- Summarize yourself
- Focus on your goal
- Surface your skills upfront
- Include all your relevant skills
- Don't assume your audience knows details
- Don't undersell yourself
- Be aspirational ... and honest
- Be visible where recruiters look
I'll use examples for a full-stack web dev role, but the same ideas apply for other roles and disciplines.
Summarize & Focus
This section can be particularly hard for people with lots of work experience, or those with varied interests. You may think - "I need work - any work". But most employers need someone who can perform specific work, not a jack-of-all-trades. A resume that clearly targets an identifiable role reduces possible confusion about whether you are a fit.
It's ok to have multiple resumes if you want to target multiple roles.
Full-stack software engineer with N years experience delivering high-traffic web applications. Versed in all phases of the software development lifecycle and engineering best practices.
Specifics on skills or experience will come later. Also, you can leave out personal aspirations or interests unrelated to the general role.
Next, a concise summary of your capabilities, relevant to the target role. The first person reviewing your resume likely has little understanding of the position they're filling, other than the job description (JD). The JD will typically have a bulleted list of desired experience & skills, and I find it's useful if you can roughly match those.
First, 4-6 bullets hitting the key requirements for positions of this type. For example:
- N years exp. full-stack web development,
- Hands-on experience developing scalable, cloud-hosted applications
- Strong understanding of computer-science fundamentals,
- Familiar with MVC patterns & object-oriented design
- Familiar with test-driven development (TDD)
- Comfortable working with non-technical stakeholders
Again, no need for technical details, or even specifics on depth of expertise. Obviously, everyone's choice of wording will differ, but a review of typical JD's in your target role will help identify key skill areas and phrasing.
Surface Your Skills
Next, include all skills directly or indirectly relevant to your target role. Look at 10-20 relevant job listings on https://indeed.com to get a sense of what's relevant.
A recruiter only sees resumes that match their search terms (e.g. web developer with REST, JSON, and angular). Your goal with this section is to make sure you're findable by whatever search terms make sense for the recruiter.
A recruiter only sees resumes that match their search terms (e.g. web developer with REST, JSON, and angular). Your goal with this section is to make sure you're findable by whatever search terms make sense for the recruiter.
This section should be separate from your work experience, explicit, and easily scanned. Don't assume readers will look derive these skills from your work experience - they won't.
Include all your skills
Candidates often forget to include many of their skills. If you took a class, compare the curriculum with your resume and surface any relevant terms. Did your class cover MVC design? Object-oriented programming? XML? Why aren't those on your resume?
Don't assume
Candidates often assume recruiters will derive meaning from general terms ("obviously I know REST and JSON if I built web services"). But they won't, so be explicit and verbose.
Don't undersell
Candidates often undersell their capabilities ("I learned SQL in college, but that was just one class a couple of years ago"), worrying that interviewers will fault them for claiming expertise they lack. But you're not making claims here about depth of expertise, and can always have an honest conversation about that if you reach the point of an interview.
In fact, including information about depth of expertise can be counter-productive. It may lead a recruiter to exclude your resume, and has to be updated frequently as you acquire experience.
Be aspirational!
Maybe you've worked mostly with mature technologies (e.g. HTML5 & JQuery), but really want to follow the market where AngularJS or React are popular. It's OK to spend a weekend running through an AngularJS tutorial and then include this on your resume. If and when a recruiter asks, be honest about the depth of your experience. Maybe they need someone with more depth, or maybe you have more than other candidates with no depth.
Be findable
Make sure recruiters can find you wherever they may look by posting on all major job sites - indeed.com, monster.com, dice.com, careerbuilder.com, stackoverflow.com/jobs, etc. Also, touch your resume periodically, since recruiters focus on those that signal a person is looking for work.
Be findable
Make sure recruiters can find you wherever they may look by posting on all major job sites - indeed.com, monster.com, dice.com, careerbuilder.com, stackoverflow.com/jobs, etc. Also, touch your resume periodically, since recruiters focus on those that signal a person is looking for work.
