Keynisha Adebisi

Talent Acquisition Lead - Ex Microsoft Tech Recruiter

Former Microsoft Technical Recruiter
13 Years in Tech Recruiting
Hired for Microsoft, Amex & MongoDB

Keynisha Adebisi has spent 13 years on the hiring side of the table at some of the most competitive employers in tech. As a Technical Recruiter at Microsoft, she delivered 70+ engineering hires a year across six organizations in Cloud and AI at a 97% close rate, and led a diversity hiring overhaul recognized for the most diverse interview pipelines on her team. At American Express she filled 60+ requisitions a year at a 97% offer acceptance rate, and at MongoDB she recruited some of the hardest-to-find engineers in the industry, specialists in database kernels and distributed systems. Earlier she built the recruiting function from scratch at video-tech startup eko and recruited across eight engineering organizations at Xandr (formerly AppNexus) through its AT&T acquisition. Today Keynisha runs Forward Fluent, a fractional talent acquisition consultancy for founder-led startups and Web3 teams like Wormhole Foundation, and Tech Resume Help, where she writes ATS-optimized resumes for software engineers, data scientists, and product managers. She holds a BA in Finance from Johnson & Wales University and a Principles of HR Success certificate from Cornell University. She is based in Brooklyn.

Facts

She knows what a recruiter looks for in the first eight seconds of a resume scan because she screened thousands of them at Microsoft, American Express, and MongoDB, and sat in the debriefs where offers were decided.

At Microsoft she made 70+ engineering hires per year at a 97% close rate; at American Express, 60+ per year at a 97% offer acceptance rate.

She now rewrites resumes for the exact roles she used to hire for: software engineers, data scientists, product managers, and engineering managers, with ATS optimization based on real screening criteria.

Experience

Founder, Talent Acquisition Lead
2023 - Present
Forward Fluent / Tech Resume Help
Technical Recruiter, Engineering TA
2021 - 2023
Microsoft
Senior Technical Recruiter
2020 - 2021
MongoDB
Sr. Manager, Talent Acquisition
2020 - 2020
eko
Senior Technical Recruiter
2018 - 2019
Xandr (AppNexus)
Technical Recruiter, Global TA
2015 - 2018
American Express

Education

BA in Finance and Financial Management Services
Johnson & Wales University

All Reviews

The first thing I look for in a resume is readability and relevance. Does this look like an actual resume? Some people try to reinvent the wheel with the visual layout, and they rarely get past a hiring manager screen. A resume that reads as too busy or too cutesy is a red flag, and it usually covers for a lack of relevant skills. My eyes go to the headline and the summary first. ATS tools highlight the relevant keywords from the search string, and I've used keyword highlight tools while screening. If the screen lights up like a Christmas tree, I slow down and read more. The Minimalist templat…

These make the most visual sense to me, though I might be old school about it. I want to flag the headshot question here. More photos are showing up on resumes, and that's generally not done in the United States, largely because of our history of bias and the labor laws that came out of it. I've worked with a hiring manager who asked for specific ethnicities because he believed they were better at math, and we had to strip names off resumes to keep candidates from getting cut at the review stage. So no, I'm not a fan of headshots on resumes. They're cute, I guess. The headline and summary spac…

I skim cover letters. I'm looking for whatever connects to the role, and that's about it. Honestly, the real juice is in the resume. Most recruiters I know work the same way, so when I coach job seekers I tell them to write a cover letter when it actually counts. A referral, a role they're genuinely targeting, a posting that asks for one. Writing a fresh one for every application burns time they should spend tailoring the resume instead. And when they do write one, we spend the coaching time on what it says, not how it looks. A cover letter lives or dies on content. Where these templates earn …

Keynisha Adebisi

Facts

She knows what a recruiter looks for in the first eight seconds of a resume scan because she screened thousands of them at Microsoft, American Express, and MongoDB, and sat in the debriefs where offers were decided.

At Microsoft she made 70+ engineering hires per year at a 97% close rate; at American Express, 60+ per year at a 97% offer acceptance rate.

She now rewrites resumes for the exact roles she used to hire for: software engineers, data scientists, product managers, and engineering managers, with ATS optimization based on real screening criteria.

Experience

Founder, Talent Acquisition Lead

Technical Recruiter, Engineering TA

Senior Technical Recruiter

Sr. Manager, Talent Acquisition

Senior Technical Recruiter

Technical Recruiter, Global TA

Education

BA in Finance and Financial Management Services

All Reviews

Everything you need to land the job!

All Reviews

Everything you need to land the job!