Your resume is your face while looking for a job. HR reviews dozens, if not hundreds of resumes of candidates every day – true Clone Wars in the mail. What can you do so that the resume not only draws the eye, but also fulfills its tasks? Read more below!
The function of a resume is to “sell” you to an employer. That is, to show your skills, education, work experience, etc. If you have experience, then writing a resume is easier. But what if you have a couple of years of university and courses behind you?
HR reviews every resume that comes to mail, in responses on a website or personal messages. The candidate has literally a few minutes to grab attention with his resume and make sure that he is invited for an interview. Ideally, you don’t need to read a resume to understand whether a person is suitable or not. It is logical that if the resume is “raw”, the chances of getting further to the tech lead tend to zero.
Claudia
HR of an IT-company
“It is better spending time on one resume than on 20 HRs who do not understand you”.
WHAT TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHEN BUILDING A CV – GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS
- There is an exact position.
In an ideal scenario, there should be a separate resume for each position, because the stack of tasks and skills may vary. But do not go to the extreme – 10 resumes do not speak about your comprehensive development, but about the fact that you do not know what you want. Also, recruiters often put keywords in the filter, as a result, those who have a specific position or similar words get into the search lists.
- Contains only relevant experience.
The function of a resume is to show that you are suitable for a particular position. If you’ve worked as a nanny, then as a dog-sitter, then for a couple of months at a coffee shop, and then as a research assistant, consider which of these items really fit the job you want. Do you have absolutely no experience applicable to the desired position? Then the next question is how can you apply the skills you already have? Maybe working in a coffee shop taught you how to approach people with different personalities, or your experience as a babysitter made you a god of time management and stress tolerance. If you already have relevant experience for the desired position, then arrange it in chronological order from relevant to what is indirectly related to the requested position.
- No extra information.
It’s great that you have five chinchillas, a dog and a migraine from a change in the weather. But does a recruiter need to know all this? Choose the items that will help you present yourself in a favorable light. The desired company has internal tabletop championships, and you have a collection of games? Then you can indicate this hobby in the “About Me” section.
- Specific achievements.
“I worked as a Go-developer for 7 years” does not contain any information. The fact that you worked for 7 years in Go development is cool, but tell us what exactly you did. For example: “I did this and like this. And it also led to such results.” So you make it clear that you can analyze your actions and understand where they lead to.
Resume structure
There is no single recommended resume structure. That’s what should necessarily be in a resume:
- Full name and contact details;
- Work experience;
- Education;
- Technical skills;
- About me (hobbies and interests).
As to the photo – this is an optional condition, but if you still decide to use it, choose the one where you look neutral. Photo from the beach with a cup in a hand and half in the sand? Save it for your personal archive. Do you want to be perceived as a “sandman” or as a potential candidate for the desired position?
Contact details. Please indicate your preferred contact method and email address. Avoid childish names like bigbosshacker777@gmail.com. If you have a completed LinkedIn profile, then you can add it too.
Education. List your educational background starting with the highest qualification. If you have completed a particular IT-company’s course, please list it too. But if this is a no-name course, it’s better to give a link to the project that you’ve implemented as part of the courses – it will make you look like holding the trump card, showing how well you have learned the material and can apply it in practice.
Technical skills. Forget about phrases like “Confident PC user” – they are outdated for 20 years. Moreover, you are trying to find a job in an IT-company. Specify your skills, avoiding the phrases “confident”, “average” and so on. You will indicate the level of language or stack proficiency at the technical interview and assignment tests.
Work experience. Once again, the most relevant experience. It is important that relevant experience over the past 3 years be described in as much detail as possible.
Key components of “work experience” section:
- Clear enumeration of tasks item by item;
- Specify the areas of responsibility;
- Description of achievements;
- Technology stack at every job or project;
- If you want to clarify a project and it is under NDA, please specify the area (eg healthcare).
Don’t use vague wording to make your projects look cool.
About Me. Write here briefly what kind of a specialist you are. But please skip the “I have the skill of high stress tolerance.” If you have an eye for new technologies, write about it and give examples of what you have learned within a year. You know how to SCRUM and KANBAN – tell us why. You have your own blog or a podcast – share it.
Do I need to indicate the desired salary range?
I don’t see anything wrong with specifying salary expectations – you know what you want and can see which way the cat jumps. In addition, it is a marker of how you adequately evaluate yourself.
WHICH FORMAT SHOULD I USE TO SEND MY RESUME IN
How to send. It is desirable to send in .pdf. This is a universal format that can be read normally on a Mac, and Windows, and whatever. If your resume is in Google Docs, that’s fine too.
PDF is a citadel of universality. No matter what platform you’re using – your phone, a laptop, a TV set, or even your watch. It will perfectly work everywhere.
NB! Some companies ask you to send resumes in a specific format. Be sure to check if there are any special requirements for the resume.
How to name the file. The ideal option is “Resume (your full name), position”. So you definitely won’t get lost in the stream of saved resumes in HR’s “Downloads”.
CONCLUSION
- If you are interested in backend development and analytics, write a separate resume for each area.
- Choose a neutral photo.
- Describe your current and relevant work experience in as much details as possible.
- List your accomplishments.
- Write clearly and concisely.
- Name the resume so that it is clear what position you apply for and what your name is.
