Founding clients: 40% off the first 10
Get on the shortlist.
Your resume gets about seven seconds of a recruiter's attention, if it clears the software screen at all. Shortlist writes resumes that survive both and get you the call.
Buy direct or book a free consult first · First draft in 5 business days · Revisions until it's right
Why applications disappear
It's rarely because you're unqualified
Most strong candidates get filtered out for reasons that have nothing to do with their ability to do the job. Three things kill more applications than anything else.
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The software screens you out
Applicant tracking systems parse your file before a human sees it. Tables, columns, headers, and graphics routinely break that parsing, and your experience arrives at the recruiter as garbled text or not at all.
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You listed duties, not results
"Responsible for managing the onboarding process" tells a recruiter nothing. "Cut onboarding time from 6 weeks to 9 days across 40 hires" tells them exactly what you'd do for them.
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The first third is wasted
Recruiters scan top-down and stop early. If the top of your first page is an objective statement and a skills word-cloud, you've spent your best real estate on the least persuasive content.
Sample rewrites
The same experience, rewritten
Demonstration samples written to show the method, not client work. Any real client example that lands here later will be labeled as such and used with written permission.
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Duties → measurable results
Operations Manager → Director of Operations
Before"Responsible for overseeing daily warehouse operations and managing a team of associates. Duties included scheduling, inventory control, and safety compliance."
After"Ran a 60-person, 24/7 distribution floor moving 12K units daily. Rebuilt the scheduling model to cut overtime spend 31% ($340K/yr) while lifting on-time dispatch from 88% to 97%."
The method: Same job, same facts, nothing invented. Discovery is where the numbers come from, because most people have stopped noticing them. Lead with scale, then compress three duties into one result a hiring director can price.
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Translated for a new industry
Career changer: Teacher → Corporate L&D
Before"High school English teacher. Developed lesson plans, graded assignments, and communicated with parents. Served on the curriculum committee."
After"Designed and delivered a 180-hour curriculum to 140 learners annually, with measured proficiency gains of 22% year over year. Led a 6-person committee that redesigned district-wide curriculum adopted across 4 schools."
The method: Translation. Every teaching responsibility has a corporate L&D equivalent. Rename the work without overstating it, so a recruiter outside education recognizes the skill instead of filtering it out.
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Keyword dump → ownership
Software Engineer, 2 years experience
Before"Worked on the backend team. Used Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Docker, AWS, Git, Jira, Agile, REST APIs, microservices, CI/CD."
After"Owned the payments service handling 40K transactions/day. Cut p95 latency from 800ms to 210ms by restructuring the settlement queue, eliminating the timeout errors behind 60% of support tickets."
The method: The keyword dump moves to a skills line at the bottom, where the ATS still reads it. The bullet then shows ownership and impact, which is what separates a 2-year engineer from a 5-year one on paper.
Want to see this done on your resume before you pay? Send it through the form below and we'll rewrite one bullet for free, so you can judge the work rather than take our word for it.
Pricing
Pick the level you're playing at
Flat rates, no subscriptions, no upsell calls. Every package includes discovery on your terms, revisions, and ATS-safe files you own outright.
40% off for the first 10 clients
Shortlist would rather build a portfolio of work worth showing than charge full rate to an empty room. The first 10 clients get 40% off in exchange for a testimonial and permission to use an anonymized before/after. After that, prices go to the listed rate.
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Launch
Students & under 5 years experience
$149 $249
One-time · first draft in 5 days
Founding rate · save $100- Discovery by call or questionnaire, your choice
- Full resume rewrite, one page
- ATS-safe DOCX, designed PDF, plain text
- Keyword tailoring guide
- Revisions until you’re happy
Secure checkout by Stripe
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Most popular
Professional
5 to 15 years, including career changers
$269 $449
One-time · first draft in 5 days
Founding rate · save $180- Discovery by call or questionnaire, your choice
- Full rewrite, one or two pages
- Written for one specific target role
- Tailored cover letter template
- Revisions until you’re happy
Secure checkout by Stripe
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Executive
Director, VP, and C-suite
$717 $1,195
One-time · first draft in 5 days
Founding rate · save $478- Discovery by call or questionnaire, your choice
- Executive resume, two versions
- Executive bio + board resume
- LinkedIn profile rewrite included
- Revisions until you’re happy
Secure checkout by Stripe
Add-ons
Available with any package, or on their own. Priced items link straight to checkout; ask us about the rest.
- LinkedIn profile rewrite$149 (opens in a new tab)
- Cover letter, tailored$79 (opens in a new tab)
- Resume refresh, past clients$79
- Rush delivery (48 hours)+$99
You don't pay for work you won't use
We revise until the resume is right, however many rounds that takes. If it still isn't something you'd send out, tell us within 14 days of your first draft and we refund you in full. Included on every package, with no minimum application count and no hoops to jump through. We'd rather lose the fee than have our work sitting unused in your downloads folder.
How it works
From first click to finished resume
Under an hour of your time, total. Step one is optional: buy the package you want and skip straight to discovery, or talk it through first.
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Free consult, optional
Fifteen minutes. Shortlist reviews your current resume, gives you an honest read on whether the work is worth it, and recommends a package. Already know what you need? Buy directly and skip this entirely.
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Discovery
The part that matters. Focused questions surface the numbers and outcomes you've stopped noticing. Book a short call, or fill in the questionnaire whenever suits you. Either way it's the difference between a resume that lists duties and one that shows results.
Day 1–2 -
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First draft
You receive a full rewrite plus a short note explaining every structural choice, so you can defend the resume in an interview and update it yourself later.
Day 5 -
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Revisions & delivery
Drafts are refined until the resume sounds like you. You receive an ATS-safe DOCX, a designed PDF, and a plain-text version for online forms. Files are yours to keep and edit.
Day 7–12
Straight answer
No testimonials yet. Here's why.
Shortlist launched recently, so there's no wall of five-star reviews here yet. Instead, three ways to judge the work before you spend anything.
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Judge the work first
Send us your resume and we'll rewrite one bullet for free, no commitment. If the rewrite doesn't obviously beat what you had, don't hire us. That's a faster read on quality than any review.
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Your risk is zero
Full refund if you're not happy, no hoops to jump through, within 14 days of your first draft. The guarantee is deliberately one-sided in your favour, because trust is earned rather than assumed.
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You get real attention
A short client list gives you something an agency with a thousand clients can't: your resume is written by the person who interviewed you, never passed to a stranger, with every reason to make it the best one on the shelf.
The approach
How the work gets done
- Grounded in management, international business, and entrepreneurship
- Written for your target role, never a template with your name dropped in
- A limited number of clients at a time, by design
- Your details stay confidential, always
A resume is a business case, not an autobiography. The person reading it has a stack of them, a role to fill, and a few seconds to decide whether you're worth more of their time. Every choice here starts from that constraint: what goes first, what gets cut, and which number makes a hiring manager stop scrolling.
Our perspective comes from management, international business, and entrepreneurship. Management is where you learn what a hiring decision actually looks like from the other side of the desk, which is that you read for evidence, not adjectives, and most candidates supply the wrong one. International business teaches that the same experience has to be framed differently depending on who's reading it, because what reads as confident in one market reads as arrogant in another. Entrepreneurship teaches the part that matters most here: nobody cares what you were responsible for, they care what changed because you were there.
We keep the client list deliberately short. Every resume is written from a real conversation rather than a questionnaire, and nothing is handed to a subcontractor or generated from a template with your name dropped in. It also means we turn work down: if we don't think we can improve your resume enough to justify the cost, we'll tell you on the consult instead of taking your money.
Questions
Before you book
You're new and have no reviews. Why should I hire you?
Fair question, and we'd ask it too. Three answers. First, judge the work instead of the reviews: send us your resume and we'll rewrite one bullet free so you can see the difference before paying anything. Second, your money is fully refundable with no conditions, so the downside is your time, not your cash. Third, the founding rate exists precisely because we're asking you to take a chance on a new practice, and 40% off is what that's worth. If you'd rather wait until there are twenty reviews to read, that's a reasonable call, but the price will be higher then.
What's the founding client rate?
The first 10 clients pay 40% off in exchange for a testimonial and permission to use an anonymized before/after of their resume. You can decline the before/after and still keep the discount, though a testimonial is expected if the work is good. Once those 10 spots are gone, prices go to the listed rate.
How is this different from a $30 template or an AI resume tool?
A template fixes formatting. It can't tell you that your third bullet is the strongest thing on the page and belongs first, or ask the follow-up question that surfaces the number you forgot. Most of the value here comes from working out what actually matters in your history, not the typing. That's the part software can't do yet.
Will you write it for me, or do I have to do the work?
We write it. Your job is answering some focused questions honestly, then reading the draft carefully. Total time on your side is usually under an hour. You can do it on a short call or through the written questionnaire, whichever you prefer. Discovery is deliberately tight, because the goal is to pull out five or six specific things, not to make you recite your whole career.
What if I hate the first draft?
Then we fix it. We revise until it's right, and we'd rather you tell us plainly that something is wrong than politely accept a draft you'll never send. If it's still not working after revisions, we refund you in full, provided you let us know within 14 days of your first draft.
Do you guarantee I'll get a job?
No, and be skeptical of anyone who does. A resume gets you the interview. What happens after that is about you, the role, and the market. We also won't quote you an interview rate, because we don't yet have enough client data to put an honest number on it. What we do guarantee is the work itself: we revise until it's right.
Which package do I need, and do I have to book a consult?
Under five years of experience, Launch. Five to fifteen years or changing industries, Professional. Director level and above, Executive. No consult required at any tier, so if that's clear enough just buy and we'll get moving. If you're on the line, request info and we'll tell you honestly, including if the cheaper option is enough.
How do payments work?
Two ways. Buy your package directly from the pricing section and we'll email you within one business day to get started, or request info first, have a free consult, and we'll send you a payment link afterwards. Either way it's one payment by card, with no subscription, no recurring charges, and no upsell call. Paying in full is covered by the refund guarantee, so if the work isn't right you get all of it back, not half.
Do you work with people outside the US?
Yes. Calls run over video, and we write for the US, UK, Canadian, and EU markets. Formatting conventions differ by country and we'll match whichever market you're applying into.
Is my information confidential?
Yes. Nothing you share is published, sold, or used in marketing. The before/after examples on this page are anonymized and shared only with explicit written permission from those clients.
Get started
Get an honest read on your resume
Send it over and you'll have a reply within one business day: what's holding it back, and which package fits. Already decided? Buy directly from the pricing above.
Already know what you need?
Skip the back and forth. Fill in the discovery questionnaire and we can start writing.
- One bullet rewritten free, so you can judge the work
- Free 15-minute consult, no obligation
- Reply within one business day
- Prefer email? hello@shortlistresumes.com