So you want a job at Google, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, etc. You’re all prepared to apply, you have your best game face on, but for some reason your resume gets rejected without even a phone interview. What gives? What can you do to really make your resume stand out?
Know the recruitment process
This is a bit of a meta-cheat, but if you have some contact or way in, knowing what will happen to your resume is a great first step. Will it be read by a human? Processed by machine? Sent to a vendor? If you can find this out then you can stop reading now, as you should be able to figure out how to tune your resume accordingly.
Read the job description
As Twitterers pointed out, anyone reading an article like this is not the target audience, but still. Seriously. Read the job description.
If you’re applying to a large corporation that has more than its fair share of job applications a year, you can pretty much guarantee they will get plenty of applications that tick off most of the boxes. You need to do the same or you’ll be insta-discarded.
Must-haves
If the job description says “3 to 5 years of experience“, you should have 3 to 5 years of experience – and it should be obvious from your resume. If it says “less than 3 years”, don’t apply if you have 10. Not only will you get binned, but the job will bore you – find a position that is right for you instead.
Most technical jobs tend to require a Computer Science or related degree. In a company deluged by job applications, this is not negotiable. You either need to have the degree (and again, make it obvious on the resume), or make it blindingly obvious that you have the right skills regardless. Again, this is also for your benefit – you’ll be interviewed as if you have a CS degree regardless. If you can’t answer questions on O-notation, databases, the network stack, write pseudocode, etc – you’ll really struggle.
Nice-to-haves/Ideal candidate
These are interesting. Some of them are more nice-to-have than others; sometimes you’ll need a certain number, but not all, of them to get through screening. Again, make it blindingly obvious that you speak another language fluently, that you have an entrepreneurial streak, that you were a leader in college, etc.
Once you figure out how to reverse engineer a job description it’s actually pretty easy. If you’re struggling, imagine the interview for this job, with the dullest, bluntest questions available. Job req: “Help define product vision and strategy”. Question: “When in your career have you defined the vision and strategy for a product?” Remember product isn’t necessarily something tangible, or even software, though it helps. It can mean a feature, or even a student society, a class project… Once you answer the question, work your resume to highlight that and point out (briefly) how you did it.
Often I leave this for the cover letter, but when you’re applying to a big company, that might not get read. (Or you might not get a chance to include one.) So customise your resume – but don’t lie. You will be found out.
Be easy to read and scan
No microscopic text.
No over-designed resume that’s impossible to read when converted to plaintext. Run a converter and see if the result is at all legible.
No .doc or .docx! Unless you’re applying to Microsoft..
No crazy verbose words when you can use shorter ones.
No buzzword bingo.
Cut the crap
No mission statement. No “What I am looking for at the moment is a full time job”. You just applied for one, it’s obvious.
No list of software skills and technologies you can use. Especially if it includes Microsoft Office and Frontpage. (Oh, unless you’re applying to Microsoft ;))
No irrelevant statistics such as citizenship, drivers’ license, nationality, marital status, ethnicity, even age. Unless any of them are relevant to the job. Recruiters won’t pay attention to any of this due to discrimination laws.
No leading summary, most people will skip right over it. Your experience and qualifications should speak for themselves.
Stuff like dean’s list, sorority head, prom queen, MVP, etc. can be useful if it’s related to the job. If they are looking for leadership, academic excellence, self-motivation, etc, then do mention you were an Olympic rower or high school track and field champion – just don’t make a huge thing of it. If you’ve travelled extensively, lived in another country, done something weird, keep it in – a bit of flavour and personality can actually help, especially with a well-rounded job or a new grad. For a very deeply niched job like database optimisation analyst, you probably want to focus your resume more on why you are awesome at being a database optimisation analyst.
Make the screener want to meet you
This is a less tangible, actionable thing, but get your resume to a bunch of friends and see if it really feels like ‘you’. Make the person screening the resume really feel a spark of humanity and personality, make them want to meet you, to discuss something on your resume. Give the interviewers something fun to talk about. If you don’t have anything fun, if you’ve literally never done anything but work, run a marathon for charity.
Startups and resumes
Ignore everything I just said.
Well, depending on the startup. Somewhere like Twitter, technically a startup, probably receives more resumes than I have brain cells.
If it’s a smallish company, you will need to be a good culture fit, and one of the crucial ways to figure that out is to get to know the company through connections, events and other means – not just blindly resume-bomb them.
If you can’t get to know them first, get to know their product, and get right inside the job description. Things might be a bit more flexible than with a BigCo; you might not have a CS degree, but a ton of technical experience in the right field. Someone is going to be reading your resume and cover letter fairly closely and will match what the job is inside their head with what you say you are good at. So get inside the job yourself, think through what it would involve, and why you would rock at it; why you love the product, and why your previous experience showcases exactly why you’d be an awesome employee.
So many of the CVs I received did none of this, with zero covering letter, and an absolute skill mismatch with the job posting – if it’s a small company running on Python, or Erlang, or Node.js, and your resume screams ‘corporate entrenched Java dev’, you just won’t get any further. A cover letter saying ‘I’ve been stuck in corporate hell but learning Python in my free time’ is an instant phone interview. Key things: personality, culture fit (to me, this means a level of tongue-in-cheek humour, ability to not take self seriously, a questing mind and a no-job-too-small attitude), ability to write comprehensible English.
You can even do some crazy outside the box things which are far more likely to work with a smaller than larger company, though some of the ‘hire me, Google/Twitter/etc’ stunts are kind of fun to watch. Like, if I was applying to a fashion startup, I might send in a resume as a piece of clothing, or for a food startup, a tray of cupcakes. There’s a fine line between being creative and just bribing people, though ;)
Conclusion
Get inside the head of the person reading your resume, whether it’s a software program or the CEO of a startup. Speak to them through it; tick off the boxes they need ticking. The job description is a checklist to work from, and by aligning yourself with it, you become better than 95% of applicants. Just stay honest – if you have to distort the truth to fit the job description, it isn’t the job for you anyway.
Disclaimer: I’m not a recruiter, or a recruitment advisor, or anything. I’ve just been over-exposed to terrible resumes, both from a startup and BigCo standpoint. More than happy to hear other people’s thoughts!