ResumeAdapter
Industry Guides Index, Updated May 2026

Industry Resume Guides for the 2026 US Job Market

Each guide is anchored on a specific US labor-market shock with primary-sourced data, an ATS translation table built for the industry, and a tactical playbook keyed to the transition. One guide per active transition, not a generic page per sector.

4 industry guides live, 4 sister playbooks under /proof.

By the numbers (sourced): DOGE / FEDERAL TRANSITION

  • 386,826

    Federal workers who departed January 2025 through January 2026, the largest single-year federal exodus on record.

    Source: Fortune (Nov 2025)
  • 96%

    Share of all 2025 job losses in the DC metro area attributable to federal layoffs.

    Source: Brookings Institution
  • Sept 27, 2025

    Date the OPM 2-page resume cap took effect on USAJOBS, ending the multi-page federal resume era.

    Source: OPM / USAJOBS

Definition

What counts as an industry resume guide here

An industry resume guide on ResumeAdapter is a long-form playbook anchored on a single US labor-market transition. Each guide ships with four deliverables: primary-sourced macro data, an ATS translation table for the receiving sector, a terminology crosswalk (GS-grades to corporate titles, federal acronyms to private-sector terms), and a 30-day tactical plan.

We publish one guide per active transition. Sector-specific transitions whose hook is a single employer event or an ATS rather than the industry label live under /proof. The shared hook (clearance, ATS vendor, severance window) is more useful than the sector label.

Adjacent transitions

Sister playbooks under /proof

Anchored on employer events or ATS vendors instead of the industry label.

Different angle?

Layoff events

Recovery playbooks

By role

Resume examples

By role

Cover letter examples

Long-form

Federal keywords guide

FAQ

Frequently asked

An industry resume guide is a long-form playbook anchored on a single US labor-market transition (for example federal-to-private). Each guide ships with primary-sourced macro data, an ATS translation table for the receiving sector, a terminology crosswalk (GS-grades to corporate titles, federal acronyms to private-sector terms), and a tactical 30-day plan.

Four industry guides are live: Federal Resume to Private Sector (for the 386,826 federal workers who exited from January 2025 to January 2026), GS Levels and Pay Scale (what a federal GS grade means and how to write or strip it on a private-sector resume), Military to Federal Resume (claiming veterans' preference and translating a military record for USAJOBS), and Defense and Aerospace Careers. Sector transitions whose hook is a single employer event or an ATS vendor rather than an industry label live under /proof: cleared defense, healthcare RN, Boeing BDS, and big-tech layoffs.

ResumeAdapter publishes a new industry guide only when a US labor-market shock crosses a primary-source threshold (a BLS report, a Challenger Gray release, a public layoff filing). Existing guides are reviewed monthly and refreshed when the underlying data moves materially: new BLS prints, updated layoff counts, ATS vendor changes at named employers. The current refresh date is shown at the top of each guide.

USAJOBS guidance optimizes for federal hiring (specialized experience, KSAs, GS-grades, agency-specific competencies), and since the September 2025 OPM rule most Title 5 USAJOBS resumes are capped at two pages. The federal-to-private guide does the opposite: it teaches you how to translate a federal resume for private-sector ATS systems (Workday, Greenhouse) and map GS-13 or higher to the right corporate title without losing the credential.

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