From what I’ve seen in hiring, you’ll reach the 75th percentile with consistent formatting and no spelling mistakes. It’s incredible how bad some of the resumes are. You would think it would be a good idea to optimize the one constant across all your job applications, but apparently not. If you’re applying as a senior frontend engineer, but you can’t even layout text in Microsoft word, what should I infer about your ability to build a web page?

That 75th percentile might even be enough to get to an interview, depending on how sparse the company’s pipeline is. But in terms of optimizing content to advance from 75 to 90+ percentile – the best method is something that jumps out at the person reading. That might be an elite degree, or a popular project, or an unusually relevant background for the company.

Basically, you need a clean resume and at least one “thing” that jumps off the page and differentiates you from other candidates.

Sometimes I wonder how the hiring process would change if applicants could see the resumes they’re competing with.