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Expert guides
Expert articles & guides
Everything below comes out of client work: the mistakes we correct most often, and the strategies that changed outcomes.
7 resume mistakes that are costing you interviews
The errors we see daily in client documents and the specific fix for each one.
How to optimize your LinkedIn profile for recruiter visibility
A step-by-step guide to moving from invisible to findable in recruiter search.
The STAR method: answering any behavioural interview question
Situation, Task, Action, Result with worked examples from real interviews.
What an applicant tracking system actually does with your resume
How parsing and keyword matching work, and the formatting rules that follow from them.
How to negotiate your salary like a professional
Evidence-based negotiation strategy, including what to say when they ask your number first.
Military to corporate: translating your service into career success
A practical guide for veterans, with real examples of effective translation.
Cold emailing recruiters that actually gets responses
Templates and strategies for reaching decision-makers at your target companies.
How to write KSA and ECQ statements for federal positions
The complete guide to CCAR format and what federal reviewers score against.
Building a professional network from scratch, even as an introvert
Strategic approaches that open doors without feeling forced or inauthentic.
What to emphasize at your stage
The same resume advice does not serve a graduate and a division president. Find your stage and the priorities that go with it.
01
Early career (0 to 3 years)
Your record is short, so structure and specificity carry the weight. Lead with internships, projects and measurable coursework outcomes rather than a summary of ambitions.
- Quantify academic and internship outcomes
- One page, no objective statement
- Target 3–5 role titles, not 20
02
Mid-career (4 to 10 years)
The risk here is a resume that reads as a job history instead of a trajectory. Group by scope and impact, and cut early roles down to one line each.
- Lead every bullet with a result
- Show growth in scope, not just tenure
- Rebuild the LinkedIn About section
Senior & executive
Hiring committees read for scope: P&L, headcount, market and mandate. Positioning matters more than coverage, and a bio becomes as important as the resume.
- State P&L and headcount explicitly
- Add a board-ready executive bio
- Prepare a 90-day thesis for interviews
Career change
The obstacle is translation, not capability. Reframe your record in the vocabulary of the target field and make the connective logic explicit.
- Map transferable scope to the new field
- Lead with a positioning summary
- Address the change directly in the letter
Six changes you can make this afternoon
Quantify everything
Use numbers, percentages and dollar amounts. ‘Managed a team’ becomes ‘Led a 12-person team delivering $2.4M annually.’
Tailor every application
Mirror the language of the job description. Generic applications are the single most common reason strong candidates get filtered out.
Respect the six-second scan
Reviewers spend seconds on the first pass. Your name, current role and strongest achievement must be visible without scrolling.
Use active verbs
Replace passive phrasing with action. ‘Was responsible for’ becomes ‘Directed’, ‘Led’, ‘Generated’ or ‘Achieved’.
Fix your LinkedIn URL
Customize it to linkedin.com/in/yourname and put it on your resume. A default URL full of digits looks unfinished.
Follow up deliberately
Send a brief, professional follow-up email five to seven business days after applying. It is the cheapest response-rate improvement available.
Actionable checklists
ATS resume checklist
Before you submit, confirm your resume clears every automated filter.
- Keywords drawn from the job description
- No tables or graphics in the main content area
- Standard section headings (Work Experience, Education, Skills)
- No headers or footers holding critical information
- Submitted as .docx or plain PDF
- File name includes your name
Interview preparation checklist
Be ready for every category of question before you sit down.
- Researched company culture and recent news
- Five STAR stories prepared for behavioural questions
- Practised answer to ‘tell me about yourself’
- Three thoughtful questions ready to ask
- Re-read the job description the morning of
- Outfit and route planned the day before
Job search action plan
A structured weekly rhythm that gets you to interviews faster.
- Job alerts set on LinkedIn, Indeed and Glassdoor
- Apply to 5–10 targeted roles per day
- Connect with 3 new professionals per week
- Follow up on all applications after 7 days
- Track every application in one spreadsheet
- Request one informational interview per week
Job search questions, answered
One page up to roughly ten years of experience; two pages beyond that. Executives with extensive board, publication or speaking records can justify a third page, but only if every line earns it. Length is never the problem density of irrelevant content is.
Not in the United States. Photos, dates of birth and marital status invite bias claims and cause some ATS parsers to fail. In parts of Europe and Asia a photo remains conventional follow the norm of the country you are applying in.
When a posting asks for one, its absence removes you. When it does not, a short, specific letter is one of the few remaining ways to say something your resume format cannot. Generic letters do nothing either way.
State it plainly and briefly, then move on. Caregiving, health, redundancy and deliberate study are all ordinary. What draws scrutiny is an unexplained gap that the reader has to guess at.
Five to ten well-targeted applications a day beats fifty generic ones a week. Tailoring takes time; volume without tailoring mostly produces silence.
It is worth it when your applications are not converting to interviews despite relevant experience, when you are changing fields, or when the target role is senior enough that positioning decides the shortlist. If your current documents are already converting, keep your money.
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