Your resume is a short, tailored document for a specific job. It should be one or two pages, tightly focused on relevant achievements. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is your public professional brand. It can be broader, include more context, show recommendations, projects, certifications, and activity. Think of the resume as a precise pitch and LinkedIn as the portfolio and networking hub that supports it.

For most professionals, 1–2 pages is ideal. Early-career candidates can keep it to one page. Experienced managers and specialists may need two pages to show depth. If you go to two pages, ensure every line adds value. Remove outdated or irrelevant entries, and prioritize recent, quantifiable impact over older responsibilities.

In most English-speaking markets (US, UK, Canada, Australia), do not include a photo. It reduces bias risk and keeps focus on your qualifications. On LinkedIn, a professional headshot is recommended because it improves profile trust and visibility. Use a clean, friendly image with good lighting and a neutral background.

Use past tense for previous roles (e.g., “Increased revenue by 18%”) and present tense for your current role (e.g., “Lead a cross-functional team”). Write in an implied first person without pronouns: “Led,” “Delivered,” “Optimized,” rather than “I led.” This is standard in English resumes and helps keep bullets concise.

Quantification is broader than revenue. Consider time saved, error rates reduced, customer satisfaction scores, engagement lifts, throughput, cycle time, cost avoidance, or coverage metrics. For example:

• Reduced onboarding time from 10 to 6 days by standardizing SOPs.
• Increased weekly active users by 22% through onboarding tutorials.
• Cut defect rate from 3.2% to 1.1% via test automation.

If numbers are confidential, use ranges or percentages and clearly mark them as estimates (“~15%”).

Three to five lines that state your function, years of experience, signature skills, and business outcomes. Avoid clichés and vague adjectives. Anchor your value in outcomes: “Data-driven product manager with 6+ years shipping B2B SaaS features that improve adoption and retention; skilled in discovery, roadmap planning, and cross-functional delivery.”

Separate technical and core competencies. On the resume, list 8–12 directly relevant skills in a compact section. On LinkedIn, include your full skills inventory (up to 50), but pin the top three most relevant skills for your target roles. Keep phrasing consistent with job descriptions so both ATS and recruiters can match you correctly.

Use precise, outcome-oriented verbs such as “Led,” “Built,” “Launched,” “Optimized,” “Scaled,” “Negotiated,” “Automated,” “Reduced,” “Increased,” “Delivered,” “Secured,” “Transformed.” Avoid weak openers like “Responsible for.” Start each bullet with a verb and follow with context and measurable result.

Mirror the employer’s language and priorities. Identify the top 5–7 competencies in the job description and reflect those in your summary, skills, and bullets. Reorder bullets to highlight the most relevant achievements first. Remove or minimize unrelated content. Tailoring increases ATS match and human resonance.

STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. In resume bullets, compress STAR into one line: start with the action and end with the result. Example: “Automated month-end reporting (Action) to eliminate manual consolidation (Situation/Task), reducing close time by 3 days (Result).” For interviews and LinkedIn stories, you can expand the context.

Yes—with transparency, judgment, and final human editing. AI can help brainstorm phrasing, tighten bullets, or generate variations. You are responsible for accuracy and ethics: never invent achievements, titles, or dates. Keep proprietary or confidential details out of external tools. Treat AI as a writing assistant, not an author of your career history.

Feed the AI your real data: metrics, scope, projects, and constraints. Ask for concise, verifiable bullets and review every line for truthfulness. Remove exaggerated claims and buzzwords. If your employer has policies on AI use, follow them. On LinkedIn, keep your voice natural—read the text aloud and adjust to how you actually speak professionally.

Employers care most about relevance, clarity, and truth. Even if tools can guess at writing patterns, what matters is whether your content is accurate, specific, and aligned to the role. Customize each application, cite concrete results, and be ready to discuss them in interviews. Authenticity beats style detection concerns.

Be brief, honest, and forward-looking. Simple explanations—education, caregiving, relocation, job search, or project work—are fine. Highlight outcomes from the period (courses, certifications, freelance projects, volunteering). On LinkedIn, you can use descriptive entries (e.g., “Career Sabbatical”) with bullet points showing relevant growth.

Communicate role, specialty, and value. Avoid just your current title. Try structure like: “Role/Function | Specialty/Tools | Outcome/Value.” Example: “Product Designer | Design Systems & Accessibility | Simplifying complex B2B workflows.” This improves both searchability and human interest.

Use 3–6 short paragraphs: who you are, what you do best, 2–3 signature achievements with outcomes, what you’re learning, and what you’re open to. Keep it keyword-rich but natural. End with a soft call-to-action: “Open to conversations about…”. Avoid walls of text; use line breaks and occasional bullets for readability.

No. Emphasize the last 10–15 years or the most relevant roles. Consolidate older positions or omit unrelated early jobs. On LinkedIn, you can keep a fuller archive, but still prioritize relevance. Recruiters scan quickly—clarity and fit matter more than completeness.

Translate context and outcomes for your target market. Explain scale (team size, budget, user base) and tools in globally recognized terms. Map titles to widely understood equivalents if your local title is unusual. Focus on transferable skills: leadership, analysis, stakeholder management, customer impact, compliance, languages, cross-cultural delivery.

Use a clean layout (no tables for core content), standard section headings, and common file formats (PDF or DOCX as requested). Borrow keywords and phrases directly from the posting, but only those you truly have. Avoid graphics for key information. Ensure your name and contact info are text, not images.

List degree, institution, and graduation year (optional for senior candidates). Include relevant certifications (e.g., PMP, AWS, CFA, Google Analytics, Scrum). For ongoing certifications, show “In Progress” with target date. On LinkedIn, link to the issuing organization and add related skills to increase discovery.

Update your resume whenever you prepare a new application, and refresh LinkedIn quarterly or after major milestones. Add metrics while they’re fresh. Keep a “brag doc” of wins, numbers, and praise so you can translate them into crisp bullets later. Consistency across platforms builds trust with recruiters.

Yes—especially if they demonstrate relevant skills, initiative, or leadership. On the resume, add a “Projects” section with one or two impact bullets per project. On LinkedIn, link to repositories, demos, or write brief posts describing your approach and results. Make sure any shared work respects employer confidentiality.

Recommendations offer social proof. Ask managers, peers, and clients to comment on your impact with specific outcomes. Endorsements signal commonly recognized skills; prioritize getting endorsements on the three you pin. Both elements improve credibility and search matching by recruiters.

Long sentences, vague adjectives, inconsistent tense, unusual capitalization, and literal translations from other languages. Prefer concise bullets with strong verbs and nouns. Run a grammar check, but apply human judgment. If you’re unsure about tone, read the text aloud and cut anything that sounds like filler.

Gather facts (roles, dates, scope, metrics). Draft bullets per role using action + context + result. Use AI to tighten language and propose variations aligned to a target posting. Replace generic phrases with domain-specific terms. Verify every claim, remove any sensitive or confidential details, and tailor for each application.

List languages with proficiency levels (e.g., “English—Fluent, Japanese—Business”). In bullets, show cross-cultural collaboration, distributed teams, or regional launches. For international moves, add short context lines (e.g., “Relocated to lead APAC rollout across 6 markets”) to clarify scope and impact.

• Every bullet starts with a strong verb and ends with a result.
• Top third of the resume communicates role fit in seconds.
• Keywords match the job description honestly.
• Formatting is clean; no tables for core content; consistent punctuation.
• LinkedIn headline and About section state specialty and value.
• Contact info and links are correct and clickable.

If you pass this checklist, you’re ready to apply confidently.