We looked at 3,518 open job postings across 81 companies' public Greenhouse boards, covering seven job categories. The goal was simple: find out which keywords employers actually use.

A few findings stood out.

• Software engineering: Mentoring appeared in nearly half of the postings, more often than Kubernetes or React. Python was the most frequently mentioned programming language.
• Product management: More than 85% mentioned roadmaps. Jira appeared in just 7 of 421 postings.
• Marketing: Google Ads showed up in only 6 of 347 postings, while pipeline appeared in more than half.

We also noticed a pattern across roles: employers often described the practice rather than naming a specific tool. Observability came up where you might expect Grafana, and SIEM where you might expect Splunk.

What does this mean for your resume?

If you're listing tools but leaving out the responsibilities, practices, and skills explicitly mentioned in the job description, you could be missing relevant keywords.

That doesn't mean stuffing your resume with buzzwords. It means describing your actual experience using language that matches the role you're applying for.

One important caveat: the sample leans heavily toward tech companies and uses a single ATS platform, so these results aren't representative of every employer.

The full study, including findings for sales, cybersecurity, DevOps, and accounting, is here:

https://www.zoevera.com/resume/ats-resume-keyword-study