Is your résumé competitive enough? Check content, context, and structure

“I apply and apply, but I never get interviews.”

I hear this every week. Usually the problem isn’t the candidate. It’s that the résumé isn’t written in the language employers read. When a résumé fails to get you to the next stage, it almost always comes down to one of three things: content, context, or structure. Fix all three and you’ll get more interviews.

Content: show what changed because of you

Your résumé is a branding tool. It should make a recruiter see you as valuable before they’ve met you.

A list of duties does the opposite. It makes a top performer look average. The job description already told the recruiter what someone in your role does. What they don’t know is what you did with it.

Numbers do most of the work here. Compare:

I drive very fast.

I drive at 200 km/h.

The second one paints a picture. Use absolute numbers for scale and percentages to compare: against last year, against a target, against the team. Keep each bullet to one line, two at most.

Step 1: Define your capacity

List what you do every day and attach a number to each. How many customer calls do you take a day? How many people are on the team you lead, and what’s the project worth? Capacity shows the size of your job. It’s a start, not the finish.

Step 2: Show the result

Every result an employer cares about falls into one of what I call the Big 4:

• Revenue up. Grew sales 400% in Q1, 100% above target.
• Time or resources saved. Automated the filing system, cutting document retrieval time by half.
• Costs or losses down. Cut projected spend by 50% by onboarding 10 cheaper vendors.
• Risk reduced. Eliminated stock expiry by introducing monthly stock counts.

Other results matter because they feed the Big 4. Better customer retention leads to more revenue and less risk. If you work outside a business, define what success means in your role and measure that instead. For a teacher, it might be class exam averages and attendance. For a head teacher, the same numbers across the school, plus how many students go on to the next level.

Proofread, then get someone analytical to review it. A typo undoes a lot of good work.

The bonus: once your content is right, you’ve also prepared your interview answers and your networking pitch.

Context: tailor it to the job

A great product that doesn’t meet the customer’s need won’t sell. In a job search, you’re the product. Sending the same résumé everywhere and hoping someone calls is “spray and pray,” and it doesn’t work.

Read the job description, requirements, and qualifications, and pick out the keywords. If a customer service role asks for conflict resolution, communication, and negotiation, those words should appear in your résumé, backed by evidence.

One rule: never claim a skill you don’t have because it’s in the posting. Integrity is everything. Online résumé scanners can show you how closely your résumé matches a specific job.

Structure: make it easy to read

With the right content in the right context, the last step is flow. Consistency makes a résumé clear: well-defined sections, clean grammar, consistent bullets, alignment, and capitalization, one font (Calibri, Trebuchet, or Helvetica, in black, at 11 points or larger).

A chronological résumé should include these sections:

• Name and contact details. Don’t write “Curriculum Vitae” at the top. Your name goes first, then location, phone number, and a professional email. kofi.folsom@gmail.com works. kofmygee34@gmail.com doesn’t.
• Professional summary. Your elevator pitch: qualifications, key strengths, one top achievement, and what you’ll bring.
• Education. If you’re a recent graduate, high school can be the lowest level. With postgraduate degrees, start from your undergraduate degree. Never go below high school.
• Skills. Split into technical skills, soft skills, and software or tools. Languages can go here too.
• Work experience. Job title, company, location, and start and end month and year, in reverse order. Underneath, your measured results (this is where your content goes). Roles from more than 10 years ago can be dropped, or reduced to title, company, and dates.

Optional sections: licenses and certifications, volunteering, leadership roles, and referees (only when asked for; otherwise they take up space).

A few more rules:

• Keep it ATS-friendly. No photos, tables, icons, or graphics.
• Move education down once you have a few years of experience, so your strongest material is on page one.
• Leave out age, date of birth, religion, and gender unless the employer asks. They only invite bias.
• Two to three pages unless the employer says otherwise.

Score yourself

Before you send your next application, rate your résumé on content, context, and structure. If all three hold up, your chances of an interview go up a lot.

One last tip: keep a master résumé with everything you’ve ever achieved. When a job comes up, you pick the right results from it and tailor them, instead of starting from scratch.