GUIDE
Best practices
Quick, opinionated rules for getting the most out of ImproveCV. Each section is short on purpose — read what you need, run the score, iterate.
Writing your resume
- Lead every bullet with an outcome, not a duty.“Reduced p99 latency from 800 ms to 120 ms” beats “responsible for performance”.
- Quantify whenever possible. Numbers, percentages, dollars, headcount — these are what the ATS impact-metrics check rewards. A bullet without a number is rarely worth keeping.
- Mirror the JD's vocabulary.If the role uses “OKRs” and your resume says “goals”, no parser will reconcile that for you. Either the exact term appears, or it's a missing keyword.
- One column. Plain bullets. No image headers. Two-column layouts and image headers are the most common reasons clean candidates get auto-rejected by Workday, Greenhouse, and Lever.
- Strip personal data US/UK recruiters don't expect. Date of birth, marital status, photo, nationality — these are normal in some markets but get flagged as EEOC-sensitive in others.
- Keep dates exact. Use month + year (e.g. Mar 2021 – Present). Year-only dates often parse as the wrong duration.
Choosing the job description
- Paste the full posting. Title, responsibilities, requirements, nice-to-haves. The score uses every section; a 200-character snippet undersells the role and the match.
- Pick a real, specific role.“Senior PM @ Stripe” gives sharper feedback than “a Product Manager job”. The model needs concrete language to extract concrete keywords.
- Use the actual JD, not a summary you wrote.Recruiter-written postings carry ATS-relevant phrasing; your paraphrase usually doesn't.
Reading your score
- Treat the breakdown, not the headline number, as the action list. A 64 overall with weak impact metrics and strong role fit is fixable in twenty minutes; a 64 with weak role fitmay mean the role isn't actually a match.
- Critical missing keywords come first.They're flagged because they appear in the JD's “must-have” section. Non-critical keywords are nice-to-have — don't force them if the experience isn't there.
- ATS warnings are factual, not suggestions. If we say a layout breaks Workday, that specific system is auto-rejecting candidates with that layout. Fix it before applying.
- Projected score is the realistic ceiling after a focused rewrite — typically +20 to +35 points. Beyond that requires real new experience, not better wording.
When to upgrade
Quick Fix is right when you trust the diagnosis and want one tight rewrite. Full Package adds a tailored cover letter and unlimited re-runs over a week — useful when you're iterating on the same role with multiple recruiters or testing several phrasings. Job Hunt is for an active search across several roles in a single month.