Resume Checklist

Run through this before you send a resume anywhere that matters to you.

Ten minutes is usually enough, and it catches the things you would otherwise only discover through silence. Work down the sections in order — content first, then translation, then formatting, then the final read — and you will send something you are confident in.

Content

Does it say the right things?

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• Every bullet leads with an outcome or scope, not an activity.
• Every bullet starts with a concrete past-tense verb — never "Responsible for" or "Duties included."
• No verb is repeated more than twice across the whole document.
• Numbers appear wherever you legitimately have one: people, dollars, volume, time, percentage.
• You can defend every single number for ten minutes in an interview.
• Nothing is claimed that you did not personally do.
• The professional summary says what you are, not what you are seeking.
• There is no objective statement.
• Your security clearance, if you have one, is in the top third of page one.
• The most relevant experience is highest on the page, not just the most recent.
• Anything irrelevant to this target has been cut to make room.

Translation

Can a civilian read it?

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• No military acronyms except ones civilians genuinely recognize.
• Unit designations replaced with plain descriptions ("a 120-person maintenance organization").
• Job titles are civilian-readable, with the military title in parentheses only where it helps.
• Rank is translated into scope of responsibility, not left as a rank abbreviation.
• Equipment and systems are described by function, not by nomenclature.
• Awards that mean nothing to civilians have been cut or translated.
• You have shown it to someone with no military background and they understood every line.

Formatting and ATS

Will the software parse it?

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• No tables, text boxes, columns, headers, footers, or images.
• Standard section headings: Professional Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications.
• Dates formatted consistently as "Month YYYY – Month YYYY".
• Contact information is in the body of the document, not in a header.
• Standard bullet characters only — no symbols, icons, or emoji.
• A single standard font, 10–12pt, with consistent sizing.
• Important acronyms appear with the spelled-out version at least once (e.g. "Project Management Professional (PMP)").
• One page for under 10 years of relevant experience; two at most. (Federal resumes are the exception — 3–5 pages is normal.)
• Saved as PDF unless the application specifically asks for .docx.
• File named Lastname_Firstname_Resume_Company.pdf.

Tailoring

Is it aimed at this job?

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• You ran a gap analysis against the actual posting.
• The posting's key terms appear naturally in your resume where you honestly have the skill.
• The summary speaks to this specific role, not to a general category.
• Bullets are reordered so the most relevant ones appear first under each role.
• Every "required" qualification in the posting is addressed somewhere, or you know why it is not.

Final pass

Before you hit send

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• Read it out loud, all of it. Anything you stumble over gets rewritten.
• Ran the AI-tells check — nothing reads as machine-written.
• Zero spelling or grammar errors. Check the company name three times.
• Contact details are correct — call your own number and email yourself.
• LinkedIn URL is customized and the profile matches the resume.
• Opened the PDF on a phone to confirm it renders correctly.
• Ran the six-second scan critique and fixed what it found.
• Someone else has read it.

The one that gets everyone

The one that catches almost everyone at some point is sending a tailored resume that still carries the previous company’s name.

Make it a fixed habit: before every submission, search the document for the company name and check it appears correctly in the summary, the cover letter and the filename. Five seconds, every time, and it saves an application you worked hard on.