Picked up a simple resume trick at a local career fair last month

I went to a career fair in downtown Portland not expecting much. A recruiter from a mid-size tech firm told me to use a skills summary at the top of my resume, not an objective. She said they scan for keywords in the first 10 seconds. I rewrote mine that night and got three interviews in the next two weeks. Has anyone else tried this and seen a difference?

3 comments

3 Comments

casey2685h ago

Yeah that's not quite right actually. Skills summaries work better for tech jobs but can hurt you in other fields like teaching or nursing. Recruiters just want to see relevant experience first thing.

rowanr884h ago

Oh man, you nailed it. Skills summaries are basically a checkbox for tech recruiters who are skimming, but for teaching or nursing they just want to see your actual experience jump out first. Makes total sense that one size definitely doesn't fit all with resumes.

ryan_hart384h ago

And I actually read somewhere that some companies are starting to use AI to scan resumes for keywords, so a skills summary might actually help you get past the first filter in tech. But then once a real person looks at it, they want to see how you actually applied those skills, not just a list of them. For teaching and nursing, I heard those fields care way more about your specific classroom or patient experience, your certifications, and how long you've been doing it. A skills summary in those cases can come across like you're trying to pad your resume instead of showing what you've actually done. It's almost like you need two versions of your resume, one for the robots and one for the humans, and just hope they match up.