How to craft CV for both the parsers and humans reading it

#career #resume #softwaredevelopment #cv

It took me two years to get my first job in IT. I made a lot of mistakes.

Now, I see new people hitting the same walls. The process is frustrating.
But you have to understand: hiring is a game. To win, you must learn the rules.

I learned them by interviewing a lot. Now I teach my "Fake it until you make it" method to help people get their first (paid) job fast.
Here are the rules nobody tells you about.

Your CV Has 3 Stages

You think you are writing your CV for a recruiter?

Wrong.

Before a human ever sees your resume, it has to pass the resume screening software (ATS)4. You are not a person. You are a "digital footprint"5. You have to win this "AI battle" first.

Your CV must be created in this exact order:

To pass the parser (ATS).
To pass the recruiter (in 10 seconds).
To impress the technical person.

Most people fail at step 1.

The 10-Second Recruiter

If you pass the software, a human will spend 10 to 30 seconds on your resume8.

Companies get 1,000 to 3,000 applications for one job9. They rely on the ATS score to find the top 20 candidates. Then they click a button to reject everyone else.

Your goal is to be in that top 20.

How to Win the Game

1. Use a Boring Template

Yes, as boring as possible.

Those fancy templates on cool websites? They break the parser. If the parser cannot read your fields correctly, your CV goes straight to the trash. A recruiter will not manually fix it.

Use a simple, single-column layout.

2. Use Achievements, Not Responsibilities

Nobody cares that you "were responsible for" something. That is a red flag.

Use action words: "improved," "accelerated," "deployed".

Weak: "Responsible for fixing bugs."
Strong: "Improved crash-free rate by 7.3%."

3. Add Numbers. (Even if You Make Them Up)

Every bullet point must contain three facts: what you did, why, and the result in numbers.

Do you know exactly how much you sped up the page load time? I don't.
But this is now the standard. Look at my face. This is the face of a man who put random numbers on his CV and started getting interviews.

Do not use round numbers like 10% or 15%. Be specific, like 7.3% or 11.2%.

4. "Enhance" Your Story
I teach this for a reason. You can fake your experience. You can stretch the dates.

You can even change the company name. I once changed a no-name company on my resume to "Nike". On the interview, I just spoke about the project I actually did.

Big companies use so many contractors, they can never check.

5. The "White Text" Trick

This is one of my favorites.

If you are missing keywords for the parser, add them to your skills section. Then, set the font size to 1 and the text color to white.
The parser will read all the keywords and give you a high score. The recruiter will never see the visual noise.

This is just a small part of the method.

I explain everything - how to fill every section, why background checks are a myth 31, and how to fake your education - in my new video.

Go watch the full guide. Unless you enjoy getting auto-rejected by a robot.