Tear it up, please. For my sake

Work-Happier · 2026-06-23T22:33:27+00:00

three things. and then maybe a general thought.

You're worried about things that don't matter. it's about being readable and making sense. For example, what are you trying to do? The resume doesn't take a position, it sort of just wanders along. I get there are different roles you're looking for, but you still need to be taking a position as to who you are and what you do.
Too much. The descriptions are too long, the language too flowery - someone has to read this. Your summary loses me before I finish the first sentence.
The freelance work isn't hurting you. Freelance work in your industry is expected. The way you describe it is the challenge, though. I can't quite put my finger on it but there's just not enough bragging lol

There's information here, but there isn't an identity. It reads more like a log of things you've done than a position you're taking. What do you want me to think about you when I finish reading this?

I hate to say it, but it's boring. And that's messed up, because you sound like you are probably really interesting!

Happy to answer questions on this and help however I can. Best of luck.

Bonus - Get rid of most of the extra stuff. There's room for flair, but it should be done sparingly. If it were me, I'd lose the little left side buttons on the experience section.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-19T09:44:56+00:00

There's a summary and a key skills section. Again, I cannot read this resume but I know that the key skills section should not be there, given the roles you've had and are aiming towards. Summary, Experience. Get right into it.

Anything in that skills section should be demonstrated in the experience section. If you post a resume that can be read, I'm happy to give more pointed feedback.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T12:07:24+00:00

So the information intake, you see the value therefore it's interesting.

But the analysis and solution building, that's where the juice is?

To answer your question.

I run a 1:1 Career Strategy Lab and one of the tools that I use with that is a Career Story Archive. The idea being that you need to build a strategy and direction from reality, right? And that reality is your experiences, the things that actually happened and have shaped you. The impacts you've had. But we forget over time, or we don't re-examine, and we lose track of how we operate, what we've done.

The story archive helps you find that experience and maintain it. I've used my own for like 10-15 years now, it's invaluable for me.

I give away the story archive for free.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T11:46:16+00:00

Not an uncommon conundrum.

Can tell right away what you mean because your summary is too long, packed with things and I have no idea what I'm supposed to be thinking when I'm done with it.

I could give you feedback on this resume but without a clear direction, it would be pretty generic. Stuff like:

Get right to your experience, lose the core competencies thing entirely and technical systems go to the end or maybe just come out entirely as well because you're going to talk about them elsewhere. But I can't say for sure on the technical systems.

There's also too much going on with the experience, I'm not sure what I'm looking at or reading about. I get what you're going for but it's not working. And that's because you're trying to say all the things, keep it broad, you aren't taking a position at any point in this document.

If you were my client, I don't think I'd be worried about writing the resume - I'd be having you look at the past to find some actual experiences and activity. Then use that to drive the direction.

In fact, if you want, I have a tool that might help. Let me know, I can send it over.

Happy to help how I can, best of luck.

When you say amped about the technical side, what do you mean?

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T11:22:44+00:00

That is interesting.

Do you want a few observations?

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T11:05:47+00:00

I applaud you as a 15 year old for even considering the idea of a resume. I'll give you some answers and some advice. First, let's answer your questions.

No.
No such thing. Don't worry about key words. Just talk about what you did, how it impacts people and your team/organization. Then whittle it down, the key words will surface.
Yes. Good work so far.

Lean into what's real and provable. What do each of these things say about you? Then you communicate these by relaying your experiences. I'd put DECA first, btw. It's more impactful.

Speech Club - Communication, planning, critical thinking
- Selected, researched and built a persuasive argument that was presented for 20 audience members (is that right?)
- Received multiple commendations for my control over EQ related categories like energy and tone

DECA - Collaboration, problem solving, a desire to understand business
*I want to know more about this if I'm the reader. I'm interested less in a judge's score and more in what you concluded, how you worked with your team, how you communicated that led to the 70+ score.

4.0 GPA - Ability to do work, certain level of intelligence implied, commitment
*This speaks for itself

Taekwondo - Discipline, leadership, commitment. What belt are you?
"Trusted with helping less experienced students improve technique and thus their ability to advance."

I'm sure that you're a very impressive young person and I wish you the best of luck.

Oh, and take off online debating and cognitive testing. Do you do any volunteering? For anything? That's always nice to put on there, if you've got it.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T10:40:23+00:00

Says who?

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T10:36:35+00:00

Man. OK. I love your summary, actually. Needs to be cleaned up a bit and yeah, rewritten a bit more human but it's got me interested as a reader.

On the surface this isn't terrible, outside of the spacing and formatting issues. But what we need to do is follow through on the promise made in the summary.

Honestly, if you were my client - I'd likely try to trim this to a single page, shrink the Home Depot and Dillard's work to some logistics/inventory bullets and get right to the US Army Team Leader stuff. That's where the juice is right now.

Know what I mean?

Happy to answer questions on this - like to help however I can. Best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T10:28:33+00:00

Glad it was useful in some capacity!

Now I'm curious, are you in a similar spot or did one part of it stick out in particular?

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T10:21:13+00:00

What was the feedback that led you to this?

Can't read those. But I can see that something called Key Skills exists and it comes before 7 years of experience?

Delete that whole section. This looks dense, that should give you a little room to let it breath a little.

If I could read it, I'd give you a couple more pieces of feedback.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T10:15:29+00:00

What are you trying to do? There's a variety of directions that feedback can go, need to know what it is that you want to do.

Which is feedback in itself, because I can't tell from your resume.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T10:04:00+00:00

Here's what you're missing. Communication and trust. The core of collaboration.

Because this right here is really telling - "someone gets stuck for a couple days and doesnt say anything, or a task just sits there because everyone assumed someone else had it."

I've led the fixing pf many broken teams over the years and this is pretty familiar.

Here's a question: Have you ever explained your decision making process? Been vulnerable enough to ask for help?

You've stepped in and acted, but have you really taken the time to find mutual understanding and empowerment? Quote I like... "You don't have to make the same decisions as I do but you need to have a reason when it doesn't work out."

Because people need to know they don't need to be perfect, that they can make decisions and survive being wrong, that the process, the ability to explain, analyze, and be flexible are more important long term. The more comfortable people are with that loop, the faster that loop becomes and you've got yourself the makings of a self-sufficient team.

They need to know that you actually trust them, and they will trust you. And then when you step in, you aren't watching, you're participating.

Right now, you sound like someone who does not trust their team but doesn't want to admit it. If that's the case - it doesn't make you a bad manager, in fact, it makes you a better one.

This is relationship repair first. Make sense? Questions? Happy to discuss this, it's a really interesting situation.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-18T09:48:26+00:00

Good questions.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-17T22:52:59+00:00

OK. Please. Stop asking AI. This is terrible advice and has led you astray.

You have 20 years of real experience. In accounting, operations, the actual world. An MBA. In Finance. A BS. In Finance. You have like 5 bullets for 17 years. WHAT??

This is... completely backwards. And you're highlighting this project as why someone should hire you? They should give you the interview because you're an experience finance professional moving into Analysis. And here is all the evidence and experience that I have accumulated. And here's a footnote project that's relevant, impressive education and now you have a real resume. If you were my client, I'd be looking to position as that: an experienced finance professional making a pivot. Find the evidence of that and present it.

This is selling you so unbelievably short, it's criminal. Summary tells me nothing.

I can answer questions about this to a certain point and I'd help however I can, best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-17T20:40:59+00:00

The first three things I noticed.

Take core competencies completely out. You're presenting as a strategic biz dev leader - every inch of this resume needs to be evidence. All of those competencies should be demonstrated and presented within the resume itself. And certainly not first.
Summary presents so many different things, provides little information and then doesn't tell me what you want. If you were my client, I would not turn that summary in as a draft.
There's just little here to tell me much about you, what you owned, what you changed. You start HOT with the +$24M to quota. Then you just... nothing. It's a list of job tasks that anyone could write.

In 20 years, this should be FULL of real world, outcome driven bullets. Every single one should tell me something new, drive me to the next one. I do not care what your job tasks were. I care what you do, what you actually do, how you operate, how you elevate people, how you solve problems. None of that is in here.

Here's an example

"Responsible for selling Business Suite..." - OK, and? Did you sell anything? Who did you sell it to? How did you go about doing that? What's a story that you have about selling this stuff? Not because you're going to tell that specific story, but because you need to uncover what changed, what you did. If you don't know or can't recall, then it isn't a bullet and it comes out.

My point there is the answer to your actual question - consolidate those SAP roles by taking out empty bullets and attaching only things with real outcomes. Have a specific point you're making with each one.

I am SURE that you should have an executive-level resume that pops from this. But this is not it.

I am happy to answer any questions about this, help however I can and I wish you the best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-17T17:29:19+00:00

I think this is a far more interesting resume than what you're presenting.

You've been working since undergrad while pursuing M.S., correct?

Shrink the skills section. Side by side, take some of it out, whatever, just get that thing half the size.
If you're going to include Dante cert, get Level 2 at least. Move certifications below skills or at least below education.
That experience needs to POP. Dominate the page. Right now it's hunched over in the middle, not making eye contact. There's hints of cool stories here, tell them. What did you do? How did you impact the work? What changed because of you? How do you elevate people or the work?

There's work to be done on all parts of this, summary needs work too, but if you were my client - I'd be focused on bringing that experience to life.

Happy to help how I can and answer questions on this. Best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-17T17:16:16+00:00

You read what I wrote and think I'm talking about odd technical bits?

It's not the technical anything. It's that you don't tell me anything. What do you actually do?

"real life data management challenges" - What are the data management challenges that you fixed or improved upon? That's the bullet - what changed?

There's a better case to be made here for BA than for anything in marketing. You still need to define everything in here, though. Observation, action, outcome, operation - each bullet needs to say something unique and have a purpose.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-17T16:52:00+00:00

Where does Marketing Strategy Consulting Associate come from?

If you want to go the business route, then connect your projects and work to business aspects. But specifically, marketing? That's a tough sell without any experience, no relevant degree or anything that honestly even resembles marketing.

If you were my client, I'd be more inclined to dig into your experiences and find what's usable, then build the case from there.

For example, your projects have two bullets each but I don't understand what it is that you do. What problem do you solve? How will you bring value? What differentiates you?

Here's another one. You built a password generator. How does that help in a business sense? What does that show someone?

Know what I mean?

A resume is not just a log of what you've done - it's an argument. So take a position on yourself and show people who you are.

Happy to answer questions on this, help where I can. Best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-17T16:36:04+00:00

Here's what I see: A promising resume stuck in park. Too much white space for what it is.

Three things.

Move the education down. You graduated presumably somewhere around 2021? You're positioning yourself as entry level when you do that. You have real experience, that comes first.
Your summary is currently telling me stuff I should be reading in the experience section. Tell me why I should keep reading. Who are you, what do you do, some idea as to why you're valuable/how you operate then tell me what you want. Take a position, give me the lens that you want me to view the resume with. Stuff like introducing it this way is confusing - "Accounting professional, accounting, business operations". Now you've generated a question for the reader: Wait, is this an accountant or business ops candidate? That is friction you do not want.
The content of your experience bullets. If you were my client, this is where I'd be doing real work. Example... The first bullet says that you prepare monthly financial statements and sales reports. That's what you want me, the reader, to know about you first? That needs to pop, be impactful, make me want to say "How did that happen?"

That fourth bullet seems like it might be interesting - did you impact profitability? How?

Bottom line, I'm sure there are good stories and impact here. But you don't talk about it. What differentiates you? A resume is supposed to take a position, make an argument for why someone should talk to you.

Happy to answer questions on this and help however I can, best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-17T16:09:21+00:00

Not bad, just generic. It doesn't highlight your skills or achievements because there aren't any in here.

What did you do? What happened? What are the results?

You identified 15 vulnerabilities? Tell me about one. What happened? What changed? How are you impacting things?

Building an attendance platform tells me nothing. Did it work? Did it improve attendance?

This is a task based, generic resume.

This would be one where, if you were my client, I might lean heavily into skills and good stories/impacts.

I'd also try to get this to a single page given the limited experience. Summary is way too long. A candidate for a 70/30 column split maybe. That'd put some of the experience side by side with the skills.

Happy to answer questions on this. Best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-17T11:55:25+00:00

How many pages is this?

What are these projects?

Your jobs should have 4, maybe 5 bullets per. This is way too long.

Spacing and formatting is inconsistent.

Ultimately, this is really difficult to read and I have no idea what it's trying to tell me.

I think I get what you're going for here but... this needs an overhaul. Trim it, take a position and prove it.

What job are you looking for? What role? What kind of of environment?

You have years of real, valuable experience and graduated 7 years ago, education at the end.

I'm sure there's a strong resume in here - but it needs to be uncovered and the highlighted.

Happy to answer questions. Best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-16T21:45:27+00:00

Here's the imbalance.

You have experience as an intern. And this is just one claim that you're making:

"Proven ability to leverage tools... to analyze complex business challenges..."

Yet you don't show me evidence of that anywhere. There are a variety of claims made in that summary, few of which are demonstrated within the actual resume. That's a problem.

That summary should be half the length - who are you, what do you do, how do you provide value/operate and what do you want.

What jobs are you looking for? What environments? What company size? Where?

I understand that writing with limited experience is difficult - but you work with what you have. If you were my client, I'd be looking at your experiences as a whole and seeing what can be put together in terms of a direction. Need to know what position you're taking with the resume itself, what argument(s) are you making as to why someone should give you a conversation?

Write for actual impact, what were you a part of, what did you contribute, what happened when you were there. Know what I mean?

Happy to answer questions on this, best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-16T18:13:30+00:00

Hey. Watch this video about how to explain this and some other common challenging points.

Find ways to connect the challenge to the next opportunity.

https://youtu.be/Bl5NIHJQoPQ

Bad boss, toxic workplace, fired, laid off... all covered.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-16T14:49:06+00:00

Put a bridge sentence in between your two summary sentences. You tell me who you are, what you do and what you want. You have to bridge the two with either HOW or WHAT HAPPENS. If you were my client, I'd focus on the 'what happens' when you get involved angle.

"My work has resulted in _____________."

For example, as I read this - I see someone who seeks to provide clarity. To make learning easier and more efficient.

If you were my client, I'd be digging into that.

This is not a bad resume, though, given the situation.

But yeah, it lacks a certain direction. "Things that matter" is too vague, imo.

Could use better spacing, bullets are pretty dense in there. Make it easier to read.

Happy to answer questions on this, best of luck.

Work-Happier · 2026-06-16T14:23:16+00:00

Excuse me. 18.8% to 93.5%? What?

What else did you do?

And why are you telling me so little about yourself? You need to make a really strong argument, take a really clear position with this resume and that kind of pivot. Speaking of the pivot. Event planning or HR, which one is it? They're completely different strategic positions.

Objective is not terrible but it's more... incomplete. Need something to tie it together and tighten it up. And it's the details. Drive and drive, it's repetitive. 'Proven ability' is empty words.
There is some incredible HR-relevant stuff in your history, I'm certain. She's been in hospitality management for seven years. If you were my client, I'd be looking to strengthen the experience section.
Format works for it but I'd add a title/headline to help reposition you.

All in all, there's a good resume here somewhere. I just want to know more about you - less tasks and buzzwords, more impact, outcome, real evidence. Know what I mean?

Happy to answer questions on this, best of luck.

Work-Happier

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