1. An opening that could belong to anyone
“Hardworking professional seeking a challenging role” does not establish your function, level, specialty, or evidence. Replace it with a focused summary, or remove the summary if your experience heading makes the target clear.
Fix: Name the role, relevant environment, and one fact the work history proves.
2. Duties with no scope or change
“Managed customer accounts” names an assignment. It does not show account volume, customer type, retention, growth, response time, or what you changed.
Fix: Add a real number when one exists. Otherwise show scope, frequency, complexity, audience, or the decision the work supported.
3. Skills claimed but never demonstrated
A list of “leadership, teamwork, communication, problem solving” is difficult to evaluate. A bullet showing that you trained four new hires and shortened onboarding supplies evidence for leadership without naming the trait.
Fix: Reserve the skills section for useful, searchable capabilities and show behavioral skills in context.
4. A timeline the reader has to reconstruct
Inconsistent date formats, overlapping positions with no label, or a longer break hidden by year-only dates can create avoidable questions. A short transition may need no explanation; a longer break may benefit from a neutral dated line.
Fix: Keep dates accurate and use a consistent month-year or year format. See our career-gap guide.
5. Errors and inconsistent presentation
A typo does not guarantee rejection, but errors create avoidable doubt—especially for work that requires careful writing or recordkeeping. Inconsistent bullets, tense, capitalization, and dates have the same effect.
Fix: Proof the exported file, not only the editor. Read it aloud and review one category at a time: dates, headings, punctuation, then spelling.
6. Lines that spend space without adding evidence
“References available upon request” is understood. Long objective statements, basic software every applicant uses, and unsupported interests can also crowd out relevant work.
Fix: Ask what the reader learns from each line. Remove it if the answer is nothing relevant to this role.
7. Paragraphs that bury the result
Dense job descriptions make the reader extract the action and outcome. That work belongs to the writer.
Fix: Break distinct achievements into short bullets. There is no universal three-to-five-bullet rule; use enough to show the strongest relevant evidence without repeating yourself.
One caution about automated review
A text-based tool can flag vague language and inconsistent extracted text. It cannot reliably judge margins, fonts, visual density, or column layout after those details have been removed. Inspect the final page yourself and read our methodology.
Run the checklist against your file
The free roast looks for weak evidence and unclear structure in extracted text. Keep only the feedback that is accurate.
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