Wake-up Call

This morning I received a bit of a wake-up call as to why I have not been receiving any callbacks from all these job applications, at least for Millwright jobs. My resume is too intelligent. Do not use words like proficient, or academic achievement. Oh, and DEFINITELY do not have a manager of a hair salon as one of your references.
My dad took my resume into work with him, as they are hiring right now, and had the head of the maintenance department, so is doing the hiring take a look the my resume for me. He had lots of people far more qualified than I applying, so there was no way I'd get the job, but he looked over my resume, and was very critical, and pointed out everything I should change. As a result my cover letter is half the length it was before, and my resume about the same. We'll see if this works for me.