The Resume Trap: Why Looking Perfect Can Make You Seem Fake

When resumes try too hard to impress, they often lose the voice that makes them memorable and trustworthy.

Tyler Bugeaud

Co-Founder

Include a personal profile or introduction statement at the top of your resume

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Add an infographic element that displays your best traits and accomplishments

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Add Infographic - Jobboardly X Webflow Template — Erat scelerisque eu dui diam varius in proin sit elementum amet vitae et.

Use headings and subheadings throughout your resume to highlight key sections and make the information easier to read

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Utilize space by using bullet points to outline skills and job qualifications

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Incorporate visuals and images such as graphs and charts

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There’s a fine line between polished and soulless. Most people don’t know when they’ve crossed it.

A recruiter told me about a candidate whose resume was flawless.

Every bullet was optimized. Every verb was powerful. The formatting was crisp and clean. The LinkedIn profile matched. The portfolio link worked.

And yet, she didn’t move forward.

“It just felt…off,” the recruiter said. “It looked like it was written by AI or someone trying too hard to impress.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard that.

In a world full of templates, resume builders, and AI-generated content, it’s easy to create something that looks amazing. The kind of resume that scores 90 percent on JobScan, uses all the right buzzwords, and reads like it was written by a brand team.

But there’s a problem. Sometimes, the more perfect your resume sounds, the more forgettable you become.

Why the Most Polished Resume Isn’t Always the Strongest

Most recruiters aren’t just looking for credentials. They’re looking for signals. Personality. Clarity. Energy. Voice. They want to know you understand what the role is about and that you bring something specific to it.

A resume that looks too polished without context can feel empty. Or worse, it can raise red flags.

“There’s a real concern about fake candidates right now. Especially in tech. Some recruiters assume if a resume is too perfect, it might be AI-generated or completely fabricated.”

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t polish your resume. It means you need to leave a trace of yourself in it. Something real. Something true.

This Is the Trap

In trying to impress, we sometimes erase ourselves.

We take out the weird phrasing that actually reflects how we talk. We remove the story that makes our experience unique. We rely on tools that “optimize” our resume but end up flattening our voice.

And in doing that, we blend in with hundreds of others who did the same thing.

So What Do You Do Instead?

Keep the structure clean but make the content yours.

Write your bullets in your voice first. Let AI polish them and not replace them.
Focus less on trying to “sound professional” and more on sounding clear.
When possible, connect your work to outcomes that mattered to you... not just the company.

Clarity builds trust. Authenticity builds memory.

And always remember: A human will (hopefully) be reading this.

Give them something that makes them want to talk to you.