ATS systems score your resume by matching keywords from the job description against your resume text. Missing the right terms means your resume gets ranked lower -- or filtered out entirely -- before a human ever sees it. This cheat sheet gives you 60+ PM keywords and 30+ quantifiable metrics, organized so you can quickly find the right terms for your target role.
Use this alongside the Resume Scorer to check your keyword coverage, and the Resume Bullet Rewriter to weave terms into your experience bullets naturally.
Core PM Keywords (Every Resume)
These terms appear in nearly every PM job description. If your resume is missing more than a few of these, you are leaving points on the table.
Strategy and Planning: product roadmap, product strategy, backlog prioritization, quarterly planning, OKRs, KPIs, north star metric, product vision, go-to-market, competitive analysis
Execution: sprint planning, agile, scrum, user stories, acceptance criteria, release management, cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder management, trade-off decisions
Discovery and Research: user research, customer interviews, usability testing, A/B testing, data analysis, market research, persona development, jobs-to-be-done, hypothesis testing
Delivery and Impact: MVP, product launch, feature adoption, iteration, product-market fit, customer feedback loops, prioritization framework, shipped, launched, scaled
Keywords by PM Type
SaaS PM
These keywords signal experience with subscription software and self-serve models:
MRR, ARR, NPS, churn rate, net revenue retention, onboarding, activation rate, product-led growth (PLG), self-serve, trial conversion, expansion revenue, upsell, feature adoption, in-app engagement, customer health score, usage analytics, pricing model, freemium, time-to-value, customer lifecycle
Growth PM
These terms show you know how to move acquisition, activation, and retention metrics:
acquisition funnel, cohort analysis, funnel optimization, viral loops, referral program, engagement metrics, DAU/MAU ratio, experimentation velocity, conversion rate optimization (CRO), retention curve, growth loops, paywall testing, push notification strategy, lifecycle marketing, attribution modeling, LTV:CAC ratio, channel mix, activation milestones
Technical PM
Use these when targeting platform, infrastructure, or developer-facing roles:
API design, SDK, platform architecture, system design, latency optimization, SLA, uptime, developer experience (DevEx), microservices, event-driven architecture, data pipeline, CI/CD, technical debt, scalability, load testing, monitoring, observability, GraphQL, REST, webhooks, rate limiting, backward compatibility
B2B PM
These terms matter for enterprise and sales-assisted products:
enterprise sales cycle, procurement, compliance (SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA), pipeline acceleration, account management, renewal rate, customer success, multi-tenant, SSO, RBAC, audit logging, SLA management, integration marketplace, admin console, deployment options (cloud/on-prem), buyer persona vs. user persona
AI PM
Use these if you are targeting roles focused on ML-powered products:
machine learning, LLM, model evaluation, prompt engineering, RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), hallucination rate, responsible AI, AI safety, fine-tuning, model latency, token cost, training data, annotation, human-in-the-loop, guardrails, AI ethics review, model monitoring, drift detection, explainability, red teaming
Metrics to Quantify (With Context)
Numbers are what separate a strong PM resume from a generic one. Here are 30+ metrics grouped by category, with guidance on when each one is most effective.
Revenue Metrics
| Metric | When to Use |
|---|---|
| MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) | You directly influenced subscription revenue through pricing, packaging, or feature work |
| ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) | Same as MRR but for annual view -- use whichever your company reported |
| ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) | You increased monetization per account through upsell or pricing changes |
| LTV (Lifetime Value) | You improved retention or expansion revenue, increasing total customer value |
| Revenue impact ($) | Any feature or initiative where you can tie a dollar amount to your work |
Growth Metrics
| Metric | When to Use |
|---|---|
| DAU / MAU | You worked on engagement or activation features that moved daily or monthly active usage |
| DAU/MAU ratio | You improved engagement depth (a ratio above 25% signals strong daily habit) |
| Activation rate | You redesigned onboarding or first-use experience to get more users to their "aha" moment |
| Conversion rate | You optimized any step in a funnel -- signup, trial-to-paid, free-to-premium |
| Signup volume | You owned acquisition channels or referral programs that brought in new users |
| Viral coefficient | You built sharing or referral mechanics that drove organic growth |
Retention Metrics
| Metric | When to Use |
|---|---|
| Churn rate | You reduced customer or revenue churn through product improvements |
| Net Revenue Retention (NRR) | You drove expansion revenue that offset churn -- NRR above 100% means net growth |
| Cohort retention | You improved how specific user groups retained over time (e.g., "Day-30 retention up from 45% to 58%") |
| Reactivation rate | You built win-back flows that brought churned users back |
Efficiency Metrics
| Metric | When to Use |
|---|---|
| LTV:CAC ratio | You improved unit economics by increasing LTV or reducing acquisition cost |
| Payback period | You shortened the time to recoup customer acquisition cost |
| CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) | You reduced acquisition cost through product-led growth or organic channels |
| Support ticket volume | You shipped self-serve features that reduced the load on support teams |
| Time saved | You automated or streamlined a process -- quantify in hours per week or per user |
Product Metrics
| Metric | When to Use |
|---|---|
| Feature adoption rate | You launched a feature and can show what percentage of eligible users adopted it |
| Time-to-value | You reduced the time from signup to first meaningful action |
| NPS (Net Promoter Score) | You improved customer satisfaction through product changes |
| CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) | Similar to NPS but measured at specific touchpoints |
| Task completion rate | You improved usability so more users finished a key workflow |
| Error rate | You reduced bugs, crashes, or failed operations in a user flow |
| Page load time / latency | You improved performance metrics that directly affect user experience |
| A/B test win rate | You ran experiments at scale and can cite your hit rate or total experiments shipped |
How to Use Keywords Effectively
Dropping keywords into a "Skills" section is the bare minimum. ATS systems weight keywords found in your experience bullets more heavily than those in a standalone list. The goal is to weave terms naturally into your achievement statements.
Bad: Keyword Stuffing
Experienced in product roadmap, backlog prioritization, sprint planning,
user research, A/B testing, stakeholder management, OKRs, agile, scrum,
cross-functional leadership, and go-to-market strategy.This reads like a tag cloud. It tells the reader nothing about what you actually did or how well you did it.
Good: Keywords in Context
Owned the product roadmap for the payments team (6 engineers, 2 designers),
using RICE prioritization to sequence 14 features across 3 quarters.
Shipped a new checkout flow that increased conversion from 2.1% to 3.4%,
validated through 8 A/B tests over 10 weeks.Same keywords -- product roadmap, RICE, prioritization, A/B tests, conversion -- but embedded in a real accomplishment with numbers.