That one piece of feedback that made me rethink my resume summary

I used to open my resume with a generic summary like 'hardworking professional seeking new challenges.' Then a hiring manager at a local tech meetup in Portland told me it was basically useless. She said recruiters skip those and go straight to bullet points about results. So I changed mine to a 2-line punch with specific numbers like 'increased sales by 15% in 6 months.' It felt weird at first but I got way more callbacks after. Now I wonder if the old style really killed my chances on earlier applications. Has anyone else made a similar change and saw a big difference in responses?

2 comments

2 Comments

lee.lucas15d agoMost Upvoted

Nah you're totally right to wonder about that. Did you ever go back and count how many apps you sent with the old summary vs the new one? I've seen people claim it's night and day but I wanna know if the numbers actually back it up for you. Cause my buddy tried something similar and he said his callback rate went from like 5% to 30% after he put a specific win upfront. That's a massive jump if true. But I also wonder if it's just correlation - maybe the rest of your resume got stronger at the same time? Curious if you kept everything else exactly the same and only swapped the summary.

sage5215d ago

Maybe it's just me but 30% sounds like a spreadsheet made by someone who also lists 'synergy' as a skill.