Resume coaching axes

Careers' Coaching & Evaluation view scores every resume against seven independent dimensions. Each axis answers a different question and points you at a different kind of follow-up conversation.

Use this page when you're preparing for a coaching session and want to know what a particular axis is telling you.

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Clarity & Structure

Measures: How easy the resume is to navigate at a glance — section order, headers, hierarchy, and reading flow.

• Low score: Section breaks are unclear, content runs together, or the order forces the reader to hunt for basic facts (name, current role, contact).
• High score: A reviewer can find any piece of standard information in under five seconds.
• Try this in a session: "If a hiring manager only had thirty seconds with your resume, what would they see first? Walk me through it."

Specificity

Measures: Whether bullet points describe concrete responsibilities and outcomes, or generic duties.

• Low score: Bullets read like a job description — "responsible for customer service" — without naming what was actually done.
• High score: Bullets name tools, scope, audiences, and outcomes — "ran weekly closeout for a four-person team using the in-store POS."
• Try this in a session: "Pick the vaguest bullet on your resume. Tell me what you actually did, then we'll rewrite it together."

Evidence of Impact

Measures: Whether achievements include measurable evidence — numbers, percentages, durations, ranges, awards, named outcomes.

• Low score: The resume describes activity but not consequence. The reviewer can't tell whether the work mattered.
• High score: Most senior roles include at least one quantified outcome that anchors the contribution.
• Try this in a session: "For your most recent role, what's one result you're proud of? Can we put a number, a range, or a comparison next to it?"

Skill Signal Strength

Measures: How clearly the work history demonstrates the skills the resume claims. Cross-checked against the Skills Overview for the same resume.

• Low score: Skills appear as a list with no supporting evidence in the experience section.
• High score: Each major skill has at least one bullet that demonstrates it in context.
• Try this in a session: "Which two skills on this resume are the most important for the roles you want? Where in your experience does someone see them in action?"

Narrative Coherence

Measures: Whether the career story makes sense end to end — whether the applicant's progression, pivots, and gaps are legible to a reviewer who has never met them.

• Low score: Roles read as disconnected; pivots aren't framed; large gaps are unexplained.
• High score: A reviewer can describe the career arc in one sentence.
• Try this in a session: "If you had to pitch your career in one sentence, what would it be? Does the resume tell that story?"

Signal-to-Noise Ratio

Measures: How dense the resume is with relevant information versus filler — buzzwords, padded objectives, soft-skill clichés, decorative elements.

• Low score: Heavy on adjectives, light on facts; valuable bullets get buried.
• High score: Every line earns its space.
• Try this in a session: "Find a line you'd defend if I tried to delete it. Now find one you wouldn't."

Professional Hygiene

Measures: Spelling, grammar, formatting consistency, contact information, and other surface-level signals reviewers use as a proxy for attention to detail.

• Low score: Mixed tense, inconsistent date formats, missing contact info, or typos.
• High score: Internally consistent and clean.
• Try this in a session: Before the call, do a fast pass and flag anything that looks off — fixing hygiene is usually a five-minute task and frees the rest of the conversation for higher-leverage work.

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Reading the chart

The radar chart in Coaching & Evaluation plots all seven axes at once. A balanced shape is rare and not the goal — most resumes lean strong on two or three axes and weaker on the rest. Use the radar to spot the shape of a resume, then use the per-axis bars below the radar to confirm specific scores.

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Next steps

• Coaching with the Skills Report
• The applicant profile