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Why candidates fail

Strong Resume Examples

Most candidates don’t fail on experience. They fail on a pretty resume.

Two columns, a photo, skill bars, a clever font. It looks like effort. Hiring software can read it out of order, and a recruiter has to dig for the facts. That’s the pretty-resume trap.

The industry sets the resume format, not taste: one column, standard headings, plain text. A good resume is ATS-friendly first and easy on a recruiter’s eyes second. Strong resumes play by those rules and get read.

Ava Lindqvist

Senior Accountant, CPA

Minneapolis, MN|(612) 555-0148|ava.lindqvist@example.com|linkedin.com/in/avalindqvist

Summary

CPA with 8 years in corporate accounting for mid-size manufacturers. Runs month-end close, reconciliations and audit prep in NetSuite. Cut the close from 9 to 6 business days and led two audits with no adjustments.

Work Experience

Senior Accountant, Bluestem Foods

Minneapolis, MN

Mar 2022 – Present

  • Own the month-end close for 3 entities with $180M in revenue; cut close time from 9 to 6 business days.
  • Reconcile 60+ accounts a month in NetSuite and BlackLine; no audit adjustments in 2024 or 2025.
  • Built a fixed-asset roll-forward in Excel that replaced manual tracking of 1,200 assets.
  • Review the work of 2 staff accountants and run their quarterly training.

Staff Accountant, Larkspur Packaging

St. Paul, MN

Jun 2019 – Feb 2022

  • Prepared journal entries, accruals and bank reconciliations for a $65M business.
  • Moved invoice approval into NetSuite workflows, cutting late vendor payments by about 30%.
  • Prepared the schedules for the first external audit after a private-equity acquisition.

Audit Associate, Brandt & Hale LLP

Minneapolis, MN

Sep 2017 – May 2019

  • Audited manufacturers and distributors with $20M–$250M in revenue across 9 engagements.
  • Tested revenue, inventory and payroll controls and wrote up findings for client management.

Skills

Systems: NetSuite | BlackLine | Excel (XLOOKUP, pivot tables) | Power BI

Accounting: Month-end close | US GAAP | Account reconciliation | Accruals | Fixed assets | Audit preparation | Journal entries | Variance analysis

Education

B.S. in Accounting, Lakemont State University

Duluth, MN

May 2017

Certifications

Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Minnesota, 2019

A pretty two-column resume with a photo and skill bars under a red flag. In front of it, under a green flag, a strong resume example for a made-up person, Ava Lindqvist, Senior Accountant, CPA: one column, standard headings, plain text.

Now this is serious

  1. 99.7%of recruiters use filters in their ATSJobscan, 2025
  2. 76%of recruiters filter candidates by skillsJobscan, 2025
  3. 55%of recruiters filter by job titleJobscan, 2025
  4. 58%of hiring managers use AI to review resumesResume Genius, 2026
  5. 88%of employers say qualified candidates get rejected for missing the exact criteriaHarvard Business School & Accenture, 2021
  6. 73%of hiring managers reject qualified candidates over formattingResumeTemplates, 2024
  7. 36%of hiring managers often pass when key information is hard to findResumeTemplates, 2024
  8. 54%of hiring managers keep seeing duties instead of achievementsResumeTemplates, 2024
  9. 49%of hiring managers call heavily AI-written applications a red flagResume Genius, 2026
  10. 22%of hiring managers have caught hidden text meant to trick AIGreenhouse, 2025

What makes a strong resume

A good resume is one page that software can file and a recruiter can scan. These resume red flags break it. The green flags build it.

Red flags

  • Profile photos — go against US HR compliance.
  • 2-column layout — can disrupt ATS reading order.
  • Creative fonts — harder to read and parse by ATS.
  • Graphics and skill bars — can hide information from ATS.
  • Non-standard section headings — harder to identify by ATS.

And more common mistakes that Doors helps you avoid.

Green flags

  • 1-column layout — easy to scan, easy to parse.
  • Clean typography — matters to ATS and HR alike.
  • Standard section headings — clear for ATS and recruiters.
  • Reverse chronological order — your most recent experience comes first.
  • Career-focused structure — shaped for your career stage.

And 10 more best practices built into every Doors resume template.

Get AI resume you can rely on

Powered by Doors.20+ checks.Built for ATS.Made for human eyes.

Resume Examples

Renata Holloway

Vice President of Operations

Columbus, OH|(614) 555-0126|renata.holloway@example.com|linkedin.com/in/renataholloway

Executive Summary

Operations executive with 18 years in distribution and third-party logistics. Runs networks of up to 9 facilities and 1,400 people with full P&L ownership. Took the network’s lowest-ranked site to second in 18 months and promoted 7 of 10 site managers from within.

Key Achievements

  • Grew operating margin from 6.1% to 8.4% across a $310M network in two years.
  • Opened 3 distribution centers on time and within 4% of budget, adding 1.2M sq ft.
  • Cut OSHA recordable incidents by 41% with a safety program led by the sites themselves.

Professional Experience

Vice President of Operations, Meridian Freightworks

Columbus, OH

Feb 2020 – Present

P&L of $310M · 9 distribution centers · 1,400 employees

  • Lead 9 site general managers and a regional engineering team of 12.
  • Rolled out a new warehouse management system to every site in 14 months with no missed client SLAs.
  • Renegotiated national carrier contracts, saving $6.8M a year.

Director of Operations, Meridian Freightworks

Columbus, OH

Mar 2016 – Jan 2020

4 sites · 520 employees

  • Took the lowest-ranked site to second in the network on productivity within 18 months.
  • Built a supervisor development program; 7 of 10 site managers are now promoted from within.

General Manager, Arbor Distribution

Indianapolis, IN

May 2011 – Feb 2016

  • Ran a 600,000 sq ft site with 280 employees; held 99.6% order accuracy for 4 years.

Operations Manager, Arbor Distribution

Indianapolis, IN

Jun 2007 – Apr 2011

Education

MBA, Whitford College of Business

Columbus, OH

2015

B.S. in Industrial Engineering, Prairie State University

West Lafayette, IN

2007

Professional Affiliations

Board Member, Central Ohio Workforce Alliance, 2021 – Present

Member, Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals

  • ATS parsing check passed
  • Keywords checked
  • Job title check passed
  • AI-sounding text check passed
  • Date format check passed
An AI resume example for a made-up person, Renata Holloway, Vice President of Operations, with the checks Doors runs on it.