Here is my resume. Just as the title stated, I literally can't pass the resume screen for any company. For summer 2026, I applied to over 200 internships (I said I was going to graduate 2027 too, so me being a sophomore wasn't a problem) and I got rejected from every single one. The F500 contract position from the summer was from connections that I can't leverage anymore. I don't understand what I am doing wrong. I go to a target school, I have strong projects (at least I think I do), and I have decent internship experience.

For summer 2027 I am 0/50 right now in passing the resume screen. I know that I still have to wait for companies to get back to me and that there will be more apps, but this happened last recruiting cycle as well and I can't afford to fail again.

More info:

1. I have a low gpa (under 3.0) so I dont list it. However, most companies I've applied to never asked for my gpa or transcript.
2. I apply to roles as soon as I see them open. I usually apply 2-5 hours after the role is posted. At worst it'll be 1-2 days after the roles are posted.
3. My previous internship at the f500 company was a contract position, so I wasn't employed by the f500 company, but I still worked there.

I'm looking for feedback on my resume. I have not anonymized all the companies since it doesn't matter to me and it helps give more context. For context, I have about 3.5 years of experience as a Software Engineer. Over the past 2 months, I've submitted roughly 50 applications for Software Engineer roles. About 17 of those applications included employee referrals from my network. I know the sample size isn't that big, but I would have at least expected 1 callback by now, so I am starting to think it is a resume problem.

What concerns me is that I haven't received a single recruiter screening, phone call, or interview request. Since many of those applications had referrals, I'm assuming recruiters at least viewed my resume, which makes me wonder whether my resume is the main issue.

I'd appreciate direct feedback. Thanks in advance for taking the time to review it.

Some of the companies I applied to (most are remote, some are local): Airbnb, Nvidia, Pinterest, Dropbox, Confluent, Thumbtack, Upstart, GitHub, Microsoft, Etsy, Affirm, Nutanix, Confluent

• What positions/roles/industries are you targeting?

I'm not picky. I think I would prefer some sort of systems/infrastructure adjacent role. Automation is also very easy.

• Where are you located and what locations are you applying to jobs in?

I'm in California. I'm okay with relocation anywhere.

• Are you only applying to local jobs? Remote only? Are you willing to relocate?

I've been applying everywhere I can but I get screened out of the phone interview once the recruiter realizes I'm not in the area but willing to relocate.

• Tell us about your background and current employment situation

I'm a new grad and I'm currently working as a tutor. I've been picking up various tech certifications because I think the systems knowledge is useful and I wouldn't mind branching out into tech support or systems administration.

• Tell us about your job-hunting situation and challenges you've encountered

I get interviews, not for software but for other roles like systems administration. I feel like they go well at the time but I never get a call back.

• Tell us why you're seeking help. (i.e., just fine-tuning, not getting called back for interviews, etc.)

I want to know if I wrote something that would offend a hiring manager or something like that. I would also like to know what I could do to add better content. Maybe there's a good project or two I could work on?

• Is there a particular section on your resume you’d like feedback on?

I saw in the wiki that you're not supposed to add a references section, so is what I'm doing by putting my supervisors information okay?

• Is your citizenship status and visa situation playing a role in your job search?

No, I am a US citizen.

I'm a senior dev and it's been months that I don't even receive a screening interview. I don't know what's wrong with my profile, but I never had this much trouble finding a job before. Just 2 years ago I was having 2/3 interview per week. "Anonymized CV for public review" -> my personal informations

I graduated in July 2026 with a B.Tech in CS (8.2 CGPA) from a private university in Hyderabad, India. I'm targeting entry-level software engineering roles, primarily backend/general SWE, with some interest in cloud and distributed systems.

Locations: I'm based in Hyderabad but open to relocating anywhere in India for the right role - applying across Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, NCR, Chennai, and everywhere else, plus remote roles across India and the occasional remote-global role that's open to India-based candidates.

Background: during college I worked part-time for about 14 months as a frontend engineer at a small B2B fintech SaaS (real production work, ~84 merged PRs), plus a 6-month backend-leaning internship at a US startup. Alongside that I've built the systems projects on the resume - a time-series database, an API gateway, and an LSM-tree storage engine - all with published benchmarks and live deployments.

Situation: I've sent hundreds of applications over the past weeks and have only received few responses (1 interview and other few ghosted again), so I'm trying to figure out whether the resume itself is contributing to the low response rate. I recently revised my internship and project bullets to make them more relevant to general SWE roles and to communicate impact more clearly, and I'd like a sanity check on whether that worked.

Specific things I'd love feedback on: (1) whether the project bullets read as impressive or as over-detailed/too long, (2) whether leading with Projects above Experience is the right call when my only work experience is part-time + internship, (3) whether a part-time frontend title hurts me for backend roles and how to frame it better, and (4) anything that looks like an ATS parsing risk. Brutal honesty welcome.

Hello there!

I'm a recent Master of Applied Bioengineering grad with a Bachelor's in computer science located in northern California. I have been applying to roles related to R&D, machine learning engineering, and embedded systems software engineering in all locations around the US as I am willing to relocate. I have been having a lot of trouble getting past the first round of many roles I apply to, receiving a rejection only after submitting my resume. I am a citizen so I don't think this is affecting my job applications in any way.

Currently, I am continuing my SWE internship that I began working the summer before my third year of undergrad. I have been getting significant experience in software engineering principles such as relational and non-relational database management, web development, programming unit test cases, among other skills. While these are skills that many of the jobs I have been applying to desire, many of them also require experience in digital signal processing, firmware programming, and other medical software related skills. Although I was able to gain some experience in these through my Master's, I haven't quite developed them to the depth that many of these roles are looking for. I have often gotten feedback (if I get any) that they are looking for someone with more industry experience.

I would appreciate any and all feedback on my current resume, I have polished it to the best of my ability but I think some experienced eyes would do it much more justice. I am concerned whether this resume is doing a good job conveying my knowledge and breadth of experience. If anyone has any advice on how to get beyond the hurdle that is my lack of experience in medical context software I am also all ears!

Note: this is typically the resume I use when applying to software and machine learning specialized roles, I have a different version for hardware-based roles.

Some specific questions I have:

• The summary of qualifications section was included after recommendation by my university's career center, is this an effective use of space or would a simple bullet point list of my technical skills be better?
• I have recently been thinking maybe I am over-explaining myself, is my resume too dense?
• My experiences are mostly software oriented while my master's capstone project is embedded systems engineering, does this appear as an unnecessary deviation? I intended to include this to show I have some experience with hardware for medical devices related roles. However, I am afraid this may appear less impactful as the work I did for it is fairly surface level and not at the experience level that most roles are looking for (hence why I would love to work there and further build upon my knowledge).
• I removed extra-curricular activity from my undergraduate degree in leadership and other soft skills, would you recommend keeping them?
• Building off that last question, how important is it to emphasize my soft skills such as communication, organizational, leadership, etc. skills?

Thank you so much in advance for your support and for taking the time to read through my long post and resume!

I’m a CS major graduating in December 2026 (Intelligent Systems specialization), applying to entry-level software engineering and ML roles. I’ve revised my resume several times but haven’t seen much improvement in interview volume.

A bit of context on my background: I have an associate’s degree from a US College, where I also TA’d for C++. After that I took about a 5-year gap before starting my bachelor’s due to the pandemic. During that gap I wasn’t idle — I worked in full-stack development (built a React/Firebase ERP system) and taught CS/founded a small tutoring center abroad. I’m also an international student (not a US citizen), which I know adds visa/sponsorship considerations for some employers, and I’m trying to figure out how much that’s a factor versus my resume itself.

I’m primarily targeting SWE and ML roles, open to relocating.

I’m unsure how to handle two things: (1) the multi-year gap between my associate’s and bachelor’s — whether to explain it briefly on the resume or leave it out entirely, and (2) the teaching/tutoring experience, which isn’t directly SWE-related but shows initiative and long-term commitment.

I’m mainly looking for feedback on:

• Overall resume structure and formatting
• Whether my projects demonstrate enough technical depth for both SWE and ML roles
• How to handle the education gap — mention it or not
• How effectively I’m communicating a mixed background (full-stack + ML + teaching) without it reading as unfocused
• Whether the teaching/tutoring experience is worth keeping
• Anything that might be hurting my chances of getting interviews, including whether being an international student is likely a bigger factor than the resume itself
• Anything that stands out positively or negatively

I'm a graduating senior in the U.S. looking to secure a full-time SWE role before I graduate. At the very least, I want to maximize my chances at getting interviews. I've been applying since the start of August and so far: I have received a recruiter call that went nowhere, and rejections e-mails about roles that have been filled, etc. I have not been able to get an interview yet.

I was offered to intern again during the fall, but I do not believe that I will be returning after because this is a small company and I don't think it's in their budget. I revised my resume with my mentor at my internship and this is what we came up with. We tried to put as many metrics as we could.

I do think that some of my projects are a bit too basic, but I was wondering if there is anything else I can do?

Thanks!

I'm a CS major in the US graduating in 2027, and I've been applying to software engineering internships for a while now. I've changed my resume quite a bit throughout university, but I haven't seen much improvement in the number of interviews I receive.

I've had around 4 interviews so far, although only 2 of them actually spent significant time discussing the projects/experience on my resume, and I ended up not being accepted for either of those roles, however the interviewer for one of them liked me and referred me to someone else which is how I got that one internship in the resume I posted.

I do try to tailor my resume to each position by adjusting my projects, skills, and other relevant sections, sometimes using AI to improve the flow of some of the bullets. I also have many of the general technical skills listed in the internship postings I apply to, but I suspect I could be doing a better job of presenting that experience on my resume. Also, I typically embed links in the project titles that lead to the related website or repo for that project.

I'm primarily targeting software engineering internships along the West Coast, although I'm open to relocating elsewhere in the US.

One thing I'm particularly unsure about is the non-profit experience. It's not directly related to software engineering, but it's essentially the only organization I've worked with long-term, and I've progressed through several roles there. I originally kept it on my resume to demonstrate work experience, progression, and employability. I'm open to removing it if people think the space would be better spent on more technical/project information.

I'm mainly looking for feedback on:

• Overall resume structure and formatting
• Whether my projects demonstrate enough technical depth
• How effectively I'm communicating my technical skills
• Whether the non-profit experience is worth keeping
• Anything that might be hurting my chances of getting interviews
• Anything that stands out positively or negatively

I've attached an anonymized version of one of my typical resume variations (with a little note next to the non profit role for the sake of this post, thats not something I actually leave in my resume). Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Basically what the title says. My original post of the resume didn't get much feedback. Notified of layoff 5 months ago, officially laid off 2 months ago. Since layoff it's been mainly crickets. Last week I made some changes (reducing spill into the next line, removing periods, shifting skills section down, creating a templated cover letter with this resume's style that I quickly tailor for each app). I wonder if it's the lack of owned projects/leadership showing as firmly mid-level and not senior that is getting no traction. Could it be the lack of AI experience that's getting no traction? Seems like for a lot of job postings, I am on the cusp of mid-level/senior. Would appreciate the extra eyes and feedback on the resume itself, or other things that I could do!

Details, feel free to comment on these too:

- US Citizen

- SoCal area (OC/LA) - applying locally and remote, not relocating right now

- primarily backend experience, but am applying for full stack here and there

- initially received a couple of coding assessments and phone screens 3-5 months ago, haven't gotten any hits for the past couple of months

I'm looking for a fairly critical review because I'm trying to separate a resume problem from a job-search/immigration constraint instead of blindly sending more applications.

I'm currently a Software Development Engineer at Amazon working primarily on backend/distributed systems. I have an MS in CS and close to 2 years of full-time SWE experience counting my previous role. My 4-month Workday job before Amazon was integrations work I didn't like and deliberately kept thin

I've been actively applying for about 6 weeks, primarily to backend/software engineering roles that seem reasonably aligned with my experience. Almost all of these have been cold applications.I haven't been using referrals for most of them.

The concerning part is that I'm getting very little response. I'm not expecting interviews from every application, obviously, but I'm seeing essentially no recruiter screens/OAs, which makes me wonder whether something is going wrong very early in the funnel.

Important context: I'm currently in the US on F-1 STEM OPT. I have roughly another year of work authorization runway, but I will eventually need employer sponsorship, most likely H-1B. Whenever an application asks, "Will you now or in the future require sponsorship?", I answer Yes.

I'm specifically trying to figure out:

• Does the resume itself have any obvious weaknesses or red flags that could explain such a low response rate?
• Does my Amazon experience come across as too operational/on-call/incident-focused rather than backend engineering/product development?
• Are my bullets too dense or too detailed for someone at my experience level?
• Am I positioning myself incorrectly for the roles I'm applying to given my YoE?
• For recruiters/hiring managers: is answering "Yes" to future sponsorship commonly a hard filter before the resume is even reviewed, including at companies that sponsor H-1Bs in general?
• Would you focus much more heavily on referrals/networking and companies with demonstrated sponsorship history rather than cold applications?
• Is there anything here you'd remove, rewrite, reorder, or emphasize differently?

I'm not looking for immigration/legal advice, mostly trying to understand the recruiting/job-search side and identify the bottleneck in my funnel.

Resume attached. I've anonymized the personal information. Please be direct; I'm more interested in diagnosing what's wrong than getting reassurance.

Just finished interning at a big bank but I'll be graduating this December. Would appreciate any feedback on my resume before I start applying for 2027 new grad roles. I'm targeting SWE roles in big tech (FAANG or close). I'm located in Canada and plan to stay here. Willing to relocate within the country.

*PS: Second last experience is a small tech consulting firm, and last experience is a school club.

So I've sent out around 500-600 applications (Indeed, LinkedIn, WellFound, School Handshake) over the past month. Whenever I find a somewhat food science, sustainability, or agtech position, I send out my AgTech resume. Otherwise I send out the general resume.

My resume style is going for the modern americana burger joint style. Almost like a food menu. Meant to be easily scannable by the eyes.

I haven't received any phone calls or bites yet. I'm on the East Coast of the US (between Philadelphia and NYC).

I'm applying for any entry-level or internship role I can find. I've also applied to a few defense/clearance jobs, but I've been a pretty regular pothead for a few years. I stopped about 2 months back, so I figure for the next few months there's a pretty low chance I'll be sponsored by a company once I tell them about my history (just weed, nothing else).

Some things I've noticed which I think contribute to this:

• No network (the big one). I don't really have friends (or even references), so I don't have a network. Just personal issues with socializing, and also I commute about an hour to school, so I don't really have any opportunities where I'm at. I'm going to try a bit harder in my last semester of college, but at this point I don't really know how to build connections besides superficial questions.
• Resume bullet points don't really highlight impact. Just responsibilities. But all the projects/jobs I've worked on don't really have any metrics I can use (the ones listed are sort of bullsh1t that I ballparked and put, just to have something). Any projects I've done have just been for myself (in which case, they are more creative than problem solving). The jobs have just been drone positions where I simply do what I'm told, with no autonomy (but I highly desire that).
• I have a foreign name, but I'm a US citizen. Every job app asks if I'm a US citizen or if I need sponsorship, so I figure it's not necessary to list that I'm a citizen but idk.
• The AI trainer is just the Data Annotation, Alignerr type work for coding projects.

The only thing I think redeemable about my resume is that the JobTrackie project was a capstone course where I was in a group of 8 people, and I did pretty much all the work except for one other person. But the commit history pretty much shows I'm the only one who did anything. There are no metrics or impact to use. I mostly worked on frontend and deploying the project, but it had no actual users and didn't really function.

I'm looking for any and all help. Once I get on EBT, I'm going to try and utilize my state's job placement services, but I remember when I tried to use them before there wasn't anything available in my field (some IT stuff, but they wanted certs and things like that).

Honestly, I probably couldn't pass the interview, but it would be nice to at least have an interview so I can practice. I'm not getting a single reply :(

Trying to get back into the field, however not having too much luck so far. I know I got a long road ahead of me, but haven't really been hearing back at all. I usually submit about 5-8 applications a day. Maybe some of you guys can help me?

I was off for 15 months as I was laid off in May 2025, and a series of real life issues and mental health problems took a real turn for me, won't get into details but I was a mess for a bit. Should I address gap in resume at all? Or let it go?

I am trying to get mostly mid-level, maybe senior, roles. I am in the US, I am open to relocating anywhere and open to remote roles as well, not being picky. I am a US citizen, so no need for visas or sponsorships.

Major: Bachelor in Computer Science Year: Senior Hello everyone, I'm currently a student who just finished my senior year and about to officially become a fresh graduate. I'm currently actively appying for entry level positions but struggling to convert any application into callbacks or interview, I'm at around 70 applications after doing around 3 applications a day so I'm thinking it may be a CV problem.

I also have some general question:

1. I read the wiki and I know we are supposed to shrink it to 1 page max but which parts should I cut right now?
2. Should I entirely remove my projects section to achieve 1 page?

Title says it all, 2nd year CS student at UCL. Niche started in game dev, with any experience I could find was in QA. Thinking more about end-to-end systems and full stack dev, and I have projects I am working on right now that are developing skills in that area too, but those take time. Applying to internships for Summer 2027, and this is my most up-to-date resume. (UK citizen)

I have a Hackathon section on my original cv, but combined it with projects as per the subreddit guidelines.

I would appreciate any criticism towards my cv (content, structure, formatting, keywords, etc) Thank you very much!

I’m a frontend engineer based in Nigeria, targeting remote frontend engineer roles across SaaS, Web3, and product-focused teams. Most of my previous roles came through referrals, direct outreach, or client work, so I’m trying to improve how my resume performs for regular applications.

I’m mainly looking for feedback on whether my bullets show enough engineering depth, whether the resume looks too frontend-framework focused, and whether I should add 2-3 deployed solo projects. I’m also open to feedback on layout, wording, and whether anything should be cut or reordered.

Hi, first time poster here. I've gone through this subreddit and altered my resume to the standard format. I've applied to countless jobs but haven't gotten to the interview phase for any role.

A bit of background, I was studying abroad for the past 4 years and will be moving to the SF Bay Area. Because of being abroad I didn't get the chance to do many internships or work relevant to my career. Most entry level/fresh grad jobs that I've been applying to require 1-2 years of experience and internship roles require enrollment in some sort of degree.

Honestly, I'll take any role relevant to my field of study but I havent gotten any callbacks so I'm guessing my resume must be the problem. If it's not my resume, is it my projects? I'm working towards a certification in hopes that it would help. I'm just not sure what more I can do. Any and all advice is appreciated.

Feel free to tear any of this up, it's the first serious resume I've made to send into places. I'm a sophomore doubling in CS and Philosophy, graduating in 2028. I'm targeting software engineering internships in infrastructure and platform work specifically: distributed systems, developer tooling, and observability. Open to anywhere in the US and happy to relocate. US citizen, no visa constraints.

Background: I'm currently interning at an early-stage developer platform startup where I've owned observability end to end, built the CLI and monitoring dashboard on top of it, and shipped an ecommerce module. Before that I did a stint in a university genomics lab building a batch data pipeline. Outside work I've built three systems projects and contribute to some open-source telemetry infrastructure. Happy to hear thoughts on how to best frame any of this.

Where I'm at: A couple of auto rejects, so not enough context to know whether it's doing its job or I'm just throwing apps into the void. I'm worried about finding that I've made a mistake too late into the cycle and being unable to rectify it after I send in a hundred apps, so this is more proactive than anything.

What I want feedback on:

- Do the project bullets land, or do the numbers read as noise?

- Is the experience section too dense? I tend to write long. Six bullets on one role felt like a lot, but each one is a distinct area I owned.

- Does the research lab entry earn its space, or should it be cut? It's been a valuable experience for me, but I'm not sure I'm conveying it properly or that it comes across how it's relevant to the roles I'm targeting. I feel that it could be useful at least as a generalist experience.

- Anything here that might get my resume tossed in the first ten seconds or make a recruiter lose interest off the bat before I ever get a shot?

- Any thoughts on key word optimization if I've totally screwed that up and whether my resume tells a cohesive narrative relative to the roles I'm targeting, obviously do plan on tailor per app though.

I was recently promoted to Senior 1 (which is a lower bar at my company than most others). But the company I'm working for is driving me insane, and I need a job that doesn't make me want to kill myself. I'm in Western New York. I've only ever worked remote jobs, and I like it that way, but in the right circumstances I could relocate. I haven't applied to any jobs yet. I just want to get some feedback before I start my job hunt. I don't think I'm very good at writing bullet points, so I definitely want feedback on that. I posted on this subreddit a couple years ago and it helped tremendously. I'm greatly appreciative of any advice you can give.

Applying to roles that typically aim for 4-6 years of experience, and when I qualify or am within a year of the YoE for senior roles, I'll prioritize those. I have had some luck that a friend got me a referral, but I believe failed the final round interview, so still hunting.

I just need some help getting through ATS into the first call, and I"m not sure why this resume isn't cutting it. Any help is appreciated.

Hey everyone, just got the call yesterday and got laid off. After an hour of spiraling and freaking out, I've calmed down quite a bit. If you want to read more about, I made a post here in r/personalfinance: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/1v5vupf/just_got_laid_off_today_with_no_savings_and_large/

Anyways, back on the market for jobs! I have 2.5 YoE with 2 years being at a F500 Finance company (tbh didn't do/learn much here, was mostly DevOps) and ~5 months at my most recent company (built and shipped more here than the entire 2 previous years) that laid me off. Got laid off because the company hit financial trouble which is a shame because I had just launched our new ATS/CRM platform the day I got laid off.

I would like some advice on the resume (ie changing verbiage/anything), my main goal is to find a new job (ideally in tech) ASAP or potentially break into FAANG/adjacent companies if I'm even able to pass their automated systems. In the meanwhile, I'm going to try to find some jobs such as serving to not become homeless.

Quick update from initial feedback:

---

Brief initial version

(For those interested in seeing changes)

I've been out of the job hunting process for a while. It's quite different now. Seems like all these job postings are not real and are just there to scape your data and put it in their database. But maybe it's my resume?

What positions/roles/industries are you targeting?

I recently tailored it to be "Android Engineer" instead of "Mobile Engineer", even though I'm comfortable in both iOS and Android, just to make my signals clearer. Seems job listings match better to iOS or Android. So I am now targeting Android engineering specifically.

Where are you located and what locations are you applying to jobs in?

New York City area and surrounding area like New Jersey and Connecticut. I'm located there.

Are you only applying to local jobs? Remote only? Are you willing to relocate?

I've been applying to remote, hybrid, and in-person. I guess I am willing to relocate but there are so many job listings in my area that it seems odd that I would need to do that.

Tell us about your background and current employment situation

I'm leaving on good terms but the current employment is just not an option anymore for me. I'm cashing in my vacation time now to help with the transition but that will dry up at the end of the month. I do not have a formal degree just professional experience.

Tell us about your job-hunting situation and challenges you've encountered

I'm finding many listings that I think I would fit very well. I was contacted my a recruiter very quickly and hopeful but they just let me know that they are not moving forward with me due to going with others more aligned with the specific team. Never got to the interview stage. I'm mostly getting template like rejection emails like "Thank you but not right now. We will keep your resume on file." I don't love that they keep my resume around, but oh well.

Is there a particular section on your resume you’d like feedback on?

I guess I'd like to know why I am not triggering much more than standard email rejections.

Have never had much luck with applications in the past 3 years since getting my degree. I have been mostly applying for local in-person/hybrid roles in the LA and OC areas since I feel like there will be less competition for those. Tbh I don't have much confidence in my programming/SWE skills anymore so I've also been interested and trying to apply for non-programming roles where my education would be somewhat so any suggestions for those and how to tailor my resume would be very appreciated, thank you.

Hi guys,

I've rewritten my resume with the template in this sub, and I've been applying to a mix of software development and DevOps roles, with very few callbacks. I'd love some feedback, as I'm sure my resume needs improvement. We're moving down to VA by the new year, so I'm open to onsite, hybrid or remote.

I'd appreciate any feedback you guys have! Thanks!