u/C4ptlex

So I spent the last few months watching two guys in my cohort with identical resumes get completely different results during OCR. One was getting ghosted after every coffee chat, while the other was getting fast-tracked to associates. It honestly pissed me off because it wasn't about who was smarter. It was just about friction.

If an alum has to decode your weird resume formatting or drag a story out of you, they’re going to pass. I realized I was making people work too hard to like me, so I spent a weekend fixing the "easy" stuff.

I stopped sending those massive 10-line emails and switched to a clean signature with one calendar link. I simplified my LinkedIn so I actually looked like a professional instead of a sleep-deprived student.

I also stopped oversharing during intros. I cut my "about me" down to 25 seconds max (just the highlights and what I’m looking for).

One thing that helped me get my head straight was going through one of those online career assessments (Coached). Helped me stop second-guessing my own background. It gave me a way to frame my past experience that actually felt natural instead of forced, which made those awkward networking chats way less stressful.

It's frustrating that this stuff matters as much as the actual prep, but seeing the difference in how people reacted once I cleaned up my act was a wake-up call.

So I spent the last few months watching two guys in my cohort with identical resumes get completely different results during OCR. One was getting ghosted after every coffee chat, while the other was getting fast-tracked to associates. It honestly pissed me off because it wasn't about who was smarter. It was just about friction.

If an alum has to decode your weird resume formatting or drag a story out of you, they’re going to pass. I realized I was making people work too hard to like me, so I spent a weekend fixing the "easy" stuff.

I stopped sending those massive 10-line emails and switched to a clean signature with one calendar link. I simplified my LinkedIn so I actually looked like a professional instead of a sleep-deprived student.

I also stopped oversharing during intros. I cut my "about me" down to 25 seconds max (just the highlights and what I’m looking for).

One thing that helped me get my head straight was going through one of those online career assessments (Coached). Helped me stop second-guessing my own background. It gave me a way to frame my past experience that actually felt natural instead of forced, which made those awkward networking chats way less stressful.

It's frustrating that this stuff matters as much as the actual prep, but seeing the difference in how people reacted once I cleaned up my act was a wake-up call.

I did the whole “consulting → SaaS AE” jump earlier this year. First couple months were rough. I thought I had a solid background but it turns out I had no idea how I was coming across.

I was post-MBA, ~4 years in consulting, mostly “growth strategy.” In my head that sounded relevant. In reality, my resume just looked like slides turned into bullet points. No quota, no deals, no anything that felt like sales.

At first I kept blaming the market. Then I started getting interviews and realized the problem was me.

Nobody cared about the firm name as much as I thought. It got me a few recruiter pings, but once I was talking to hiring managers, it was obvious they were trying to figure out if I could actually run a deal. My answers were all “aligned stakeholders” and “drove initiatives.” You could almost feel them losing interest.

I ended up rewriting my resume over and over until it stopped sounding like consulting. Cut most of the strategy language and forced myself to tie everything back to revenue, pipeline, pricing, anything commercial. Even then it took a while to not sound fake.

I was using Google Docs and ChatGPT to clean things up, and I threw it into Resumeworded a few times too. Helped me spot those fluffy, strategy-heavy lines so I could quickly rephrase them to sound more commercial.

Interviews were another wake-up call. My early answers were so abstract it was embarrassing. I’d talk about “complex environments” instead of just saying what actually happened. Had to sit down and basically relearn how to tell my own stories in a way that sounded like deals, not case studies.

I also started treating the job search less like blasting applications and more like keeping track of actual conversations. Way fewer applications, but I knew exactly who I’d talked to and where things stood. Felt a lot more controlled.

There were a couple interviews where I actually prepped way harder than I normally would’ve. Looked at their product, tried to understand who they sell to, even mocked up how I’d pitch it. Those went noticeably better. Less “interview,” more back-and-forth.

Biggest awkward moment every time was explaining why I was leaving consulting. If you say anything generic, it just sounds fake. I had to be pretty direct about wanting to be closer to revenue and execution, otherwise it didn’t land.

End result was around ~80 applications, maybe ~10 real conversations, a few full processes, and 2 offers from smaller SaaS companies.

Honestly the weirdest part is nothing about my actual experience changed. Just how I talked about it. That was basically the whole game.

Anyway, just figured I'd share this here to hopefully help those in the same boat. Good luck!