If you have ever spent hours tailoring your resume for just one application to then never hear back, you have probably asked yourself, “Do I have to customize my resume for different companies or roles?” Many online resources suggest that you should customize your resume for every role; however, in 2025, it is a different story.
Our coaches at ApplyPass with over a decade of experience in helping senior, principal, staff, etc software engineers land high paying, fulfilling roles have seen what really matters to secure their dream role. The truth? For most engineers, there is no significant advantage of personalizing your resume for every job. Instead, the five key aspects you should really focus on:
- Creating one strong, keyword-optimized resume
- Leveraging outreach and taking advantage of LinkedIn as a platform for networking
- Optimizing the quantity of applications you submit
- Ensuring the resume is in the correct formatting
- Moving fast and applying early
Let’s break down why these matter and how they compare to endless resume customization.
- Creating one strong, keyword optimized resume
Before your resume is seen by a recruiter, it often goes through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which filters through applicants to determine qualified candidates. Applicant tracking systems are often keyword-driven (Jobscan). So, if you are a Java engineer, but Java only shows up once on your resume, you most likely will not get shortlisted by the ATS based on keyword matching alone. Think about Google search before the age of Gemini AI summaries - the more that related keywords show up on a webpage, the higher up in the results it will be. Without the use of keywords, you will be buried under the sea of applicants who do have ATS-optimized resumes with keywords repeated naturally throughout their resume.
Instead of rewriting your resume for every role, invest that time into creating one keyword-rich version that can standout among hundreds of other applications. Making sure that this resume is filled with the right tools, frameworks, technologies, and job titles will ultimately help you pass the ATS filters and ranking, making you one step closer to landing an interview.
Here’s a very brief example of what our resume coaches can help you with. Example below is a bullet point on a senior iOS Engineer’s resume.
Before:
- Reimagined the existing login flow for [redacted] brand mobile application.
After:
- Refactored existing login flow for [redacted] brand mobile app to SwiftUI from Objective-C following MVVM design pattern and using async/await (JSON APIs) context calls to streamline UI/UX for 200,000+ users.
- Ensuring the correct formatting
A common misconception to having the “perfect resume” is making it pretty. ATS uses computer vision (OCR) to parse out information, including fonts, sections, and spacing. Therefore, using elaborate designs,fonts, and graphics in your resume may actually hurt your chances of getting an interview, as the ATS may not be able to read it.
The best resumes are clean, simple, and ATS-friendly with standard fonts, clear headers and no images or unnecessary designs and colors. This guarantees that the ATS can see important information, allowing your resume to fall into the hands of a recruiter.
- Prioritizing the quantity of applications you submit
Applying to jobs is a numbers game. If you are spending so much time on tailoring your resume, you can realistically only apply to around 10 to 20 jobs per week. However, with ApplyPass, users are submitting around 400 applications a week to jobs that have been matched to each person using AI, with a customized cover letter for each role; as a result, users have been experiencing a much higher success rate.
- Leveraging outreach and taking advantage of LinkedIn as a platform
In reality, even if a recruiter lays eyes on your resume, they will only scan it for around 6 seconds (Indeed). Soon this document that you have spent hours on may be easily forgotten, eliminating your chance to ever land an interview.
Here’s the secret: resumes don’t get jobs, people do. The engineers who land roles at major companies do not just apply and wait for a response. They are proactive in the application process, using LinkedIn to reach out to hiring managers and other employees at the company.
A simple and quick outreach message should include:
- A quick link to your resume
- The role you applied for
- Your availability to interview
According to The Interview Guys, statistics show that you need to submit 42 applications to get one interview. If you are struggling with getting interviews and are applying to enough jobs, then spend more time on outreach and networking. This will increase your chances of landing your dream position drastically.
Although it may seem like a daunting process, sending an outreach message significantly increases your chances of being noticed by a recruiter, especially if you’ve given them all the information they need to get you set up for an interview.
- Moving fast and applying early
Timing matters. Many highly sought after roles close soon after the application is posted, or have thousands of applicants within hours of it being posted. If you wait to customize your resume for even just hours, you might already be too late.
The application process is all about speed and you want to ensure that your resume is within the first few hundred submissions. This early visibility gives you a better chance at landing an interview before the role fills up.
Where ApplyPass Comes In
ApplyPass is designed to help you land your next software engineering role. Our personalized coaching, services and resources help applicants:
- Write, optimize, and submit strong keyword-optimized resumes
- Apply to around 400 roles a week that you are a good match for
- Create personalized cover letters for every application
- Support end to end in the job search process, from application all the way to salary negotiation through 1-on-1 coaching sessions
The result? Hours saved by using ApplyPass, focusing on what really matters instead of personalizing each application: creating a strong keyword-optimized resume, scaling your applications, applying quickly, and pairing all this with effective outreach. With ApplyPass, you do not have to go through the application process alone.
