” shows the work more clearly, even without a metric. See our bullet examples for more fictional rewrites.
3. Scan: is the structure easy to follow?
- Are job titles, employers, locations, and dates consistently placed?
- Can someone find experience, education, and skills without decoding a custom layout?
- Are paragraphs short enough to scan and is the text readable at ordinary zoom?
Use standard section labels when they fit. A decorative design may look distinctive, but clarity should win. Our formatting guide shows a simple file check.
4. Accuracy: would you defend every line in an interview?
- Check dates, titles, certifications, links, and contact information.
- Remove exaggerated claims and any AI-generated sentence that changes the facts.
- Make sure abbreviations and acronyms are understandable to your target reader.
5. Delivery: does the final file work?
- Open the exact file you plan to submit, on a phone and a computer if possible.
- Copy text from it into a plain-text editor and check the order. Missing or scrambled text is a reason to simplify the layout.
- Use a clear filename, such as
First-Last-Resume.pdf, and follow the employer's requested file type.
After the five passes, pick the three changes most likely to help this application. Then submit. A résumé can always be revised again for the next role.
What this checklist cannot tell you
No checklist can predict whether a particular employer will interview you. Hiring systems and readers differ. Use this as a way to make your own evidence clearer, then tailor it to each application.
Further reading: University of Pennsylvania Career Services résumé guidance and UC Berkeley résumé guidance.