Guides
Tailor a résumé the honest way
Short, practical answers to the questions every application raises — written to the same rules Roleform enforces: reorder and reword what you did, never invent what you didn’t.
How to tailor your résumé to a job description
To tailor a résumé to a job description, list every requirement the posting states, find the bullet in your own experience that proves each one, then reorder those bullets to the top and reword them in the posting's vocabulary. Requirements you cannot evidence stay off the résumé and become your preparation list.
Read the guide · 7 min Guide · ATSWhat makes a résumé ATS-friendly?
An ATS-friendly résumé is one a parser can read in order: a single-column body, standard section headings, no tables or text boxes, contact details as plain body text, and no information carried only by an icon or colour. Meet all five and a layout parses reliably; each one broken adds risk.
Read the guide · 6 min Guide · KeywordsHow to find the right résumé keywords in a job description
The right résumé keywords are the specific skills, tools and responsibilities the job description names, especially in its requirements section and anywhere it repeats itself. Use the posting's exact phrasing inside bullets that describe work you actually did; a keyword with no evidence behind it helps nobody and fails the first interview.
Read the guide · 5 min Guide · ScoringWhat an 'ATS résumé score' really measures
No outside tool can see an employer's ATS score: each company configures its own system and none publish how they rank. What a tool can honestly measure is requirement coverage — how much of a posting your own résumé evidences — and structural parseability. Treat any score that promises callbacks as marketing, not measurement.
Read the guide · 5 min Guide · Skill gapsHow to handle skill gaps on your résumé
Handle a skill gap by leaving it off the résumé, ranking it by how much of the posting depends on it, and preparing an honest interview answer: what you have that is adjacent, and what you are doing to close it. Close the most important gap with a short, specific course before the interview if you can.
Read the guide · 5 min Guide · Interview prepHow to predict interview questions from a job description
Predict interview questions by turning each responsibility and requirement in the posting into a question: responsibilities become 'tell us about a time' behavioural questions, named tools become technical questions, the role's main system becomes a design question, and every requirement you can't evidence becomes a gap question you should expect.
Read the guide · 5 min