Outcomes:

• Understanding What Makes a Good Resume: What are the key components that make a resume effective and appealing?
• Tips and Tricks: How can you make your resume stand out in the crowd?
• Avoiding Common Mistakes: What should you absolutely avoid including in your resume?

The Analogy: Resume as a Google Search Results Page

A Strange but Fascinating Connection

Think of your resume as "your personal landing page" - a sales page selling you to the hiring company. But let's dive deeper and see how a software engineer's resume is much like a Google search results page.

Why Google's Search Page?

• Efficiency and Relevance: Google's main goal is to present information in a clean, succinct, and ordered manner, helping users find relevant solutions. The same principles apply to your resume.
• Recruiters' Objectives Align: Just like Google's users, recruiters are looking for better, more relevant candidates for their roles. Your resume should minimize their time spent reviewing, just like a Google search result page.

How to Make Your Resume Google-like?

1. Clean Presentation: Just as Google organizes information clearly, your resume should have a clean layout with well-defined sections.
2. Relevant Information First: Highlight your most relevant skills and experiences at the top, just like Google puts the most pertinent results first.
3. Avoid Clutter: Google doesn’t overwhelm users with unnecessary details. Your resume shouldn't either. Keep it concise.

Pagination and Your Resume: The One-Page Philosophy

The Google Example: Searching for "Cat"

When you search for "cat" on Google, you don't get thousands of results all at once. Instead, you get:

• Limited Results: Google neatly shows you 10 results at a time.
• Why Limited?:
  • Time Constraints: Users are limited on time.
  • Relevance: Most users won't go beyond the initial 10 results.

Applying the Google Approach to Your Resume

Just like Google's search results, your resume should adhere to the concept of a "one pager." Here's why:

1. Keep It Relevant:
   • Unless You're Highly Experienced: If you have less than 20 years of experience, a single page is enough.
   • Avoid Overwhelming the Reader: Recruiters often have hundreds of resumes to review; don't drown them in pages.
   • Stay Focused: Multiple pages can lead to irrelevant or even detrimental information creeping in.
   • First Page Focus: Anything after the first page has a small chance of being read, so make that first page count.

Conclusion: Crafting the Perfect One-Page Resume

• Think Like Google: Be selective and prioritize the most relevant information.
• Embrace the One-Page Philosophy: Don't spread yourself thin across multiple pages.
• Make Every Word Count: Be concise, and make sure every word on that page helps sell you as the ideal candidate.

SEO Your Resume: Using Keywords Effectively

Optimizing Resumes for Search: An Overlooked Strategy

Many people overlook the importance of optimizing their resume for search, even though most companies use Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) like Taleo, Greenhouse, or SmartRecruiter. These platforms allow recruiters to filter resumes for specific keywords.

Why SEO Your Resume?

• Align with Job Roles: Using keywords like "Senior Javascript Engineer" or "Frontend Expert" aligns your resume with specific roles.
• Highlight What Matters: By using keywords from the job posting, you ensure that you're focusing on what the hiring manager cares about.

How to SEO Your Resume?

1. Use Tools to Optimize: Websites like Jobscan can help you tailor your resume by including keywords from job postings.
2. Analyze the Job Description:
   • Identify Buzzwords: Look for specific terms or uncommon words in the job description.
   • Weave Them into Your Resume: Incorporate these words where they make sense and are relevant to your experience.

Conclusion: Make Your Resume Search-Friendly

• Think Like a Search Engine: Use the principles of SEO to make your resume searchable and aligned with the job you're targeting.
• Be Authentic: While keywords are important, make sure they accurately reflect your skills and experiences. Don't overstuff your resume with buzzwords.
• Stand Out in the ATS: By optimizing your resume with relevant keywords, you increase the chances of your resume being noticed in an ATS, leading you one step closer to that dream job.

Sort By Relevance (Ordering Matters)

This one is easy, but often missed. Your resume sections should be most relevant to least relevant, no exceptions.

What does this mean?

If you are a recent bootcamp grad, you likely don't have an education section that is very relevant to being a software engineer-- so put it at the bottom. However, you've just been coding at a bootcamp for the last 3 months, so you'll probably have tons of projects and code samples-- stick this as high up as possible!

Recruiters typically spend 6-10 seconds on your resume, and you can bet they're going from top-down. Use this to your advantage, and place the important stuff higher.

This also means that for large gaps in roles, you'll want to tailor your explanation to the role. If it was due to unemployment, list any open source or personal work done during that time period to demonstrate you continued to hone your skills.

Understanding the Need for Specificity

Companies, teams, or recruiters often have very precise requirements. They're not just looking for a "Ruby developer"; they want to know exactly what you can do with Ruby.

Why Be Specific?

• Align with the Needs: Being specific helps you match the precise needs and expectations of the recruiter.
• Stand Out from the Crowd: Your specific skills can set you apart from other candidates who may have a more general understanding of the technology.
• Show Your Depth of Knowledge: By detailing your expertise, you demonstrate not only your skills but also your commitment to mastering your craft.

How to Be Specific in Your Resume?

1. Avoid General Statements: Instead of just saying "I know Ruby," delve into what exactly you can do with Ruby.
2. Highlight Different Levels of Expertise:
   • Entry Level: For example, some Ruby developers may only know how to use Rails scaffolding to build an app.
   • Advanced Level: Others may have the expertise to build Rails and ActiveRecord themselves.
3. Tailor to the Job Description: If the job requires specific skills or technologies, make sure to emphasize those in your resume.

Examples of Specific Statements:

• General: "I have experience with Ruby."
• Specific: "I have experience in building custom Rails applications, including developing ActiveRecord components."

Embrace the Niche

• Showcase Your Unique Skills: Your resume should reflect the depth and uniqueness of your skillset.
• Align with the Job: By going as niche as possible, you ensure that your resume resonates with the specific needs of the role you're applying for.
• Build Credibility: Specificity builds trust and credibility, showing that you're not just knowledgeable but an expert in your field.

Summarize The Key Bits (Maximize Relevant Bits and Minimize Others)

If you look at the descriptions below search results, you'll notice that Google will bold words and keywords that are more relevant. Do the same with your bullets, both literally and figuratively. This is also why metrics are important-- they are a confirmation that you've done something useful. In other words, this:

• Worked on React.js frontend with Canvas elements
• Implemented filtering

can become:

• Built and designed user interface in React.js with reusable components that expedited frontend development across team by 15% as measured by JIRA.
• Developed scalable system of filters by implementing ElasticSearch integration.
• Utilized Canvas elements across the page and taught workflow to junior engineers.

Formatting Matters (Minimalistic and Easy to Read)

The Google search results pages are very clean, minimalistic, and linear. Your resume should be the same way.

There's millions of templates out there so I won't go into too much detail. The most important thing is to keep it simple and ask yourself:

1. Is this easy on the eyes or is it pretty-text heavy without a lot of clean divisions?
2. Can this be skimmed well in about 10 seconds? If not, what's preventing it?
3. Do I know what's important and what's not?
4. Does this format help the person reading it understand my value proposition?

No Need For a Global Summary (Don't Have a Summary/Objective Section)

The vast majority of summary/objective sections are too similar to provide any additional value. They often sound generic:

"Mid-level software engineer with experience in this backend language and this frontend language, and this database. I have 5-25 years of experience. I'm passionate and I'm looking for a new challenge!"

All of that can be gleamed from the rest of your resume and simply takes up space that you could be using to express relevancy and why you're what they're looking for. You can demonstrate this in your job descriptions and the skills section.

The only exception to this is if it's hard to tell from your experience what your actual strengths are. You may have been hired in as a frontend guy but ended up working a lot on the database. Your last title was still "Frontend Engineer", but you are seeking more full-stack roles.

In this case, it makes sense to have a very brief objective section that uses the title you believe your skills are closest to: "I am a full-stack engineer with 2 years of in React.js and Django experience."

Searches Related To... (Do Have a Skills Section)

Notice how at the bottom, Google has a "Searches related to ____" section? This is to help people with recommendations on how they could format their queries a bit better. They can also just click to get even more specific.

A Skills section is similar. It's all about SEO-- you are maximizing the odds of an automated resume scanner or recruiter getting a match for the terms they were looking for. It's even better if you add proficiency or years. As mentioned before, "3+ years Angular and React experience on the growth team" is much more specific than "Javascript".

As opposed to an Objective section, a Skills section is a rapid-fire way for the person reading it to check off what they need. Again, it's all about making it easy for the person to select you. If your skills are that irrelevant, perhaps it's not a good fit, and you'd be better off looking for roles closer to your past experience.

One Pager Cheat Sheet

• This lesson covers resume writing, teaching how to make your resume stand out, what a good resume entails and what NOT to put on it, while comparing it to a Google search results page.
• Creating a one page resume is essential for the reader to quickly get your key information, and will significantly increase the chances of them not being distracted by anything else.
• Boldly ensure your resume is optimized for search by using keywords from job postings and weaving them in where appropriate.
• Prioritize the most relevant parts of your resume to the role while placing less relevant topics towards the bottom to create an efficient and effective read for recruiters.
• You should go as niche as possible when going over your skillset to showcase your specific experience and expertise.
• By using relevant keywords and metrics to back it up, you can maximize the impact of your bullet points in your descriptions.
• Keep your resume minimalistic, easy to read, and linear, so that important points can be quickly and easily understood.
• There is usually no need to include a Global Summary/Objective section in a resume, as it is often generic and can be easily inferred from the rest of the resume; the only exception is when the applicant wants to explicitly clarify their most 'relevant' title.
• Adding a Skills section to your resume will increase the odds of an automated scanner or recruiter finding a match for the right job and make it easier for the reader to select you.