Recruiters: If You Screen Resumes for a Living, Why Is Yours So Hard to Write?

Feb 20

The 5 Signals That Actually Show Seniority

My old work bestie and I did this all the time: “Hey, can you read this email before I send it to the hiring manager? I wanna make sure it sounds okay.”

(low-key did this especially with those tough love, herding cats types of emails — Recruiters get it 😏)

What’s funny is that I could confidently give her feedback on her stuff, and vice versa. But when it came to my own, having her eyes on it — that external perspective and validation — was a total game-changer. A difference-maker.

My growth edge.

And the reason is pretty simple: we can’t coach ourselves.

I mean, sure…you can to an extent, but there’s a reason personal trainers exist. Why athletes have coaches. And why having a community around you almost always helps you go farther, faster, than trying to do everything alone.

👉🏽 Simply put: other people can see things we can’t.

What we’re genuinely great at and where we still have room to grow.

Real quick, hey there 👋🏽 — I’m Tessa and I spent over a decade in tech recruiting and talent strategy. I’ve reviewed thousands of resumes, partnered with leaders from first-time managers to C-suite, and built hiring programs from scratch.

Now, I coach high-performing recruiters and HR leaders who are ready to level up their own careers.

So I know from first-hand experience: the hardest resume to write is your own (especially when you’re a recruiter). Because when you’re too close to something, the lines get blurry.

And for a lot of recruiters and HR professionals, that becomes painfully obvious when we sit down to write our own resumes.

Because on paper, this should be easy…right?

☑️ You understand how hiring works
☑️ Why and how job descriptions are written a certain way
☑️ What separates a senior-level, exceptional, stand-out candidate from the pile
☑️ You review resumes all day, every day and know a great one when you see it

but yet…when it’s your turn? It’s kind of overwhelming.

Like the kind of overwhelm that has you:

Staring at a blank (or 5-years outdated) would-be resume for an hour 🫣
Regretting your decision to join the job hunt because maybe the under-paying, under-leveled one you have right now “isn’t THAT bad”
Trading your career ambitions for TikTok doom scrolling just to find some relief

(oh my god, who said that? 😏)

Sound familiar?

Thought so. Let’s talk about it.

The Real Problem (from the inside)

So like….WHY IS IT SO HARD?! (*deep breath)

Here’s what’s actually happening:

You’ve been doing the thing for so long, you no longer know how to articulate the thing.

When I see recruiters and HR professionals get stuck on their resumes, it’s almost never because they lack experience. It’s because turning the mirror on yourself is a completely different skill than coaching candidates from the outside.

When it’s your own resume, the questions (and, dare I say, the imposter syndrome) start to pile up:

💭 How do I capture everything I’ve done without writing a Sarah J. Maas length novel?
💭 How do I translate internal context into something meaningful on paper?
💭 How do I show my seniority without sounding inflated OR vague?
💭 Wait…am I even qualified for this job if I can’t do that? 🤔

And when that rumination loop starts, oh man is it tough to temper. So usually people default to the safe, no-brainer, resume checkpoints:

✅ Job titles
✅Years of experience
✅Big name companies
✅Word sald bullet points — aka technically accurate, but lengthy. Heavy on fluff, light on substance. (⬅️like this one lol)

Dead. Done. Moving on...

But the thing is, while basic details are important on a resume, keeping them too lean does you a disservice.

It doesn’t really signal that: valuable-essential-must-hire-gotta-have-her-on-my-team-get-this-woman-an-interview-now vibe that we’re going for.

So what does? Well…I’m so glad you asked.

Send the Right Signals

When recruiters and hiring managers review resumes—especially for mid-to-senior roles—they're scanning for signals. Not reading every word.

Of course, you know that instinctively. You’ve screened thousands of resumes. 😉 But what’s harder is flipping that back on yourself.

So what are those signals, really?

1️⃣ Scope: How big was the problem you owned?

Not just what you touched — but the breadth of it.

▪️ How many roles, teams, or stakeholders were involved?
▪️ Was this localized, regional, global?
▪️ Did you own a slice of the process…or architect the whole thing?

Scope tells us level, expertise, zone of genius. Immediately.

2️⃣ Decision-Making: What were you actually accountable for?

Senior resumes don’t just show your activity and what you did — they show your judgment.

▪️ Where did you have autonomy?
▪️ When did your recommendation carry weight?
▪️ Were you responsible for the final call?

If your resume reads like you were “involved in” everything but responsible for nothing, that’s a leveling problem. And it sends a shifty message, even if the experience is well legitimate.

3️⃣ Risk & Trade-Offs: What was on the line?

Every meaningful role involves trade-offs:

▪️ Speed vs. quality
▪️ Hiring now vs. waiting
▪️ Headcount vs. budget
▪️ Cost vs. long-term impact
▪️ Pushing back vs. choosing your battles

Senior professionals are constantly faced with conflicting priorities and navigating those consequences is the name of the game. Your strong resume should reflect that.

4️⃣ Influence: Whose business decisions were different because of your voice?

At senior levels, it’s rarely about doing the work alone, but about maneuvering different people and complex (sometimes conflicting) issues strategically and effectively. That takes skilled, professional, influence.

Ask yourself:

▪️ Did you shift a hiring manager’s thinking?
▪️ Align leadership on headcount or leveling?
▪️ Navigate competing stakeholder priorities?
▪️ Push back when expectations weren’t realistic?
▪️ Drive consensus across teams that didn’t naturally agree?
▪️ Deliver feedback that was uncomfortable in the moment, but impactful down the line?

Since all this is kind of baked into your day-to-day work as Recruiters and People Team professionals, it’s tempting to downplay your influence or gloss over it entirely.

But, I’m telling you, THIS is where seniority really takes root. Because “facilitated full recruiting life cycle” and “supported hiring process” don’t tell me if you were:

A strategic partner to the business, or
Just an order taker

5️⃣ Impact: What business changes occurred because of the decisions you influenced?

Similar to “Influence” above, this is where resumes either stick the landing or blend in entirely with the rest of the pile. Because a strong recruiting resume doesn’t just show what you did and what you were responsible for…

…it articulates what resulted because of your work. Your influence. Your expertise.

In sliiightly 🤏🏽 more corporate-y terms: How’d you move the needle, babe?

▪️ Did time-to-fill decrease?
▪️ Offer acceptance rates improve?
▪️ How was retention affected?
▪️ Hiring manager satisfaction increase?
▪️ Did the company avoid costly headcount mistakes? If so, how?

I see Recruiters often undersell this one a lot because results feel “shared.”

So hear me when I say this:

Your resume isn’t a team retrospective.

It’s a positioning document meant to land the next step of the process: the interview.

So, if you influenced the intake process that cut time-to-fill by 30%, say that. Redesigned interview structure that reduced bias and improved retention? Yep, say that, too. And if your partnership prevented a mis-hire that would’ve cost the company six figures—include that in your resume.

It ALL positions you as the senior-level, high output, People Team member you are.

And why you're SO valuable to an organization.

Now What?

Before you spiral into rewriting your entire resume from scratch…or go full on paralysis analysis…

Pause. Breathe. Chill. And pressure-test the signals.

If you want to quickly see how your resume stacks up against the specific job you’re targeting — without guessing, over-editing, or Frankensteining five different versions together (I see you textbook-overachiever 👀) — ResumeRefiner.ai can help you do that faster.

And before you ask NO — it's not one of those AI resume tools that turns people into mass-apply chaos gremlins.

🚫It's NOT subscription-based, nor does it encourage blasting 500 applications into the void (making your life as a Recruiter a living...well, you get it).

It’s not magic or a silver bullet, either. Because nothing is.

(and let’s be honest…if one existed, you’d hand it to your hiring managers so they’d stop asking for “one more unicorn profile” after you’ve already sent five excellent candidates. 😏)

Instead, ResumeRefiner.ai is a calibration tool that:

🟢 Intentionally limits refinements to prevent resume spamming
🟢 Allows you to accept or reject each suggestion—so you stay in control
🟢 Helps you strategically tailor your resume
🟢 Measures how your resume aligns to ONE specific job
🟢 Gives you a job match score so you're not second-guessing
🟢 Spots gaps, alignment issues, and missed signals

And then there’s the human part of the equation.

Because as recruiters and HR professionals, we KNOW hiring. And we know a strong resume when we see one.

But putting ourselves under that microscope?

Different story.

But even the people who hire for a living deserve strategy support when it’s their turn. (pssst, that’s you babe)

So if you want to pressure-test whether your resume is signaling the level you’re targeting—and talk through your bigger job search strategy, goals, and blind spots—let’s do that together.

✨ Book your free Clarity Call here: https://tinyurl.com/tgaclaritycall