I used Claude to craft a resume that landed me a $200k+ Machine Learning Engineer offer. I spent 10 hours drafting because a single document is the most important in your career. Resumes are more art than science, so I share general principles. Tailoring is the cheat code: keep a “master” resume with everything, then trim for each job.

Before letting Claude go wild, I built a solid structure. A rough template gives the AI context for tone, achievements, and vibe. Starting from scratch doesn’t work well; feed your skills, experience, and education first, then let Claude polish into a top‑1% resume.

Key sections: Header, Summary, Skills, Experience, Projects, Education. Use clean, simple design—black text, consistent fonts, bullet points. Keep the first four sections for most jobs. For experience, limit to 3‑5 bullet points per role, use active verbs, weave in tech details, and always add metrics or financial impact.

Claude’s biggest help is linking work to financial impact. Prompt it with your bullet, ask clarifying questions, identify levers like cost savings or revenue growth, and it will guide you to quantify the impact. This step turns generic achievements into compelling numbers that recruiters can see.