Resume Critic

Resume Critic

A resume review framework that runs the resume through 5 independent critics with different hiring lenses, has them peer-review each other anonymously, then synthesizes everything into a sharp, actionable verdict.

When to Use

Use this skill when the user wants judgment, critique, prioritization, or interview-readiness feedback on a resume for a specific target job.

Good uses:

• "Review my resume for product manager roles."
• "Critique this resume for this Staff Backend Engineer job description."
• "Is this resume ATS-friendly?"
• "Critique this resume against this job description."
• "What are the weakest bullets on this resume?"
• "Tell me if this resume is interview-ready."

Bad uses:

• "Write my resume from scratch." (creation task)
• "Fix grammar only." (single-pass editing task)
• "Summarize my work history." (processing task)
• "Review my resume with no target job at all." (insufficient targeting)

If the user asks for critique and rewrites together, do the critique first. Keep the criticism distinct from any later rewrite work. This skill requires either:

• a full job description, or
• a concrete job title plus enough context to infer the target lane

If neither exists, ask for one before proceeding.

The Five Critics

Each critic looks at the same resume from a different angle. They should disagree in useful ways.

1. The ATS Screener

Evaluates keyword alignment, role targeting, scanability, section labeling, formatting risk, and whether the resume is likely to parse well in applicant tracking systems.

2. The Hiring Manager

Judges whether the candidate sounds relevant, credible, impactful, and worth interviewing. Cares about ownership, scope, outcomes, judgment, and role fit.

3. The Recruiter

Reviews top-level clarity and marketability. Focuses on whether the story makes sense in 15-30 seconds, whether the positioning is coherent, and whether the candidate is easy to place.

4. The Achievement Editor

Pushes for stronger bullets. Looks for weak verbs, vague responsibilities, missing metrics, buried wins, repetition, filler, and missed compression opportunities.

5. The Skeptic

Assumes the resume is overselling, underspecified, or hiding weaknesses. Flags vague claims, unsupported seniority signals, suspicious jumps, jargon, and bullets that sound impressive without proving anything.

Why these five: Three useful tensions:

• ATS Screener vs Hiring Manager (machine fit vs human persuasion)
• Recruiter vs Skeptic (polish vs credibility)
• Achievement Editor vs everyone else (line-level strength vs overall positioning)

Workflow

Step 1: Context Enrichment & Framing

Before critiquing, scan the workspace for relevant context:

• The resume file the user referenced
• The target job description, or at minimum the concrete job title
• Supporting docs such as LinkedIn/about notes, portfolio summaries, or prior resume versions
• Previous critique transcripts if they exist

Use quick reads only. Do not spend more than 30 seconds gathering context.

Frame the review with:

1. The exact job description being audited against, or the exact job title if no full JD exists
2. Candidate level and domain, if inferable
3. Whether the resume is generic or tailored
4. What the user wants most: ATS feedback, brutal critique, targeting, bullet quality, interview readiness, or another angle
5. What is at stake: job search quality, application conversion, or readiness for a specific role

If the target job description or job title is missing, ask ONE clarifying question and do not proceed until it is provided. The framed brief must always begin with:

• This resume was audited for: [full job title]
• Job description source: [pasted JD | linked JD | inferred from user-provided title only]

If only a job title is available, explicitly state that the audit is weaker because it is title-based rather than JD-based.

Step 2: Convene the Critics (5 Sub-agents in Parallel)

Spawn all 5 critics simultaneously. Each gets:

Sub-agent prompt:

You are [Critic Name] on a Resume Critic panel.

Your reviewing style: [critic description from above]

A user has submitted this resume for critique:
---
[framed review brief]

[resume text]
---

[Required target job description or job title]

Respond only from your perspective. Be direct, specific, and evidence-based. Do not try to be balanced. The other critics will cover the other angles.

Requirements:
- Cite concrete resume evidence whenever possible
- Call out what is working and what is weak
- Prioritize the highest-leverage issues
- If you criticize a line or section, explain why it fails

Keep your response between 180-320 words. No preamble.

Step 3: Peer Review (5 Sub-agents in Parallel)

Collect all 5 responses. Anonymize them as Response A through E and randomize the mapping.

Spawn 5 reviewer sub-agents. Each sees all 5 anonymized critiques and answers:

1. Which critique is the most actionable and why?
2. Which critique over-indexes on its specialty and what does it miss?
3. What did all 5 critiques miss that the panel should still consider?

Reviewer prompt:

You are reviewing the outputs of a Resume Critic panel. Five critics independently reviewed this resume:
---
[framed review brief]
---

Here are their anonymized responses:

**Response A:**
[response]

**Response B:**
[response]

**Response C:**
[response]

**Response D:**
[response]

**Response E:**
[response]

Answer these three questions. Be specific and reference responses by letter.
1. Which critique is the most actionable? Why?
2. Which critique over-indexes on its specialty? What does it miss?
3. What did all five critiques miss that the panel should still consider?

Keep your review under 220 words. Be direct.

Step 4: Editor-in-Chief Synthesis

One agent gets the original request, the framed brief, all 5 critic responses with names restored, and all 5 peer reviews.

Synthesis prompt:

You are the Editor-in-Chief of a Resume Critic panel. Your job is to synthesize the work of 5 critics and their peer reviews into a final verdict.

The review brief:
---
[framed review brief]
---

CRITIC RESPONSES:

**The ATS Screener:**
[response]

**The Hiring Manager:**
[response]

**The Recruiter:**
[response]

**The Achievement Editor:**
[response]

**The Skeptic:**
[response]

PEER REVIEWS:
[all 5 peer reviews]

Produce the verdict using this exact structure:

## What Is Working
[Signals that multiple critics independently found credible or effective.]

## What Is Hurting The Resume
[Highest-severity weaknesses. Prioritize what is suppressing interviews.]

## Where The Critics Disagree
[Real disagreements in emphasis or interpretation.]

## Blind Spots The Panel Caught
[Insights that emerged through peer review rather than the initial critiques.]

## Interview-Readiness Verdict
[A direct judgment: not ready, close but not ready, or ready. Explain why.]

## Top 5 Fixes
[Five concrete changes in priority order.]

## The One Thing To Fix First
[One edit to make immediately. Not a list.]

Be direct. Do not hedge. The point is to help the user improve the resume fast.

Step 5: Generate HTML Report

Create resume-critic-report-[timestamp].html with inline CSS. Structure:

1. The resume context and target role at the top
2. A clearly labeled banner that says This resume was audited for: [job title]
3. A clearly labeled section that says Job description audited against: followed by the JD text or a note that only a job title was provided
4. The interview-readiness verdict prominently displayed
5. A severity-ranked issues panel
6. A simple visual showing where critics aligned or diverged
7. Collapsible sections for each critic's full response
8. A collapsible section for peer review highlights
9. A footer with timestamp

Style: clean white background, subtle borders, high legibility, professional review document look.

Open the HTML file after generating it.

Step 6: Save Transcript

Save resume-critic-transcript-[timestamp].md with:

• Original user request
• Framed review brief
• Resume source reference
• All 5 critic responses
• All 5 peer reviews, including the anonymization mapping
• Final synthesis

Output Files

Every session produces:

resume-critic-report-[timestamp].html      # visual report for scanning
resume-critic-transcript-[timestamp].md    # full transcript for reference

Important Rules

• Always run all 5 critics in parallel.
• Always anonymize responses for peer review.
• Do not let the critics drift into rewriting the full resume unless the user explicitly asks for rewrite help afterward.
• Every critique must be tied to concrete evidence from the resume, not generic resume advice.
• Always require a target job description or at least a concrete job title before starting.
• Always state explicitly which job description or title the resume was audited for.
• Prioritize interview conversion over style preferences.
• Judge the resume against the provided job target explicitly.
• The final verdict must be decisive, not vague.
• Report every weakness you find. A soft critique sends the user into interviews unprepared. It is better to over-flag than to rationalize away a concern as "minor."

Example Session

User: "Critique my resume for senior product manager roles at B2B SaaS companies. Be brutal."

The ATS Screener: "Your resume says 'Product Lead' and 'Growth Strategy' but never uses the actual target language employers filter on, like roadmap ownership, cross-functional leadership, product discovery, experimentation, or stakeholder management..."

The Hiring Manager: "I can tell you've been adjacent to product, but I cannot yet tell that you've owned a product business. The bullets describe participation and support more often than hard decisions, tradeoffs, or shipped outcomes..."

The Recruiter: "This resume takes too long to decode. In the first screen, I should know target role, seniority band, and domain. Right now the positioning is broad enough that I would not know which req to map you to..."

The Achievement Editor: "Too many bullets are job-description bullets. 'Led', 'managed', and 'supported' appear without the result. Rewrite toward business impact and scope..."

The Skeptic: "Several claims sound inflated because they skip evidence. If you say 'drove strategy' or 'owned growth', show the team size, product surface, KPI movement, or actual decision authority..."

Editor-in-Chief Verdict:

What is working: The experience appears relevant to product-adjacent work, and multiple critics found enough signal to believe the candidate has useful operating experience.

What is hurting the resume: The document does not yet prove senior PM ownership. It reads broad, partially generic, and too light on decision authority plus measurable outcomes.

Where the critics disagree: The ATS Screener thinks targeting is the main problem; the Skeptic thinks credibility is. Both matter, but credibility is the more dangerous failure.

Blind spots the panel caught: Peer review surfaced that the resume may be structurally fine yet still underperform because the opening summary fails to anchor a target narrative.

Interview-readiness verdict: Close but not ready. There is enough relevant experience here, but not enough proof to justify senior PM interviews.

Top 5 fixes: Reframe the headline, rewrite the most important bullets around impact, make ownership explicit, tailor keywords to PM roles, and remove low-signal filler.

The one thing to fix first: Rewrite the top third of the resume so a recruiter can tell within 15 seconds that you are targeting senior B2B SaaS product roles.