Does Your Resume Match the Jobs You Actually Want?
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
A resume can have plenty of good experience on it and still make the wrong impression.
That came up with a Rewrite Bundle client who purchased the service on July 20. They sent me several examples of the jobs they wanted to pursue, which gave me a chance to compare what those employers were looking for with what the resume was actually emphasizing.
The client had relevant experience. They’d built programs, developed technical solutions, worked across different systems, trained users, and taken on work that lined up well with the kinds of jobs they wanted next.
But some of the experience getting the most attention on the resume pointed the reader in another direction.
That can happen pretty easily when your background includes different types of work. You know which parts of your experience are most relevant to the job you want because you lived it. A recruiter only knows what the resume puts in front of them.
For this client, that meant making the most relevant experience easier to see, strengthening the skills section, giving important projects more prominent positioning, and adjusting the overall emphasis of the resume around the jobs they were actually targeting.
I also reviewed their LinkedIn profile and created a cover letter so the positioning was consistent across the rest of the application.
None of this required changing what the client had done. The experience was already there. We were making sure the right parts of it were getting the attention they deserved. That’s an important distinction because people sometimes think tailoring means constantly rewriting their resume to sound more like every job description they find. It doesn’t.
Start with the kinds of jobs you genuinely want and have a reasonable shot at getting. Then look at your resume from the employer’s side. If the job calls for experience you already have, how quickly can someone find it? Are your strongest examples prominent, or are they buried underneath work that matters less for this particular direction? The answer can change how a recruiter understands your entire background.
Exactly one month after purchasing the service, the client emailed me with an update. Once they started using the new resume and cover letter and made the recommended LinkedIn changes, they said they were getting a generous amount of callbacks and interviews.
They actually got to choose which job they wanted.
The role they accepted came with a $40K increase in base salary and was fully remote.
Results like that aren’t something any resume writer can promise. There are too many other variables involved in a job search. But this client is a good example of why positioning matters. Having the right experience only helps if the person reviewing your application can recognize it.
Take a look at a few jobs you’d seriously consider applying for and compare them with your resume. Pay attention to what those employers keep asking for and where that experience appears in your document.
If some of your strongest qualifications are technically there but surprisingly hard to find, you may not need more experience.
Your resume may just need to do a better job showing the experience you already have.
If you want help figuring out what your resume is communicating to employers, Karpiak Consulting’s services can help.
