Most rejections are silent. You do not get told what went wrong — the application just sits in 'Under review' for three weeks and then quietly closes. After reviewing thousands of resumes, the same ten mistakes show up over and over, and all of them are fixable in under an hour.
1. Using tables, columns, or text boxes
These look great in Word but turn into gibberish when an ATS parses them. Names end up in the work experience column, skills become dates, the whole thing breaks. Use a single-column layout with simple headers.
2. Saving as an image-based PDF
If you cannot select text in your PDF, neither can the ATS. It sees an image and your resume gets zero keyword matches. Export from Google Docs or Word, not from a design tool that flattens text.
3. Bullets that describe responsibilities instead of outcomes
'Responsible for managing backend services' tells me nothing. 'Migrated 14 backend services from EC2 to ECS, cutting deploy time from 40 minutes to 6 and infra cost by 32%' tells me exactly what you can do.
4. Missing the exact keywords from the job description
Recruiter search is exact-match. If the JD says 'Kubernetes' and your resume says 'container orchestration', you lose the search. Mirror the exact terminology.
5. A generic summary
'Experienced professional with a passion for technology.' Delete. Replace with two sentences that state your specialty, stack, and one headline result.
6. Burying the most recent role
Reverse-chronological, always. Do not put education or a 'projects' section above your current job.
7. Unquantified results
Every third bullet should have a number. Users, dollars, percentages, latency, team size — anything measurable.
8. A skills section that is a wall of text
Group skills by category (Languages, Frameworks, Infrastructure, Tools). A 60-word paragraph of every technology you've ever heard of is not readable.
9. Dated contact info and links
Remove full street addresses. Include city and state only. Link to GitHub and LinkedIn; make sure both actually match what's on the resume.
10. Typos, inconsistent tense, wrong dates
Present tense for current role, past tense for everything else. Read aloud. Have one other person read. Typos in a resume are disqualifying for detail-oriented roles.