Why Most Resumes Suck (And How to Fix Yours)

Kunal had stopped expecting his phone to ring.

Nine months into the search. One recruiter call in the whole stretch, no offers, and the slow suspicion that senior roles had quietly moved on without him.

His experience hadn't changed. The way his CV showed it had. One rewrite later, he started as a Principal Software Engineer at a Big Four bank, on a package north of A$310,000.

Same person. Same track record. A CV a recruiter could finally read in six seconds.

I spent thirteen years reading CVs from the other side of the hiring process. Here's the part most candidates never get told: your CV isn't being read. It's being scanned. And most good people get filtered out not because they're underqualified, but because the scan can't find the thing it's looking for.

What a recruiter actually does with your CV

Picture the real moment. A role goes live. Two hundred CVs land in the first day. A recruiter opens yours somewhere in the middle of that pile, on a screen, between two meetings.

They're not reading. They're hunting for three or four signals: your level, whether your recent work is relevant, and the stack or domain the hiring manager asked for. About six seconds for the first pass. If those signals aren't in the top third of page one, the CV goes in the maybe pile. The maybe pile rarely gets a second look.

That's the whole game. Not "is this person good." It's "can I confirm, fast, that they're the right level and relevant." Make that easy and you move forward. Make them hunt and they move on, because there are 199 other CVs and the hunt isn't worth it.

So the fix is never "add more." It's "make the signal findable."

Move your level and relevance into the top third

This single change does more than everything else combined.

A recruiter confirms your seniority in the first scan. If your most senior, most relevant work sits on page two, it may as well not be there.

What to do: a short title line and a three-line summary at the very top, stating your level, your domain, and the kind of company you've done it for. Then your most relevant role, with its most relevant work first.

How, in ten minutes: open the job ad. Find the title and the three or four terms that keep repeating. Put your matching level and those exact terms in your top three lines, in plain words. Not paraphrased. The words the recruiter is actually searching for.

Your summary has one job: confirm the level

"Motivated team player with a passion for technology" tells a recruiter nothing, so they skip it and you've wasted your most valuable three lines.

Write it as a recruiter would brief it. "Senior backend engineer, eight years, distributed systems for high-traffic fintech in Sydney." That sentence does the confirming for them. It's specific enough to place you in two seconds, which is exactly how long it gets.

Write bullets that show impact, not activity

Most bullets describe what you were responsible for. Recruiters and hiring managers are looking for what changed because you were there.

The shape I give every client is Relevance, then Result, then Tech stack. Lead with the part that matters to this role, name the outcome, then the tools. Quantify when you can. When you genuinely can't put a number on it, qualify it instead: who relied on it, what broke without it, what it unblocked.

"Rebuilt the payments retry service, cut failed transactions by 18 percent, Go and Kafka" beats "Responsible for payments services" every time, because one proves a level and the other just claims a job title.

Fewer skills, not more

Listing 24 tools doesn't read as impressive. It reads as junior, because senior people have the judgment to show the few things they're actually deep in.

List the stack this role asks for and the things you could be grilled on in an interview. Leave off the logos you touched once. If a hiring manager would raise an eyebrow at you claiming it, cut it.

The ANZ rules US advice gets wrong

Most resume advice online is American, and a few of its rules quietly hurt you here.

The one-page rule is a US convention. In Australia and New Zealand, two to four pages is normal and expected for an experienced professional. A senior career crushed onto one page reads as thin, not concise.

Use Australian spelling, Australian dollars, and where it helps, name the kind of ANZ companies you've worked with. A recruiter shortlisting for a Sydney fintech is reassured by context they recognise.

How to handle a career gap

A gap isn't the problem most people think it is. The silence around it is.

State it plainly, in one line, the way you'd say it out loud in an interview. A short, factual note closes the question before it becomes a doubt. What loses you the room is leaving a recruiter to guess and assume the worst.

The candidates who get pulled forward aren't the strongest on paper. They're the ones a tired recruiter could understand in six seconds.

Your experience is already there. Right now it's just sitting where the scan can't reach it. Move it up, and the same career starts getting a very different response.

If you want a second set of eyes on yours, there are two ways I help. I'll review and rewrite your CV so it clears the scan, or if you'd rather build it yourself, you can use the exact templates and field handbook I give my private clients, made for ANZ tech roles.

FAQ

How long should a tech CV be in Australia and New Zealand?

Two to four pages for an experienced professional. The one-page rule is a US convention. Here, a senior CV squeezed onto one page reads as thin rather than concise.

Do I need to tailor my CV for every application?

You need to tailor the top third. Put the role's exact title and its three or four most-repeated terms in your first few lines and most relevant bullets. You don't need to rewrite the whole document each time.

Does a fancy template help or hurt?

It usually hurts. Heavy columns, graphics and colour can break when a CV is parsed by software, and they slow down a recruiter's scan. A clean, simple structure wins.

How do I handle a career gap?

State it in one plain line, the way you'd say it in an interview. A short factual note closes the question. The damage comes from the silence, not the gap.

How many skills should I list?

List the stack this role asks for and the things you could be interviewed on. Twenty-plus tools reads as junior. A focused list reads as senior.