15 resume mistakes that are costing you interviews.

You've sent out 50 applications and heard back from two. The problem probably isn't your experience. It's your resume.

Most resume mistakes are invisible to the person who wrote it. You've read your own resume so many times that you can't see what a recruiter sees in their 7-second scan. The mistakes below are the ones we see most often when people submit their resumes for our free roast. Each one is fixable in minutes.

1. Using a two-column or creative layout. It looks nice on screen. It breaks in ATS. Stick to single-column for any online application.

2. Including a headshot. Standard in some countries, but a red flag in North America. It introduces bias and wastes space.

3. Using colored backgrounds or graphics. Same problem as creative layouts. ATS can't read them, and they often print poorly.

4. Inconsistent formatting. Different fonts, inconsistent date formats (Jan 2023 vs 01/2023 vs January 2023), mixing bullet styles. These signal carelessness.

5. Going over two pages. Unless you have 15+ years of experience or you're in academia, your resume should be one page. Two pages maximum. If it's longer, you're including too much.

6. Writing job descriptions instead of achievements. "Responsible for managing the social media calendar" is a task. "Grew Instagram following from 5K to 28K in 12 months through a content strategy focused on short-form video" is an achievement. Every bullet should answer: "What did I accomplish?"

7. No numbers anywhere. Percentages, dollar amounts, team sizes, timeframes. Quantify everything you can. "Improved customer satisfaction" means nothing. "Improved NPS from 32 to 51 in 6 months" means something.

8. Generic skills section. "Microsoft Office, Communication, Leadership, Team Player" tells a recruiter nothing. Replace with specific, role-relevant skills: "Google Analytics, SQL, HubSpot, A/B Testing, Marketing Automation."

9. Including an objective statement. "Seeking a challenging position where I can leverage my skills..." is a relic from 2005. Replace with a professional summary that highlights your top qualifications for the specific role.

10. Listing every job you've ever had. Your retail job from 2012 isn't relevant to a marketing manager role. Include only roles from the last 10–12 years that are relevant to the position you're targeting.

11. Sending the same resume to every job. Each application should have a tailored resume. At minimum, customize your summary and reorder your bullets to match the job description.

12. Not including keywords from the job description. ATS filters by keyword match. If you don't include the terms from the JD, you don't get seen. Read the job description, identify the key terms, and work them into your resume naturally.

13. Burying your strongest qualifications. If the job requires project management and you have PMP certification, that should be in your summary, not buried at the bottom of a skills list.

14. Using AI without editing. AI resume tools can produce great first drafts. But submitting unedited AI output is obvious to recruiters. Words like "spearheaded," "leveraged," and "synergy" are dead giveaways. Always review and humanize.

15. Not proofreading. One typo won't kill your chances. Three will. Read your resume backwards, sentence by sentence. Or have someone else read it. Fresh eyes catch what yours can't.

The hardest part about resume mistakes is that you can't see your own. You wrote it, so it makes sense to you. A recruiter reading it for the first time doesn't have that context.

Option 1: Ask someone in your target industry to review it. Not your mom. Not your friend who "has a good eye." Someone who hires for the kind of role you want.

Option 2: Use an AI resume roast. A brutally honest automated review will catch formatting issues, weak bullets, missing keywords, and AI-sounding language in 30 seconds. It won't replace a human review, but it will catch the obvious problems before a recruiter does.

Option 3: Read it out loud. If any sentence sounds awkward when spoken, it reads awkward on paper. If you'd never say "spearheaded cross-functional initiatives" in conversation, don't put it on your resume.