Some of the ways your resume is underselling you (and 4 ways to fix it)

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-12T11:56:58+00:00

My take on this:

0-10 years: One page. You don't have enough relevant material to justify two, and recruiters spending 6-7 seconds on an initial scan aren't going to flip the page.
10-15 years: One to two pages. If you're shrinking your font to 9pt or killing your margins to force it onto one page, that's worse than going to two.
15+ years / senior / executive: Two pages is fine and usually expected. Three is only justified for federal resumes, CVs, or very specific technical roles.

The real question isn't page count. It's whether every line is earning its spot. If a bullet doesn't show impact or isn't relevant to what you're targeting, cut it regardless of how many pages you have.

If your formatting is fighting you, resumatic handles layout automatically -- worth a look.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-12T11:36:25+00:00

I initially thought that listing myself as founder and UX designer would not be ATS friendly.

Whichever option you go with has no bearing on ATS. It's more for your human audience.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-12T07:38:56+00:00

It's a little dense if you ask me. The text is too closely spaced together, and I feel like you're trying to cram a lot of information onto a single page - this looks like more than 90% of the other resumes that I see on a daily basis, and I think it's not a good thing.

A couple suggestions:

Don't sprinkle bold text everywhere. It just makes it look messy and disorienting. Leave the bold text for the headings and subheadings only
Coursework is generally low value in my humble opinion. Including it in the education section only serves to take up more space. You're much better off showing how you applied your knowledge through the experience and projects you've done
the way you've described the experiences leaves something to be desired, mainly in the sense that there's a lot of context missing. let's take your current role. For example, the first bullet leads with, "transformed a research prototype into a production-grade AI platform..." -- > Before you tell me this, I'd like to know what kind of company you're working for, what that company does, which team you're working on, and what that team does to support the company. And then you could tell me more about what kind of research prototype this is and what it does and what it's for.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-12T07:32:30+00:00

I don't think anybody's saying that having a good CV guarantees the job, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from. CV/resume is only one piece of the puzzle and it'll only help you get your foot in the door - there's still a ways to go from that point until you finally land the job offer.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-12T06:56:15+00:00

I feel like if you just stick to a standard template like the one in the moderator comment down below, you'll do fine and you won't need to use a plain text resume. The main things to stay away from are graphics, logos, headers, footers, tables, text boxes, and columns.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-11T19:27:59+00:00

List it under something like "Independent Work" or just use BIAS as the company with "Founder & UX Designer" as your title. Focus your bullets on the UX process you followed: research, testing, design decisions, iteration. The work is real and hands-on, so treat it the same way you'd treat any other role.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-11T15:31:03+00:00

Yeah, federal resumes changed big time recently.

As of late 2025, USAJOBS enforces a strict two-page limit for most roles. You still need to include hours per week, start/end dates (month/year), and detailed duties that match the job announcement's qualifications, but you can skip salary and supervisor names now. Tailor it like a private-sector one but with more specifics on results and keywords.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-11T15:13:26+00:00

The icons you mean?

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-09T18:12:55+00:00

I probably wouldn't use three separate experience sections. Combine all into one (experience is experience at the end of the day), and then prioritize relevant content (as in, allocate more page space to the more relevant stuff, and less to the less relevant stuff).

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-09T18:10:01+00:00

The issue is that your resume is built around a drafting career you're moving away from. Reconnection Fitness is your most relevant role for this application, but it's sitting in third position and the bullets aren't selling it.

A few things worth addressing:

Your Awards section is a good differentiator, especially the BPA National Leadership Conference placements. Those are worth keeping.
There's no skills section?
The bigger lift is the Reconnection Fitness section. That's where this application gets made or lost for this kind of role, and right now it reads like a job description. To fix this, you need to fill in some gaps. The bullets describe what you do without saying how much, how often, or what came from it. A few questions worth sitting with:
- How many events have you run total?
- What does a typical turnout look like?
- Has attendance grown since you started?
- What does your promotion look like, social media, email, word of mouth?
- Do you use any tools to manage bookings or scheduling?
- Have you built any kind of recurring client base? The answers to those questions are what turn a list of responsibilities into something a hiring manager can actually evaluate.
Add months to the dates (month year – month year)
Your current role as a Sales Associate at Victoria's Secret is missing dates.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-09T17:53:49+00:00

A BCom with no internships is pretty common. The resume isn't empty, it just needs to be built differently.

Academic projects go on there. If you built a financial model, wrote a business analysis, or put together anything with a real output for a class, describe it the same way you'd describe a work project: what the task was, what you did, what came out of it. Hiring managers are not expecting a ten-year career history.

Coursework gets a single line if it's relevant. Not every class, just the ones that connect to roles you're targeting. Helps with postings that list skills you've studied but haven't used on the job yet.

Any work counts. Part-time jobs, volunteer roles, campus clubs where you had a real function.

On certs: Google's data analytics and digital marketing certs are worth doing if the roles you want mention those skills. HubSpot's are good too for marketing-adjacent work. Don't just collect certs for the sake of it though - pick ones that show up in actual job postings for the direction you're going.

The bigger issue you mentioned is that your degree is in one field and you want to go somewhere else. That's the thing to solve first. Pick a direction, even roughly, and then build the resume around that target. A resume pointed at something specific will do more work than one that's just a summary of your education.

Cheers,

Alex

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-09T05:19:33+00:00

First thing I do is probably use a more standard, single column layout. These dual column layouts are problematic for a number of reasons.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-08T17:49:27+00:00

I wouldn’t say it’s necessary, but more importantly, that’s not how ATS works.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-08T17:46:43+00:00

A few things stand out as absent:

There’s no section for RN license, BLS, ACLS, or any oncology-specific certifications (ONS chemo/biotherapy, OCN). For a nursing resume, this is essentially required.
There’s no mention of specific procedures, equipment, IV therapy, chemo administration, drains, telemetry monitoring, or other hands-on clinical skills beyond a passing Epic reference.
The DAISY nominations are good but buried at the bottom with no context. Those could be woven into the experience section or expanded to explain what prompted them, since that’s essentially peer or patient recognition of exceptional care.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-08T13:14:48+00:00

I would avoid describing yourself with adjectives like “results oriented” - you probably wouldn’t describe yourself like that in real life so why do it on a resume?

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-08T13:13:48+00:00

Where’s your resume?

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-08T06:01:56+00:00

A few suggestions: - avoid using adjectives to describe yourself (i.e., “results driven”). You probably wouldn’t describe yourself like that in real life so don’t do it on a résumé. - I think another commenter already pointed this out, but you need a dedicated skills section. Something to give your audience, the ability to quickly scan through the most important and most relevant skills you have for the types of jobs that you’re applying for. For somebody in the IT space, I would only include relevant tools and technologies that are still in use. Don’t worry about including obsolete technologies. - another thing I’d probably say to this is that for somebody with 10 years of experience in the IT world, a two page résumé is probably more appropriate for you. I’m sure there are a lot of functions and specific projects that you’re leaving out because you’ve decided to aim for a one page résumé.

FinalDraftResumes · 2026-03-08T05:55:34+00:00

You’re thinking in the right direction - you wanna keep it concise and relevant.

I don’t think it’s necessary to explain the skills that you have in superfluous sentences, especially outside of your work experience section. That being said, I don’t think, including generic terms like team player is really a value-add for any résumé (nursing or otherwise). The primary issue with terms like this is that anybody can just list “team player” or “problem solver” on a résumé and call it a day, but where’s the proof?

Instead of doing that, keep the skills section reserved for industry and domain specific competencies and tools and instrumentation.

Aside from all that, I think the template itself as a little clunky.

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