A maintenance guy at our warehouse changed how I think about resumes

He was fixing a conveyor belt during my night shift last Tuesday. Said he applied to 40 places with the same resume, got zero calls. Then his daughter wrote a new one for him that was just bullet points and numbers. He got 3 interviews in two weeks. Made me realize I've been writing my resume like I'm writing a novel when hiring managers probably scan it in 10 seconds. Anyone else have someone outside of HR give them resume advice that actually worked?

2 comments

2 Comments

wyatt5131mo ago

A recruiter once told me bullet points with numbers are the only thing that gets read. The rest is just noise to them. Makes sense when you realize they're scanning 200 resumes before lunch.

nathan_moore121mo ago

My buddy who runs a small warehouse told me the same thing about inventory sheets. He said if a box count isn't right next to the product name, he skips the whole row. That's the same logic @wyatt513 is talking about here. It shows up everywhere too, like when I'm reading a grocery list and "2 lbs bananas" gets bought but "bananas" gets ignored. Recruiters are just humans using the same shortcuts the rest of us use every day. Numbers cut through the noise quick because they're concrete and easy to check. It's not mean, it's just how our brains work when there's too much to look at.