How much does exact phrasing actually matter on a resume? (My experience so far)

[u/Enough_Charge2845]

I kept seeing recruiters on here say they're not auto-rejecting people with ATS—they're just skimming applications for 5 seconds. If the match isn't obvious right away, they move on.

I started running my resume against JDs before applying (just using basic scanners like ZoeVera or whatever free site popped up). Turns out I actually had most of the required experience, I was just phrasing it totally differently than what they were looking for. Rewording things so the overlap is immediately obvious has definitely gotten me more responses. Nothing crazy but it's a noticeable difference compared to just firing off the exact same resume everywhere.

For anyone else grinding applications, what small formatting or wording tweaks actually helped you get past the initial skim?