I Reviewed My Friend's Resume and Found 5 Issues That Were Getting Her Auto-Rejected (Might Help Some of You)

Four months.

Sixty-plus applications.

Almost silence.

That was my friend's situation.

She's smart. Competent. Actually good at what she does. But the callbacks? Basically nonexistent. So one night over coffee (and mild frustration), she slid her resume across the table and said, "Can you look at this?"

I've done hiring before. I've screened stacks of resumes — the kind that blur together after the 37th PDF. And within about five minutes, I knew what was happening.

None of her issues were dramatic. No typos. No disasters.

Just five small things quietly killing her chances.

I see these constantly. So I'm sharing them here.

1. The Two-Column Layout That Looked "So Professional"

Her resume looked beautiful. Honestly. Clean typography. Elegant spacing. Two neat columns.

It also wasn't being read properly.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: most companies use ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems). Those systems scan resumes left-to-right, top-to-bottom. They don't "see" design the way humans do.

When I ran hers through an ATS simulator, her job titles were merging with dates from the opposite column. Skills were being stitched into unrelated sections. It was digital chaos.

Instant filter-out.

No human ever saw it.

Fix:
Single column. Yes, it's less exciting. Yes, it feels plain. But plain gets parsed correctly.

If you're not sure how your resume performs, run it through a free scan first: resumefromspace.com/resume-scanner

It shows you exactly what systems are reading — and what they're not.

Boring layout. Functional structure. That's the tradeoff.

2. Job Duties Instead of Achievements

This one hurts because almost everyone does it.

Her bullets looked like this:

• Responsible for managing social media accounts
• Handled customer inquiries
• Assisted with event planning

Nothing wrong with those statements… except they say nothing.

They tell me what she was assigned to do. Not what she actually achieved.

Hiring managers don't hire responsibilities. They hire results.

So we rewrote them.

Instead of:
"Responsible for managing social media accounts"

We changed it to:
"Grew Instagram following from 2K to 15K in 6 months through daily content strategy and targeted campaigns."

Instead of:
"Handled customer inquiries"

We changed it to:
"Resolved 50+ customer inquiries weekly with 95% satisfaction rating."

See the difference?

The formula is simple:

Action verb + What you did + Measurable result

It's not fancy. It's just specific.

3. Missing Keywords (Even Though She Was Qualified)

This one is subtle.

She was applying to marketing roles.

But her resume barely mentioned:

• Campaigns
• Analytics
• SEO
• Content strategy
• Performance metrics

Meanwhile… those words were all over the job postings she was targeting.

ATS systems filter by keyword matching. If the system scans for "SEO" and doesn't see it — you're invisible.

It doesn't matter if you did SEO.
If the word isn't there, the system assumes you didn't.

Fix:

• Pull up 5 job postings you actually want.
• Highlight the terms that appear in most of them.
• Integrate those words naturally into your resume.

Not stuffing. Not robotic repetition. Just alignment.

If you want to practice answering keyword-heavy interview questions after updating your resume, the free Interview Trainer is useful too: resumefromspace.com/interview-trainer

It generates role-specific questions and even scores your responses. Surprisingly helpful.

4. "References Available Upon Request"

Please delete this.

It takes up space. It states something universally understood. It adds zero value.

That single line could instead be:

"Increased email campaign conversion rate from 2.1% to 5.4% within 90 days."

That's a better use of real estate.

Your resume is not a school paper. You don't need filler sentences.

5. The Generic Objective Statement

At the top, she had:

"Seeking a challenging role where I can utilize my skills and grow professionally."

Every human on Earth could use that sentence.

It communicates nothing about her. It's safe. It's vague. It's invisible.

We replaced it with a short, specific summary:

"Marketing coordinator with 3 years of B2B experience specializing in social media growth and event marketing. Increased engagement 40% in previous role and led campaigns generating 1.2M impressions annually."

Two lines. Clear positioning. Immediate value.

If you need structured examples by career, there's a full library here: resumefromspace.com/resources/resume-examples

What Happened After We Fixed It?

We made those five changes.

Total time? Maybe two hours.

The next week she applied to 15 jobs.

She got 4 callbacks.

Now — was it 100% the resume? I can't prove that. Maybe timing. Maybe market conditions. Maybe the universe finally cooperating.

But here's what I do know:

She had sent out 60+ applications before with almost nothing.

Then suddenly, responses.

That's not random.

A Quick Reality Check

Resumes aren't glamorous. They're not creative writing projects. They're screening tools.

They either survive automated filters… or they don't.

If you're not sure yours would survive, test it: resumefromspace.com/resume-scanner

If you're starting from scratch or rebuilding cleanly, you can create a new one here: resumefromspace.com/selectdesign

And yes, if you're pairing it with a tailored cover letter (which still matters, by the way), use this: resumefromspace.com/resources/resume-examples

Anyway. That's it.

Resume stuff feels tedious. Annoying. Nitpicky.

But it's often the gatekeeper.

And sometimes the difference between silence… and four callbacks in a week.

Dan Yan

SEO Content Writer & Technical Lead

LinkedIn