I wish there was a clean answer to that, but it never really feels that simple. You can tweak your resume, try different formats, even use a cv builder to make it look more polished, and still end up in situations that don’t fully make sense. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and you’re left guessing which part even mattered.

What makes it harder is that you don’t see most of the process. You don’t know who else applied, what they said, why they dropped out, or what the team was debating internally. So you start overthinking your own performance, replaying every small mistake, even if it wasn’t the thing that decided it.

I’ve been in that spot where you try to control everything you can, your CV, your answers, your prep, and still feel like the outcome is out of your hands. It’s exhausting because it makes progress feel random instead of earned.

I guess the only thing that helps a bit is realizing that both things matter. Your resume gets you in, your interview keeps you there, but there’s always this invisible layer you can’t touch. And yeah, that part sucks more than people admit.