With so many people out of work and many companies struggling due to the pandemic, competition for available jobs is fiercer than ever. Job seekers must often rely on resumes submitted to electronic systems like Indeed or ZipRecruiter, or to a company’s in-house jobs site, without any personal interaction with the company’s HR staff or hiring managers. So it is ever more critical that resumes are structured to meet today’s very different needs in order to stand out and be considered in the job application process. Here are five keys to an effective resume.

Recruiters and companies use cloud-based platforms to manage the large volume of these documents they receive. Excessive formatting and graphics do not work well and result in less accuracy when the resume is parsed, or broken down, by the system. For example, you might break a sentence down into its individual components—noun, verb, adjective, etc.—or, in the case of your resume, the system will look for certain elements that have been programmed into the system to help them weed out unqualified resumes and bring the cream to the top.

Too many words and too many accomplishments listed will raise eyebrows and potentially result in the exact opposite of what a candidate hoped to achieve. As you write, review each sentence you have written and shorten it a least once.