Resume Mistakes You Must Avoid

Sent 367 cold emails → 21 phone screens → 5 offers (including FAANG).

Here's what I learned:

1. Projects > Education Stop leading with your CS degree. Your deployed app with actual users matters more than your 3.9 GPA.

2. Be Specific About Impact Bad: "Worked on backend services" Good: "Optimized PostgreSQL queries reducing API response time from 800ms to 150ms"

3. Metrics Matter (Even Small Ones) No million users? No problem. "Achieved 95% test coverage" or "Reduced build time by 40%" shows you measure what matters.

4. Match Their Tech Stack React role? Lead with React projects. Their ATS is literally searching for keywords. Make it easy.

5. Details = Credibility "JavaScript" or "JS" or "javascript"? Pick one. Inconsistency in a 1-page doc = red flag about code quality. The "spray and pray" approach doesn't work anymore. Quality > quantity.

Built Careerkit.me to automate the resume optimization that helped me land these offers. It's free, no CC required.

What resume "rules" have actually worked for you?