Stop Losing Consulting Gigs Because of Your Resume
Identify the hidden flaws that keep hiring managers scrolling past your profile and fix them in minutes.
Common Mistakes That Kill Your Chances
Each mistake includes why it hurts, how to fix it, and before/after examples
- Provides no value to the recruiter
- Lacks keywords that ATS looks for
- Fails to convey consulting focus
- Replace with a concise professional summary
- Highlight years of consulting experience and core domains
- Insert 3–5 high‑impact keywords (e.g., digital transformation, stakeholder management)
Objective: Seeking a challenging IT role where I can use my skills.
Professional Summary: IT Consultant with 7+ years delivering digital transformation projects for Fortune 500 clients, driving 15% average cost savings through cloud migration and process automation.
- Recruiters can’t gauge impact
- ATS may overlook achievements without numbers
- Consulting roles demand proven ROI
- Add metrics (% increase, $ saved, time reduced) to every bullet
- Use the formula: Action + Context + Result
- Keep numbers bold or separate for easy scanning
- Managed a network upgrade for a regional office.
- Led a $250K network upgrade for a regional office, reducing downtime by 40% and improving bandwidth by 30%.
- Confuses non‑technical recruiters
- ATS may not map obscure acronyms
- Fails to show business relevance
- Spell out acronyms on first use
- Tie technical terms to business outcomes
- Limit buzzwords to those in the job description
- Implemented SDLC, CI/CD, and DevOps pipelines.
- Implemented CI/CD pipelines (continuous integration/continuous delivery) that cut release cycles from 4 weeks to 1 week, accelerating time‑to‑market for client applications.
- ATS may miss key skill keywords
- Hiring managers struggle to scan quickly
- Looks unprofessional
- Group skills by category (e.g., Cloud Platforms, Programming, Project Management)
- Use bullet points or a two‑column layout
- Include only tools mentioned in target job ads
Skills: Java, AWS, Agile, SQL, PowerShell, Tableau, ITIL, Scrum, Docker, Kubernetes
Core Competencies: • Cloud Platforms: AWS, Azure • Programming & Scripting: Java, Python, PowerShell • Project Management: Agile, Scrum, ITIL • Data & Visualization: SQL, Tableau, Power BI • Containerization: Docker, Kubernetes
- Generic resumes blend into the crowd
- Consulting firms look for business‑oriented achievements
- ATS filters for consulting‑specific keywords
- Highlight client‑facing work and stakeholder management
- Show revenue, cost‑saving, or efficiency metrics
- Incorporate consulting keywords from the job posting
- Provided IT support for internal users.
- Delivered strategic IT advisory to C‑level stakeholders, designing a cloud‑first roadmap that generated $1.2M in projected savings over 3 years.
- Use a clean, sans‑serif font (10‑12 pt)
- Include a professional email and LinkedIn URL
- Start each experience bullet with a strong action verb
- Quantify every achievement
- Match keywords from the job description
- Save as PDF with a concise file name
- Add a quantifiable result
- Replace vague verbs with impact‑driven action verbs
- Insert 2–3 consulting‑specific keywords
- Reformat into a concise, 2‑sentence summary
