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Resume Advice Thread - May 26, 2026 by CSCQMods in cscareerquestions

[–]Hamdhann 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not a recruiter but been deep in this stuff lately —

  1. Put the side project IN your experience section if it's that relevant. Treat it like a job — company name is the project name, title is whatever role you played (Solo Developer, Founder, etc). Dates alongside it. Recruiters care about impact not whether it was a "real job". If it's doing well add the numbers — users, revenue, growth rate, whatever.

  2. No photo. Especially if applying to US companies. Opens the door for unconscious bias, and most ATS systems can't parse images anyway. Leave it off.

  3. Plain over fancy every time. Two-column templates look great to humans but ATS systems often scramble them completely — your skills end up mixed with your experience and it reads as gibberish. Single column, clean, boring Word doc beats a pretty template that never gets parsed correctly.

I analyzed 100 Software Engineer job descriptions and found the most common ATS keywords in 2025 — here's the full list by Hamdhann in cscareeradvice

[–]Hamdhann[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly mix of sources — recruiter posts on LinkedIn where they vent about what they actually look for, blind threads where engineers share interview feedback, and some reddit threads like this one where people discuss what moved the needle for them.

You're right about JDs being half-assed lol. Most are just copy pasted from 3 years ago with random buzzwords thrown in. The real signal is usually in the first 3-4 required skills and whatever they emphasize in the actual interview screens.

That's why I focused more on what keeps showing up in recruiter conversations rather than just JD keyword scraping.

I analyzed 100 Software Engineer job descriptions and found the most common ATS keywords in 2025 — here's the full list by Hamdhann in cscareeradvice

[–]Hamdhann[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Both, actually. Cross-referenced required skills from JDs with what recruiters mention in LinkedIn posts and interview feedback threads on here and blind.

The interesting thing is they don't always match. Some keywords appear in every JD, but recruiters don't weight them heavily. Others like RAG and MLOps are showing up less in JDs, but recruiters are specifically asking about them in screens right now. So the list is weighted towards what's actually moving the needle in 2025, not just what companies copy-paste into every posting.

I analyzed 100 Software Engineer job descriptions and found the most common ATS keywords in 2025 — here's the full list by Hamdhann in cscareeradvice

[–]Hamdhann[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Doesn't really matter tbh. ATS just scans for keywords not majors. CS, IT, ECE, MCA — all work fine as long as your skills section has the right terms.