🛠️ Career Strategy

The secret to a great resume

I wrote this back in August when the audience of this newsletter was substantially smaller. So I decided to share it again.

What does a great resume actually do? It makes someone say, “I want to talk to this person.” That’s it.

So how do you get someone to say that?

You start with your resume bullets. A bullet is the basic unit of a resume; without great bullets, the resume will never be great.

For each bullet on your resume, ask yourself two questions.

First: What exactly did I do, in a way that a smart 13-year old could explain?

This is important because many recruitment professionals are in their 20s. While they are probably smart and good at their jobs, they likely lack specific experience with your job function. Being very clear about what you do will help them see how you’ll fit the job requirements.

Second: What was the business impact of doing that thing?

This is important because most hiring managers care about commercial rigor. They want to know that hiring you will improve the company’s financial position (and thereby make them look good). And they want confirmation that you understand how your work ties to the big picture.

If the second question is hard to answer, ask:

• Did doing the thing make money? If so, you can just write the amount of money you generated. Here’s an example for a retail store worker:

  • Estimated number of customers served per shift X average sale amount per customer X number of shifts worked in year = revenue generated

• Save money? Again, just write the amount of money you saved. Here’s an example from my past experience:

  • Saved $10k per year by replacing office phones with Zoom Phone.

• Save time? Lots of my clients get tripped up on this one but, if you save time, you can actually convert that to money! Use this formula:

  • (estimated salary of the role for whom time was saved / 2080 business hours per year) X number of people for whom time was saved X number of hours per person you saved per year = total $ value of hours saved per year

Then rewrite it so the financial outcome is toward the front.

Here’s an example transformation:

🤮 Bad: “Helped manage marketing budget across several channels.”

😍 Great: “Increased warm inbound by 22% and influenced $304k of net new revenue by reallocating $150K from paid social to influencer partnerships.”

If you can write every resume bullet like that or better, you’re going to be just fine.

🤖 AI Tactic

Strategy Planning in 30 Minutes or Less

There are entire professions dedicated to strategy: strategy consultants, strategy managers, and so on. Everything seems to be about strategy. But really, strategy is just a set of choices about how to get from where you are today to where you want to go (i.e. achieve your mission / vision).

With ChatGPT 5.1 Thinking, you can accomplish in 30 minutes what would have taken a consultant 2+ weeks and cost you $200k. Let’s dive in:

If you want the 5 prompts, please sign up for the newsletter :) 

🧠 Curiosity Corner

I’m becoming a talking head…

Last week, I was on the Sonic Combinator podcast, talking about my new company AI America. This week, I’m recording 3 more pods! So my life nightmare of becoming a talking head is slowly being realized 😅 

💼 Job Board

$200k to improve infant sleep

Here are the 3 most interesting remote job openings I’ve seen this week:

If you want the jobs, please sign up for the newsletter :) 

That’s it for this week.

-Rahul from The DesAI Digest

P.S. Reply back to this email with a business challenge you’re facing! I’d love to help.

P.P.S. if you liked this, forward it to a friend. And if you hated it, forward it to an enemy.