/resume-content-guide

name: resume-content-guide
description: Decides what information belongs on a resume or CV, what to leave off and in what order, and audits an existing resume against those norms. Covers every section (contact details, photo, summary, experience, education and GPA, skills, languages, references), candidate situations (new grad, career change, gaps, layoffs, veterans, academic, visa and more) and country and industry norms. Use when the user asks "what should I put on my resume", "what should I leave off", "should I include my photo / GPA / date of birth", "how do I show a gap", "summary or objective?", "how long should my CV be", "CV for a job in Dubai / Germany", "I'm moving to another country, what should I change", "what to put on my resume as a veteran" or "audit / review my resume". Works with pasted text or the Reactive Resume MCP server. For rewriting bullets use resume-bullet-writer; for fitting a resume to one job posting use resume-tailor; for building a new resume as JSON use resume-builder.

Resume content guide

Decide what goes on this person's resume, what stays off and in what order, for their target country, industry, career stage and situation. Then audit the resume they have and change it only with their approval.

This skill handles selection, placement and personal-data norms. Neighbouring jobs belong to sibling skills, which may not be installed; when one is missing, do the light version yourself and say so:

• Turning duties into impact bullets: if the resume-bullet-writer skill is available, hand off to it; otherwise ask for the result behind each duty and use only the user's own facts.
• Fitting the resume to one job posting (requirement table, keyword gaps, tailored copy): the resume-tailor skill, if available.
• Building a resume from nothing as Reactive Resume JSON: the resume-builder skill.
• Explaining a gap, layoff, career change or short stints out loud: once the resume wording is settled, offer the interview-prep skill (or mock-interview) to rehearse a 20-second answer that matches the label exactly, so the page and the spoken story don't drift apart.
• Tracking which version was sent where, and callback rates: the job-application-manager skill.

Ground rules

1. **Never invent.** Choose, cut, move and relabel what the user gives you. Never create employers, titles, dates, degrees, credentials, metrics or results. When a fact would help, ask for it; accept honest ranges or approximations and label them ("about 30%", "roughly 200 users"). If the user asks you to fabricate or inflate, decline in one sentence and offer the honest alternative in the same reply (see [When the user pushes](#when-the-user-pushes)). 2. **Context before rules.** Almost every resume "rule" depends on country, role, career stage and situation. Get these first, or say what you assumed. 3. **Follow the order of authority.** The employer's own instructions come first: the ad, an application form, a mandated template. Law comes next; it limits what employers may ask and rarely stops a candidate from volunteering something. Local convention fills the rest. 4. **Identity signals are the user's decision.** Photo, date of birth, pronouns, chosen name, nationality, visa status, disability, religious or political affiliations and class-coded hobbies change callback rates in field experiments. Explain the trade-off, then format whatever the user chooses. Never add or remove one without asking. National ID numbers, bank details and third parties' identifiers are not identity signals; they stay off (Step 4). 5. **Hide before you delete.** Items, sections and the photo can be hidden and shown again. Prefer that, and make country versions or heavy cuts on a copy so the master stays complete. 6. **Say how strong the evidence is.** Tag each recommendation `official` (law, regulator, government careers service), `study` (field experiment or peer-reviewed research), `survey` (employer survey, vendor documentation, commercial study) or `convention` (practitioner consensus, a default the user can override). One tag per recommendation. Recipe and playbook lines without a tag are `convention`. The first time tags appear in a reply, add one legend line: "official = law or government guidance; study = field research; survey = employer or vendor survey; convention = common practice you can override." 7. **Never game screening software.** Refuse hidden or white text, keyword blocks copied from a posting, and instructions aimed at AI screeners. They show up in the parsed text recruiters see and are actively detected. When an audit finds them, they are must-fix. 8. **Date-stamp law and platform facts.** Page limits, hiring laws and applicant-tracking behaviour change. Say "as of 2026", tell the user to check the official source when it matters (a federal application, a legal question), and never present it as legal advice. 9. **Keep personal data private.** Search the web only for public facts about employers, countries and roles, never about the user. Ask before pasting their resume into any third-party service.

When the user pushes

Decline at most once, in one sentence, without a lecture. Then help with the honest version.

| Request | Reply, then the honest alternative | | ------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Extend or blur dates to hide a gap | Dates are checked in background checks. Keep month/year dates and add whatever you did in the period, or leave a short post-graduation search as is | | Intern → "Software Engineer"; any title upgrade | The title must match what the employer would confirm. Show the scop