You’ve found a job that looks promising, and the deadline is coming up fast. Let’s face it, you might be tempted to make a couple of quick changes to your resume, attach the file, hit “send”, and move on.
That’s understandable. Job searching is tiring, especially if you’ve been applying for a while without much response. Sending off ten applications can feel more productive than spending the same amount of time on two or three that you’ve put more thought into.
But more applications are not automatically better applications. Before you send the next one, take a few minutes to run through these five checks.
1. Do you actually want this job?
This may sound like an odd place to start, but after you’ve been searching for a while, “I want this job” can quietly become “I would really like somebody to hire me.”
Sometimes you simply need a paycheque, and there may not be much room to be selective. That reality matters. But when you do have some choice, it’s worth asking whether you actually want this particular job.
Go back to the posting once the initial excitement has worn off a little. Does the work still interest you? Does the salary meet your needs? Did you skim past anything the first time that matters now?
A role that initially sounded flexible, for example, may actually require more time in the office than you expected.
For nonprofit job seekers, an interest in the organization’s mission can complicate things too. You may really believe in its work and still decide the job itself isn’t right for you. A compelling cause does not make an unmanageable workload easier to carry, and it won’t make the salary stretch further at the end of the month.
If something gives you pause now, pay attention to it.
2. Can someone quickly understand why you’re a good fit for the role?
Look at the posting alongside your resume and check whether your most relevant experience is easy to spot.
When employers start shortlisting applications, they’re trying to answer a fairly basic question: does this person appear to have the experience we need?
A few things are worth checking on your resume:
- Are the skills or experience the employer emphasizes easy to find?
- Is anything important buried inside vague wording or a broad job description?
- Where the employer’s terminology genuinely matches your experience, are you using it?
If volunteer management is a major part of the role and you’ve managed volunteers, don’t let that disappear inside a broad description of community engagement. If grant writing is important, make sure that experience is clearly named rather than tucked into a more general description of your work.
This matters in nonprofit careers, where relevant experience can come from a lot of different places. You may have built skills in another sector or through volunteering, and one nonprofit job title can cover a surprisingly wide range of work.
You don’t need to mirror the posting or have every preferred qualification. Just make the connection between your experience and the role clear. If the posting says “donor stewardship” and that language accurately describes your work, use it.
3. Are your achievements getting lost in a list of job duties?
A resume shouldn’t read like a collection of old job descriptions. Responsibilities tell an employer what you were expected to do. Achievements show what happened when you actually did it.
Where you can, give the reader some sense of scale or outcome. If you managed a $5 million fundraising target and hit it, say that. Without quantifying it, “managed annual fundraising campaign” could mean almost anything.
As you review your resume, look for places where you can:
- show the size or scope of the work
- point to a result or change you helped bring about
- move a particularly relevant achievement higher so it doesn’t get buried
Not everything can be neatly quantified, and that’s okay. You may not have access to the numbers anymore, or the work itself may never have been measured that way. In those cases, think about what changed because of your involvement rather than stopping at the task itself.
Using numbers
Before:
Managed the annual fundraising campaign.
After:
Managed an annual fundraising campaign with a $5 million target and successfully met the organization’s fundraising goal for the year.
Without numbers
Before:
Coordinated the volunteer onboarding process.
After:
Revamped the volunteer onboarding process to make it clearer and easier to navigate, reducing confusion for new volunteers and creating a smoother start for the team supporting them.
4. Is your cover letter making your case?
Use your cover letter to explain what the employer may not understand from your resume alone.
Maybe you’re moving into the nonprofit sector after years somewhere else, or your background looks unusual for the role until you explain the connection. You can also use the letter to draw attention to experience that matters most for this particular job.
For nonprofit applications, don’t feel pressured to prove how deeply you care about the organization’s mission. If that genuinely drew you to the role, say so. But you don’t need a sweeping declaration of devotion. Tell them what caught your attention and why your experience makes sense for the position.
Before you send it, ask yourself:
- Does this letter add something useful that isn’t obvious from my resume?
- Does it sound like it was written for this job?
- Does it help explain why my experience fits the role?
If the answer is yes, it’s probably doing its job.
5. Give everything one last check
By this stage, you may have read the posting so many times that the words are starting to blur together. Read the application instructions once more anyway.
Organizations don’t all hire the same way, so make sure you’re applying the way the employer asked.
Before you send it, check that:
- you have the right versions of your resume and cover letter
- the organization name and job title are correct
- your contact information is up to date
- you’ve included everything the employer requested
- your file names make sense to someone other than you
Pro tip: avoid any version of Resume_FINAL_final2_revised.docx.
If AI helped with your resume or cover letter, give that material one more close read. It can be useful when you’re tired or stuck, but it can also exaggerate your experience or smooth your writing into something that barely sounds like you.
Make sure every claim is accurate and that you’d be comfortable explaining it in an interview. If you suddenly find yourself “leveraging strategic synergies to drive transformative outcomes,” something has probably gone awry.
At that point, you really are ready to hit “send.”
Job searching can play havoc with your confidence because there is so much you never get to see or control once an application leaves your hands. What you can control is whether your application represents your experience clearly and gives the employer a good reason to take a closer look.
Once you’ve done that, hit “send” and let this one go.
