Sunday, July 6, 2025

What Resumes Don’t Say Out Loud (But You Should Hear Anyway)

Don’t Read Resumes. Decode Them.

Let’s be honest: most resumes look good these days. Everyone knows the keywords. Everyone adds metrics. Everyone's "driven" and "collaborative." So you'll miss the most essential stuff if you're just skimming for buzzwords or years of experience.

Substance lives beneath the surface. It’s in how people think, not just what they did. It’s the difference between activity and impact. Between movement and direction. Reading for substance means looking past the polish and into the person.

1. Ask: What did they change?

Forget responsibilities for a second. What did they change?

The fingerprints show substance. Did they inherit a system or rebuild one? Did they scale something? Save something? Kill something that needed killing?

Look for verbs that signal transformation: "revamped," "redesigned," "streamlined," "turned around." That’s where the real story lives.

2. Look at cause and effect

Anyone can say they managed a team. But what changed because they did?

Substance means linking action to outcome. "Increased retention by 18% after rebuilding onboarding." That’s a complete thought. That’s a person who understands their impact.

3. Detect the thinking behind the doing

Reading for substance means imagining the thinking process behind each bullet.

When someone says they launched a product, ask yourself: How complex was that? What cross-functional teams were likely involved? Was it iterative? Was it rescue work? Was it Greenfield?

Good resumes don’t just list what happened. They hint at how the candidate thinks through problems.

4. Spot the pattern of curiosity

Did they evolve over time? Did they make lateral moves that suggest exploration? Did they step down to learn something new? That’s courage, not failure.

Substance often looks nonlinear. Straight paths can mean stagnation. The winding ones sometimes signal learning and range.

5. Find what they care about

It leaks through, maybe in volunteer work, maybe in the way they describe their projects, maybe in a one-liner hobby mention that tells you what lights them up.

People with substance bring their whole selves. You won’t find it in the font, but it’s between the lines.

6. Watch for over-polishing

Sometimes the shiniest resumes are the emptiest. Every bullet ends in a percentage. Everything is wrapped in perfect corporate speak. You finish reading and feel... nothing.

Substance isn’t sterile. It’s a little rough. A little weird. A little human. That’s how you know it’s real.

7. Look for earned confidence

Does the resume show ownership? Do they say "I led," or "part of a team that"?

Confidence isn’t arrogance. It’s clarity. Candidates with substance know what they did. They don’t pad. They don’t shrink. They just own it.

8. Trace their through-line

What's the big thread that runs through their work?

Is it fixing broken systems? Is it mentoring junior people? Is it shipping quickly under pressure?

Substance shows up as a theme. Even if their roles look scattered, there's often a core strength they keep leaning into.

9. Ask yourself: Would I trust this person in ambiguity?

This is the real test.

Forget the bullet points. Does their journey show judgment, not just execution? Would you want them in the room when things go sideways?

If yes, you’ve found substance that doesn’t just do the job but grows it.

Final Thought

Reading resumes for substance isn’t fast. It’s not a Ctrl+F search for keywords. It’s a practice. A mindset.

But you must read between the lines if you care about building real teams that can think, stretch, and evolve.

Because that's where the people are.

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