Your resume has two readers, and each of them is looking for something different.
The first is software. An applicant tracking system parses your document into fields and lets a
recruiter search across hundreds of candidates, so it rewards clean structure and the exact terms
used in the posting.
The second is a person with a stack of resumes and a limited window, deciding in six seconds
whether to give you ten minutes. That reader rewards scope, outcomes and clarity.
The good news is that both readers want the same underlying thing — a well-organized document that
says plainly what you did and how much of it. These prompts get you there.
Using everything I have told you, write a complete one-page civilian resume targeting
[TARGET ROLE] roles in [TARGET INDUSTRY].
Structure:
1. Name and contact line (use placeholders: [NAME] | [CITY, STATE] | [PHONE] | [EMAIL] | [LINKEDIN])
2. Clearance line if I have one, immediately under contact
3. A 3-line professional summary — what I am, my scope, and my strongest differentiator. No
objective statement, no "seeking a challenging opportunity"
4. Core Competencies — 9-12 skills as a scannable list, using the exact vocabulary of the target
industry
5. Professional Experience — most recent first, with a civilian-readable title, the organization
described in civilian terms, location, dates, a one-line scope statement, and 3-5 bullets
6. Education and Certifications
7. Anything else that earns its space
Rules:
- Every bullet starts with a past-tense action verb, no repeats
- Every bullet under 25 words
- Numbers wherever I gave you one; [X] placeholders where I did not
- No acronyms except civilian-standard ones
- No first person, no "responsible for"
- Do not invent a single fact, date, title, or number
After the resume, give me a short list of what is weakest about it and what I should go find to
strengthen it.
Ask for a plain-text version as well and keep it alongside the formatted one. Online application forms ask you to paste your resume into a text box more often than you would expect, and having a clean plain-text copy ready saves you reformatting it each time.
Write 6 different professional summaries for the top of my resume, targeting
[TARGET ROLE].
Each should be 2-3 lines and take a different angle:
1. Scope and scale of responsibility
2. Technical depth
3. Leadership and people development
4. Process improvement and efficiency
5. Crisis and high-pressure performance
6. The clearance and compliance angle (if I have a clearance)
Rules for all six:
- Open with what I am, not what I want
- Include one concrete, specific detail from my actual background
- No adjective stacking ("dynamic, results-driven, passionate")
- No "seeking" or "looking for"
- Written so a human would not immediately identify it as AI-generated
After the six, tell me which one is strongest for my target role and why, and what single change
would improve it.
Here are bullets from my resume. For each one, tell me honestly:
- Is it about an ACTIVITY or an OUTCOME? (Activities are weak.)
- Does it show scope? Could the reader be picturing 3 people or 300?
- Is the verb doing work, or is it filler?
- What would a hiring manager actually learn from it?
Then rewrite each one to lead with outcome and scope. Give me two versions: one emphasizing scale,
one emphasizing the change I produced.
Finally, rank all my bullets from strongest to weakest, and tell me which two or three I should
cut entirely because they add nothing.
BULLETS:
[PASTE YOUR BULLETS]
I am applying for the job below. Compare it against my resume and give me:
1. KEYWORD TABLE — every skill, tool, certification, and qualification the posting names, and
whether it appears in my resume. Columns: Requirement | In my resume? | Where I could evidence it
| Priority (the posting's language: "required" vs "preferred")
2. STRONG MATCHES — the 5 places my background is a genuinely strong fit, and how to make each one
unmissable in the first third of the page
3. REAL GAPS — requirements I truly do not meet. For each: is this a dealbreaker or a
nice-to-have? Should I apply anyway? What is the closest honest thing I can point to?
4. LANGUAGE SWAPS — specific rewrites where my phrasing should change to match theirs (without
lying). Show original and replacement.
5. THE VERDICT — realistically, should I apply? Give me a percentage fit and one line of reasoning.
Be honest, not encouraging.
Do not suggest I claim anything I have not done.
JOB POSTING:
[PASTE THE FULL JOB DESCRIPTION]
MY RESUME:
[PASTE YOUR RESUME]
Run this on every posting you seriously care about. Ten minutes of tailoring beats fifty untailored applications.
Now produce the tailored resume for that posting.
Rules:
- Reorder bullets so the most relevant ones come first under each role
- Rewrite the summary to speak directly to this job
- Swap the Core Competencies list to match their vocabulary exactly where I honestly have the skill
- Cut or shorten anything irrelevant to this posting to make room
- Do NOT add any experience, skill, or credential I have not told you about
- Keep it to one page unless I have more than 10 years of relevant experience
Then give me a short changelog: what you moved, what you cut, what you rephrased, and why. I want
to be able to defend every change in an interview.
Review my resume for applicant tracking system compatibility and tell me specifically what
would fail to parse.
Check for:
- Tables, text boxes, columns, headers/footers, or graphics that break parsing
- Non-standard section headings (an ATS looks for "Professional Experience", "Education",
"Skills" — not "Where I've Made an Impact")
- Date formats that will not parse (use "Month YYYY - Month YYYY")
- Contact information placed in a header
- Fancy bullets, symbols, or icons
- Acronyms used without the spelled-out form (and vice versa) — an ATS searching for
"Project Management Professional" will not match "PMP" alone
- Missing keywords from the target posting
Give me a prioritized fix list, most damaging first. Then rewrite any section that needs
restructuring.
For each important keyword, show me where to include BOTH the acronym and the full term naturally.
RESUME:
[PASTE YOUR RESUME]
TARGET POSTING (if you have one):
[PASTE OR WRITE "NONE"]
You are a hiring manager for [TARGET ROLE] with 140 resumes in the queue and 45 minutes to
get to a shortlist of 12. You are tired and you are looking for reasons to say no.
Read my resume for six seconds. Then tell me:
1. What did you actually absorb in those six seconds?
2. Yes, no, or maybe pile — and the honest reason
3. The three things that most made you hesitate
4. The single change that would move me from "maybe" to "yes"
5. Anything that reads as a red flag: gaps, vagueness, military language you could not parse,
over-claiming, inflated titles
6. If you kept reading, what question would you want answered on page one that is not there?
Be blunt. Do not soften it. Do not compliment me first.
RESUME:
[PASTE YOUR RESUME]
This one is bracing, and it is one of the most useful things on the site. Run it before every application you genuinely care about — it takes two minutes and it consistently finds the one change that matters most.
Read my resume and flag anything that sounds like it was written by an AI tool rather than
by a person who did the work.
Look for:
- Adjective stacking and inflated language
- The overused set: leverage, spearhead, robust, seamless, dynamic, passionate, synergy,
cutting-edge, utilize, facilitate, streamline, orchestrate, myriad
- Bullets that are grammatically perfect but say nothing concrete
- Uniform sentence rhythm — every bullet the same length and shape
- Claims with no specific detail behind them
For each flag, give me a plainer replacement that a person would actually say.
Then: rewrite the three weakest bullets in a voice that sounds like someone describing their own
work to a colleague — specific, unembellished, slightly uneven.
RESUME:
[PASTE YOUR RESUME]
I am applying to federal positions through USAJOBS. Federal resumes follow completely
different rules than private-sector ones.
Convert my resume into federal format:
- Length is not a constraint — 3-5 pages is normal and expected
- Every position needs: employer, full address, supervisor name and phone (mark as [SUPERVISOR] for
now), start and end dates as MM/YYYY, hours per week, and salary or grade
- Bullets should be detailed paragraphs that explicitly demonstrate each specialized experience
statement
- Mirror the language of the announcement's "Specialized Experience" section directly
- Include all relevant training, awards, and certifications with dates
Then:
1. Map my experience explicitly against the specialized experience requirement below
2. Identify which GS grade I should realistically be targeting and why
3. Tell me which veterans' preference or hiring authority applies to me and how it changes my
application ([VRA / VEOA / 30% OR MORE DISABLED / SCHEDULE A / MSP])
4. Flag anything missing that would cause an HR specialist to rate me "not qualified"
ANNOUNCEMENT:
[PASTE THE USAJOBS ANNOUNCEMENT, ESPECIALLY THE QUALIFICATIONS SECTION]
MY RESUME:
[PASTE YOUR RESUME]
Keep federal and private-sector resumes as two separate documents. Federal announcements are evaluated against specialized experience statements, so the depth and length that a corporate recruiter would trim is exactly what an HR specialist is looking for. Write each one for its own reader.
Produce a version of my resume aimed at government contractors supporting
[AGENCY OR PROGRAM, e.g. "the Defense Health Agency", "Army PEO Aviation", "the VA"].
This is a different document from a commercial resume. Unlike a commercial reader, this audience
is fluent in military and federal language — so:
- Put my clearance on line one, under my contact details: level, status, and investigation date
- KEEP the agency names, program names, system names, and contract vehicles I worked with. These
are the proof that I know the customer, and they are the reason a contractor would want me.
- Keep military rank and unit type where it establishes scope, but pair it with a civilian-readable
title
- Keep well-known military and federal acronyms; translate only the genuinely obscure ones
- Add a short line naming the agencies and mission areas I have direct experience with
- Still lead every bullet with an outcome, still keep each one under 25 words, still no invented
numbers
Keep it to two pages maximum.
Then tell me:
1. Which of my experiences a contractor would value most, and why
2. Any detail I should NOT include for OPSEC or classification reasons
3. What a hiring manager at a contractor would want to ask me about
MY BACKGROUND: [PASTE RESUME OR REFER BACK TO EARLIER IN THIS CONVERSATION]
Note how this inverts the usual advice. Elsewhere on this site we strip acronyms to help a commercial reader; here, fluency in the customer's language is precisely the qualification being assessed. Keep the agency names, program names and systems — they are the evidence that you can be useful in week one.
I need help addressing something in my history that a hiring manager will notice:
[DESCRIBE IT — e.g. an employment gap, medical separation, a discharge characterization, a period
of unemployment after separating, a big career pivot, being fired, time spent caregiving]
Help me:
1. Decide whether this belongs on the resume at all, in a cover letter, or only in an interview if
asked directly
2. If it belongs on the resume, write the shortest honest framing that closes the question rather
than opening it
3. Write a 2-3 sentence spoken answer for if it comes up in an interview — factual, forward-looking,
no over-explaining, no apology
4. Tell me what I legally do not have to disclose, and where I should be careful
Rules: never suggest I lie or obscure a material fact. The goal is accurate framing that does not
invite more scrutiny than the fact deserves.
Keep a master resume. One long working document holding everything — every bullet you have
written, every number you have found, every version of every phrase. You never send this one.
You cut tailored resumes out of it, which turns a two-hour job into a fifteen-minute one.
Name files properly.Lastname_Firstname_Resume_CompanyName.pdf. Recruiters see the
filename.
Send PDF unless told otherwise. Upload a .docx only if the application specifically asks
for it.
Re-run the six-second scan whenever you change targets. A resume tuned for logistics roles
and a resume tuned for program management are pulling different accomplishments forward. Ten
minutes of retuning makes the document work as hard for the new target as it did for the old
one.
Next:LinkedIn & Personal Brand — because recruiters will search for you
before they read anything you sent.
