An unordered ordered list of resume shower thoughts.

1. You are not getting auto-rejected.
2. If a bullet point isn’t understandable without context, it isn’t worth reading or writing.
   1. As a litmus test, try shouting your bullet point on the subway and see if anyone knows what you mean.
3. Metrics don’t matter.
   1. They’re all meaningless. Most of them look made up. Anyone who thinks metrics are important probably doesn’t know anything about metrics.
      1. Some example stupid metrics from real resumes:
         1. “Improving ease of use by 26%”
         2. “Driving a 125% increase in feature adoption”
         3. “Increasing user engagement by 22%”
         4. “Increasing membership conversions by 8%”
         5. “restructuring information architecture to cut task time by 60%”
4. The way your bullet points are written doesn’t matter.
5. I don’t know what your company does. You need to tell me what kind of work it was.
6. I don’t know what your project is. You need to tell me what it does.
7. If you’re applying with recent (~5-10 years) non-US based locations on your resume, your legal status to work in the US should be clear to correctly set expectations.
   1. GC EAD helps.
8. Your current location should be clear on your resume. “Open to relocation” is not a location.
9. If you get an immediate rejection (Same day, maybe even same hour) it isn’t unlikely that a human being looked at your resume, saw a red flag, and rejected you.
10. If you’re working or have eligibility to work on an F-1 student visa (OPT/Stem-OPT), you DO require sponsorship in the future. Stop saying no to that question.
11. The design of your resume isn’t that important.
    1. I’m going to review it the same way even if it’s ugly.
    2. If you under-design it, it looks lazy but it’s also pretty standard. You’re just being a sheep.
    3. If you over-design it, you lose points for not following the instructions.
12. If your website has a password, it should be included in the version of the resume you submit with your application.
    1. I am never emailing you to get a password. There are too many other candidates.
13. Convert all links to links.
    1. Text should also be selectable.
14. The ATS has almost zero issue parsing things, and when it does—I’m going to spend the time to find your website or w/e anyways.
15. The layout and columns of your resume do not matter.
16. The number of pages of your resume do not matter.
17. Don’t include your photo on your resume.
18. Pronunciation guides help.