We hold your resume to a standard about evidence. It would be strange not to hold our own marketing to the same one.
These are claims you'll find repeated across the resume industry that we won't repeat, with what we found when we went looking for the source.
"75% of resumes are rejected by an ATS before a human sees them"
Where it came from: a startup that folded over a decade ago. There's no study behind it. It has been recycled ever since because it's alarming and it sells resume services.
What's actually true: ATS platforms mostly rank and surface candidates rather than auto-rejecting on resume content. Where applications are gated before human review, it's typically knockout questions you answered in the form. The real risks are a bad parse and a weak rank. See what ATS parsers actually do.
"Recruiters spend six seconds on your resume"
Where it came from: a 2012 eye-tracking study run during a recession-driven application glut. The same firm revised it to about 7.4 seconds in 2018 and partly attributed the difference to market conditions. Neither version published participant or industry detail.
What's actually true: better-controlled recent work — 114 recruiters timed without their knowledge, and a survey of 418 hiring professionals — puts a realistic first pass at roughly 17 to 60 seconds. Only about 1% spend under ten seconds.
Still short. Not six seconds. Quoting the six is a reliable sign a site is recycling content rather than reading research.
"Tables cause 23% of parse failures" and similar precise numbers
Where they came from: resume-tool marketing blogs. No published test protocol, no named systems, no sample size.
What's actually true: the underlying advice is sound — avoid tables, text boxes and multi-column layouts when uploading to a portal. The percentages attached to it aren't citable, so we make the case from the recruiter eye-tracking findings on layout instead, which are real.
"Tailoring your resume gets you 3x more callbacks"
Where it came from: content-marketing pages, several of which cite each other in a circle. We could not find a controlled experiment behind any version of this figure.
What's actually true: tailoring addresses a documented failure mode — 88% of employers in the Hidden Workers study agreed qualified candidates are screened out for not matching a posting's exact stated criteria. That's an argument from mechanism, and it's the honest version. See resume practices we build around.
"58% of recruiters say quantified achievements make a resume stand out"
Where it came from: vendor blogs citing unnamed surveys.
What's actually true: quantifying results is solidly supported by Harvard's and MIT's career services guidance and by NACE's finding that employers want examples of skills used to solve problems. The practice is well founded; that particular statistic isn't sourceable.
"93% of job seekers admit to lying on their resume"
Where it came from: a background-check vendor's report — a company that sells verification services.
What's actually true: SHRM reports roughly one in three Americans admit to lying on a resume. That's the figure we use. It's still a lot, and it's the one with a credible source. See we never invent your experience.
And one where we disclose our own source's interest
The best available study on resume length — the one that found two-page resumes were preferred by a wide margin — was run by ResumeGo, a resume-writing company. Not neutral research.
We use it anyway, because the methodology is published and it's a randomized simulated-selection design rather than an opinion poll, which makes it the strongest thing available. But you should know who ran it. See how long should your resume be?
Why this article exists
Partly for you: most of what's written about resumes is content marketing wearing a lab coat, and knowing which numbers are hollow saves you optimizing for something imaginary.
Partly for us: it's a standard we've written down and have to keep. If we won't let AI review hand you an unsupported claim about your career, we shouldn't hand you an unsupported claim about hiring.
If you find something on this site that doesn't survive the same check, tell us. We'll fix it or cut it.