03 · What to write
Content: what to write — and what to cut
Recruiters spend an average of 7 seconds on an initial scan, using a specific visual pattern. Here's what they actually look for, and what wastes their time.
7 sec
Average initial resume scan time. Eye-tracking research from Ladders shows recruiters look at: name, current title, current company, dates, previous title, education.
Ladders Eye-Tracking Study
6 sec
Is enough to reject. 1 in 5 recruiters will reject a candidate in under 60 seconds — many in under 6 — due to immediate red flags.
The Undercover Recruiter
40%
Increase in interview callbacks when bullet points contain quantified achievements vs vague duty descriptions.
Interview Guys Research
The professional summary: your 6-second hook
The summary is the first thing a recruiter reads. It must answer three questions in 3–4 lines: who you are, what you bring, and why you're different. Objective statements ("Seeking a challenging role...") are dead — they tell employers what you want, not what you offer.
Results-oriented software engineer with a passion for technology seeking an exciting new opportunity to leverage my skills.
Senior Software Engineer with 7 years building distributed systems at fintech scale. Led migration of monolithic payment platform to microservices architecture serving 4M daily transactions. Expertise in Go, Kubernetes, and PostgreSQL — with a track record of reducing p99 latency by 60%+ across 3 consecutive roles.
Software Engineer summary — includes title, years, specialty, and a headline achievement
Dynamic marketing professional with extensive experience in various marketing disciplines, looking to contribute to a growing team.
B2B Marketing Manager with 8 years driving pipeline growth for SaaS companies. Generated $2.4M in qualified pipeline in 2024 through integrated SEO and demand gen campaigns. Specialises in HubSpot, content strategy, and conversion rate optimisation across enterprise and mid-market segments.
Marketing Manager summary — specific vertical, channel expertise, and revenue impact
Words that actively hurt your resume
These words appear on millions of resumes and signal to recruiters that you're taking a mass-production approach. Over 50% of recruiters say clichés cause immediate rejection. Remove every one of these and replace with specific, verifiable evidence.
The rule: every quality you claim must be demonstrated, not stated. Instead of "strong communicator," write "Presented quarterly roadmap to 200+ stakeholders across 3 time zones, receiving 94% satisfaction score." The evidence does the work — you don't need the label.
What to include vs. cut ruthlessly
Almost always include
- Contact info (in body, never header)
- Professional summary (tailored per role)
- Work experience (reverse chronological)
- Skills section (hard skills + tools)
- Education (institution, degree, year)
- Certifications that are role-relevant
- LinkedIn URL and portfolio/GitHub
Usually cut
- Objective statement (replace with summary)
- References or 'References available on request'
- Headshot / photo (in US, Canada, UK)
- Marital status, age, nationality (in most countries)
- Jobs older than 10–15 years (unless highly relevant)
- High school details (once you have a degree)
- Hobbies (unless directly relevant to the role)
- Generic soft skills without evidence