Most people write their resume backwards. They take a small, ordinary experience and try to inflate it into something that sounds impressive. Then they get in the room, someone asks about it, and the story turns out to be smaller than the bullet. That is the worst possible outcome. You wrote a check your experience could not cash.
Here is the rule that fixes it, and if you take one thing from this issue, take this:
Every line on your resume should have a story behind it that is equally or more impressive than the bullet states.
Not less impressive. Equally or more. The bullet is the trailer. The conversation is the movie. If the movie is a letdown after the trailer, you lose. If the movie is better than the trailer, you win the room. So the test for every single line is simple: can I talk about this for two minutes, with specifics, and have the person walk away more impressed than when they read it? If yes, keep it. If no, cut it.
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That one test quietly solves the most common resume problem I see, which is impressive-sounding things with nothing behind them. People list clubs and titles and activities chosen to look good, and then they cannot say a single substantive thing about any of them. I can spot it in about thirty seconds of conversation, and it actively hurts you, because now I do not trust the rest of the page either. Only put things on your resume that are real. If it does not have a story, it does not belong there.
Now, the second big idea, and this is the one almost nobody gets right.
Your resume should look completely different depending on what stage you are in. A high school student’s resume should not look like a college student’s, and a college student’s should not look like someone with ten years of experience. Trying to look older or more accomplished than you are does not work. Owning exactly where you are does. Here is what that looks like at each stage.
If you are in high school: be honest, and highlight what is genuinely real. Academic achievements, and real leadership, captain of a team, the lead in the play, a project you actually drove. And get a paying job, any paying job. Babysitting, caddying, pet sitting, bagging groceries. Here is something most kids do not realize: the way you get most of those jobs is by walking in, introducing yourself, and asking if they are hiring. That act of initiative is itself worth putting on display, because it is exactly the quality every employer wants and most people never develop. A first job is not menial. It is proof you can put yourself out there and show up.
If you are in college: you have hopefully had a couple of those jobs by now, so the skill is showing growth, not just presence. “Worked at a grocery store for three years” tells me nothing. But if you started as a bagger, became a cashier, moved into another department, trained new employees, and started helping the manager with scheduling and oversight, now you have something. Now the bullet says: I was trusted with more and more because I was good and reliable. That same arc exists in almost any job, a restaurant, a construction site, a day care. The job title is not the point. The trajectory within it is. And college is the moment to build something of your own, start a business, join a friend who is starting one, and do not just join a club, lead one. Leading a real thing beats belonging to an impressive-sounding one every time.
If you are an early professional: highlight evidence of drive and ambition, not just claims of it. Anyone can write “self-motivated.” Show me the project you started that nobody asked you to, the responsibility you took on beyond your role, the problem you saw and fixed. Same rule as always: the story behind it should be bigger than the bullet.
And one hard formatting rule that applies to almost everyone reading this: if you have less than five years of experience out of college, your resume is one page. One. Not two. Nobody early in their career has enough genuinely meaningful material to justify a second page, and stretching to fill one signals the opposite of what you want. A tight, honest, one-page resume where every line has a real story behind it beats a padded two-page resume every time.
So here is your homework, and it takes fifteen minutes. Go through your resume line by line and ask one question of each bullet: is there a story behind this that is as impressive as, or more impressive than, what it says? If yes, keep it, and make sure you can actually tell that story out loud. If no, cut it, no matter how good it looks. Then check that you are one page.
What you will be left with is shorter, truer, and far more powerful. A resume where every single line makes someone want to ask you a follow-up question, and where every follow-up question makes them more impressed, not less. That is a resume that gets you in the room and wins it.
Talk soon,
Jeff
Know a student or recent grad working on their resume? Forward this to them. They can subscribe free at gethiredplaybook.com.
P.S. Hit reply with one bullet from your resume and the story behind it. I will tell you honestly whether the story is bigger than the bullet, or whether the bullet is writing a check the story cannot cash.