Absolutely no one loves updating their resume. Unfortunately, it's still the main tool hiring managers and recruiters use to sift through job applicants. And in , where a single posting can get hundreds of applications in a day, your resume has to work extra hard to .

As a VP at two tech startups, a startup founder, and a manager at top media companies before that, I've hired dozens of people in my career. I've reviewed more than 1,000 resumes in just the last 10 years alone — and so many people don't realize that is actually hurting their chances of getting hired. 

Here are the biggest mistakes I see job seekers make over and over again:

1. Listing responsibilities and stopping there

Many people use their resume to simply list what they did day-to-day in each role. But when you apply for a job, chances are you're competing with hundreds of other people whose past job titles and responsibilities are very similar to yours. Naming the same tasks they also have on their resumes won't help you stand out from the crowd.

Fix it: Highlight your accomplishments and impact

Use your bullet points to talk about the impact you had on your team or the business. Did you increase traffic to your vertical by a large percentage? Set a quarterly sales record? Streamline an important process? 

If you're not sure how to talk about your impact, or if you don't think you have a job that's defined by numbers, try one of these approaches:

1. Think about how your success in that role was measured. How did you and your manager know that you were doing a good job? What did you talk about in ? Maybe it's volume of deliverables, on-time delivery, or quality of work as determined by X result. For example: "Project managed up to 10 cross-functional initiatives per month, ensuring on-time delivery to clients."
2. Point to a larger business metric you contributed to. If you're an affiliate e-commerce writer, you may not have revenue data for every story you worked on, but you probably know about the big company successes your work supported. For example: "Wrote 45 Black Friday shopping posts, contributing to the highest-ever Black Friday/Cyber Monday revenue sitewide."
3. Narrate the impact in words instead of numbers. This is especially useful if you're talking about something that's difficult to quantify, such as . It also helps introduce some variety — a resume that's just a wall of numbers is actually tough to skim and read. For example, on my own resume, I have the line: "Recognized as a key culture carrier and influential leader org-wide, with team engagement scores among the company's highest."

2. Not tailoring your resume

A few years ago, I was hiring a Director of SEO Content — an editor who would oversee a team creating search-engine optimized content. The very first bullet in the job requirements said we were looking for "significant experience using SEO to drive content strategy and creation." But a shocking number of resumes I got did not include the words "SEO" or "search" at all. No matter how great those folks might have been, I couldn't waste my time interviewing them.

DON'T MISS: 

Remember, often the first person looking at your resume will be a recruiter or HR person who doesn't have direct knowledge of your job function. They're not going to connect the dots or assume you have experience that's not spelled out in your resume.

Fix it: Make sure your bullets match the job description

Don't make people guess at your qualifications! Scan the job description for the most important job responsibilities and requirements, and make sure each of them is mentioned somewhere on your resume. This is easier to do than ever with ChatGPT or one of the many tools now available.

If you're applying to two or three specific types of roles, a great time-saver is to have a different base version of your resume for each. That way you don't have to tailor it for every individual application.

3. Overstuffing your resume

I'm not strict about the one-page rule, though if you have less than five years of work experience, stick to one page! But I once saw a resume where the person used four whole pages to cover the last four years of their career. 

Unless you're creating an academic CV, a resume is meant to be a synopsis of your career, with emphasis on the last five to 10 years — not an exhaustive accounting of everything you've ever done at work. 

Fix it: Stick to what matters most

Be ruthless about highlighting in each role, emphasizing the experience that's most relevant to the job you're applying to. And keep it to two pages or less. Once you've got 10 to 15 years of experience under your belt, your early career roles should start dropping off your resume altogether.

 is the former Vice President of Content at Policygenius. A veteran digital executive and journalist, she has held leadership positions across tech and media companies, including Vice President of Content at The Muse, co-founder and Chief Content Officer at Samada, and Executive Editor, Health, at Time Inc. She is a frequent speaker on content strategy, career success, and life after working in media.

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