Friends can be biased, busy, or unfamiliar with your field. Use resume swaps, your network, recruiters, and AI to get fresh eyes and multiple perspectives.
Often we want to get feedback on our resume. Since you probably can’t go to your boss or coworkers for this, you could turn to your friends. The problem is this doesn’t always work. Some friends may not know how to evaluate your resume. Others may not want to give you negative feedback. Still others may be well-intentioned but biased because they know you, unlike a hiring manager seeing your resume who has never met you. Moreover, a detailed review can take significant time, possibly over multiple sessions; that’s a big ask.
There’s a simple solution to this conundrum: resume feedback swaps. There are multiple ways to do this and they are not mutually exclusive. Consider using multiple methods outlined below.
If you’re job hunting, chances are you know other people who are looking, too. If not, it’s time to build your network. Whatever your field, there’s an industry group, and within that group there are definitely other people who are also job hunting. Start a subgroup, which may just be an email list, Slack or Discourse channel, or a new group on the discussion board. You can also find a local group of job seekers through community platforms like Meetup or other community groups, such as your local place of worship.
Note: the Never Search Alone website offers free access to job search groups so you can find peers. You need to read the book, which you can buy or borrow from a friend or library, and follow the whole process. I won’t comment on the process, but the groups are free to join and there’s no cost to you.
Once you have some job-hunting peers, do a resume swap. If you’re all in the same field at similar levels, you can potentially give feedback on each other’s resumes. Even if you’re not, this approach can still work.
Even if you’re not in similar fields, the group can be helpful by leveraging your respective networks. Suppose you’re in marketing and your friend is in accounting. Get two or three friends of yours in accounting to review her resume; she’ll get two or three friends of hers in marketing to review yours. In fact, because it’s for a friend, you can use your co-workers, since they don’t know that you’re actively looking, only that your friend is. (That assumes that you don’t tell them this is a resume review swap, this is just you asking co-workers to help out a friend.) The added advantage of doing it this way is that, because they are strangers through your friend’s network, they will view your resume with fresh eyes and without any bias that comes from knowing you.
While your friends might ask, “Why am I giving feedback to a stranger and not helping you directly?” you can point out (assuming it’s not a co-worker from whom you have to keep this secret) that they are helping you indirectly, because the quid pro quo is that you are being helped by other friends of friends. It’s like a three-way organ donor transplant in which they can’t directly help the person they care about, but everyone is helped in the end. (Alfred Hitchcock fans might recognize this as Strangers on a Train, but with a little more career advice and a whole lot less murder.)
You’re probably thinking: what about AI? Absolutely. You can also use AI as one of your reviewers. When doing this, it’s helpful to provide some sample job descriptions (ideally a few real ones for jobs you’d like) and/or a detailed explanation of the job you want.
However, this is a double-edged sword. It’s helpful because AI effectively compares your resume to a blended average (although more advanced LLMs may offer more nuanced views). AI will effectively compare your resume to the “standard” resume for your role. It will catch things that stand out as unusual that could be a red flag (even if it’s a green flag).
This is a consequence of being a stochastic parrot. One option is to give it access to a wide range of actual resumes along with a target role, so you can be compared head-to-head against the competition (à la a Monte Carlo simulation, conceptually, not literally). Realistically, most people don’t have access to a true competitive resume set.
For most people, the easiest thing to do is to treat AI as one of multiple reviewers, not as the expert. No matter the approach you take using AI, take its feedback with a grain of salt. AI is not always right, and again, it often reverts to the mean, so it may try to adjust things you explicitly need to stand out in a positive way.
Some recruiters will give you feedback. Remember, however, that recruiters are paid for placing people, so they don’t always have time to review resumes. I’ve found that better recruiters who take a long-term, relationship-oriented approach will provide some feedback. Don’t expect a recruiter you just met to do so; if they do, consider yourself lucky. If any do help, be sure to thank them for their time.
There are also professional resume writers, job-hunt coaches, and services. Some are legit; others are scams. There’s also a scam these days in which a fake “recruiter” reaches out about a role, then tells you the resume needs to be polished but they know someone who can help and sends you to a service. This is nearly always a scam.
As noted above, you can try multiple avenues. Typically, you’ll want at least two or three different opinions. With more than six or seven, the feedback will likely start to get repetitive.
There are two important things to note. First, resumes can be a bit like interior decorating. Interior decorating has principles such as balance, scale, proportion, and definition of spaces; resumes similarly have principles such as concision and emphasizing accomplishments. In both cases, there is room for variation. Two rooms can be done in very different styles, and both can be good. Resumes aren’t all cookie-cutter and a certain degree of variation may work best for your career path. You may find that you’re getting conflicting feedback, and that’s not unusual. You’ll simply have to make a judgment call.
Second, your friends may not be experienced at hiring people at your level. The key audience for your resume is your future manager. Weight each person’s feedback according to their interviewing and career experience.
As with writing a paper, focus on the content first, then worry about spelling, grammar, and layout. You want to start with questions like the following:
When asking for feedback, have them identify the problem along with their proposed change. If they just give you changes, you may not understand why, and you may disagree with their assumption about the issue in the first place or prefer a different framing. (Obviously, sharing this article is an easy way to give them the full context.)
This is just a starting set; feel free to add your own questions.
It can be tough to know what to put in a resume, especially when applying for a new type of role. Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone and the tools above can help. Since resumes involve some personal preference, getting more than one review will be helpful. It’s never going to be perfect, and that’s OK; it just needs to get you the interview.
(You might also be interested in reading how I believe resumes will evolve in “The Future of the Resume, AI Interviews, and the Evolution of Hiring – Part 1: Less is More is Now More is More” and why many companies look for the wrong thing in “The Streetlamp Effect in Hiring.” For those frustrated by countless rejections or by not getting a response, see “How Many Job Rejections Are Too Many?” and “Why Companies Ghost Candidates and What To Do About It.”)
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