AVOID these mistakes to build the Right Resume for a Tech Job
From my experience as a Hiring Manager(former full-stack developer).
So as a hiring manager, every now and then I spend a good portion of my day reviewing resumes, and trust me, after having reviewed a couple hundred resumes, I have found some very common mistakes that a lot of people do, and that compelled me to write this article. Let me let you in on a little secret, just between you and me, do you know, how much time it takes me(or other hiring managers) to look at a resume and decide if we want this person on our team or not? 20–30 seconds, yes! I’m not kidding!
Let’s start off by discussing these common mistakes, and what you should not do, and then we’re going to move on to discuss what you should do while creating your resume.
Mistake #1: Lengthy Resumes
Some people think that resumes are an opportunity for them to write an essay about themselves, which by the way is not true. Now that I’ve already told you the limited amount of time hiring managers have to scan through a resume, do you think they have the time to read each and everything on your resume? This one time, I received a resume that was about six pages in length. And the hilarious part was that this person did not even have any work experience. Now I know what you are wondering, “what did this person even ramble on about in these six pages?” Right? Well, I don’t know as I didn’t read it!
Do you know what’s the perfect length for a resume? Just one page. Yes, it’s possible, and here’s how!
To do: Use Pre-defined Templates
Instead of reinventing the wheel and creating the whole format of the resume on your own, I suggest that you use one of the pre-existing templates for resumes. And where can you get these? Pretty much anywhere on the internet, no matter what suite you use, Google or Microsoft or anything else. For instance, I use Google, and you will find a lot of templates available to you on Google Docs.
You can select one of these templates and just edit it out to fill in your information to build your resume based on this template. There are several advantages of using this approach, as it saves you time; it gives you a preset format which actually forces you to put all the relevant information in this given format, so it’s just one page. Thus, it makes a resume very crisp and concise.
Mistake #2: Lack of Facts
This is kind of directly/indirectly related to mistake number one. Now, when people say, let your resume tell your story, they don’t mean that your resume should read like a magazine. Instead, a resume should be based on artifacts and not just words. It should give out very clear information about your education, your background, your projects and/or experiences, the dates, your job titles, your responsibilities, and the technologies you’ve worked on. This information should be very well organized in the sense that it’s very easy to locate and comprehend.
To do: Include Importance Links
Don’t forget to include links to your relevant profile(s) that you feel best showcases your professional work. For example, the link to your GitHub profile, link to your LinkedIn profile, link to a portfolio website, and any other relevant links. Me, since I write articles on Medium, I even add a link to my Medium profile. This gives the hiring manager a chance to see all the good work you’ve done and associate a face(and a profile) with otherwise mere words. The fact that they get to know you a bit better is likely to provide you an edge over your competitors.
Mistake #3: Typos
Well, you’d suppose that it should be very obvious to make sure that your resume is free of any typos, spelling, and grammatical mistakes, unfortunately, it isn’t! However, if you manage to do that, you will have another skill up your sleeve, which is attention to detail. Another issue I’d like to mention here is a very common confusion among people that I have noticed, homophones. Homophones are words that are pronounced exactly the same, but they have different meanings and also different spellings.
Make sure when you want to say principles in your resume, say principles and not principals.
Mistake #4: Generic Content
One size fits all, definitely doesn’t work in the world of resumes. Most people apply to different jobs(different job titles, roles, responsibilities, and skills required) with the same Resume which is as ineffective as it is convenient for the job-seeker. You should always try to customize your resume. By customization, I mean that you could tweak your resume based on the job you are applying for. I’ll answer the how and why in the following section.
To do: Resume Customization
Let’s begin by answering the how? first. A good approach is to spot certain keywords in the job description that tend to repeat over and over again. Next, make sure you take these keywords and put them in your resume somehow that makes sense. Additionally, take a good look at the skills mentioned in the job description and be sure to add those skills to your Resume, if you do possess them.
I believe this is a good time to answer the why? next. Most of the time, in the initial rounds, the CVs/Resumes are scanned by a machine rather than a human being. These machines run on certain specific algorithms that will try to find these keywords in your resume, and if there is not a certain percentage of match, your resume will be rejected no matter how good you are, just because a machine doesn’t possess the emotional intelligence to scan your resume and decide if you’re a good fit for this job. All it does is work based on a (sometimes) not-so-smart algorithm, so make sure you are smart enough to beat the algorithm.
In addition, you can also include some buzzwords in your Resume given that you have worked on these concepts/technologies. There are certain trending words going around for different industries at a certain moment in time. For instance, some buzzwords for tech in 2022-2023 are, data-driven, web3, SaaS — software as a service, Distributed Cloud, etc.
Mistake #5: Failure to Highlight Skills/Achievements
Most people appropriately include their roles and responsibilities in other jobs/internships or school projects which is great but is still considered your responsibility or your duty. In addition to telling your potential employer what you were obliged to do, make sure your resume showcases what you managed to achieve on your own because you are a motivated individual. Moreover, another important thing that I noticed is the failure to list/summarize your skills or the technologies you’ve worked with, on top. Let’s understand why this is important.
To do: Maximize Convenience for Hiring Managers
Now you can imagine that a hiring manager just has or just takes 10 to 15 seconds at best, to scan through each of the sections on your resume. It’s very important that you give this kind of convenience to the hiring manager so that their eyes are easily able to spot what they’re looking for.
Also, do not underestimate soft skills. There are a lot of resumes that I see are filled with technical skills, but have no mention of soft skills whatsoever.
Even if you lack a couple of technical skills, it’s not a big deal as those can be learned eventually. However, soft skills are really important because having the right attitude, having the right mindset is really important for any company/any team, from day one, and it’s not something that can be taught.
Therefore, hiring managers really want to make sure that the person they’re targeting has the right qualities, such as being a team player, having a positive attitude, having a strong work ethic, etc.
Resumes for Experienced Individuals v/s Freshers or Beginners
Now, depending on which point in your career you are, you could either be a fresher or a beginner in the job market v/s an experienced individual. Your resume should cater to this and should be shaped correctly.
Experienced Individuals:
If you are an experienced individual, make sure you highlight your experience just next to your technical and soft skills with clear dates, clear responsibilities, and clear job titles. Again, showcase any achievements or even any volunteering experience you have outside of work. As you want to show your potential employers that you have a life outside of work where you are motivated to pursue what you love doing.
Freshers/Beginners:
I remember, when I was looking for a job straight out of school, my biggest fear while creating a Resume was, my lack of experience. If you have the same fear, let me share with you a great piece of advice that I once received from my Guidance Counsellor — “You can compensate for this lack of experience with a lot and lot of projects preferably hobby projects.”
Let your resume tell about your school projects and also any hobby projects that you’ve been working on. Don’t hesitate to include any incomplete hobby projects too, this shows work in progress. Just make sure you upload these projects onto your GitHub profile or any other VCS(Version Control System) you prefer or use. Also, as we discussed before, you are already providing the link(s) to your relevant profiles, including GitHub, etc. in your resume, right? So, your work is visible to the hiring managers.
Now, a good platform that I used as a student to collaborate with people, learn something new, and also work on a project together is a hackathon. Hackathons are these 2–3 days coding events, organized by either universities or companies where you can participate and work on projects collaboratively. Moreover, a lot of companies like to indulge and participate in such events by organizing conferences, giving talks, etc. They’re also looking for talented individuals that participate in these events, so this serves as a great opportunity to exchange resumes which leads to some good job opportunities, and of course, there’s this learning aspect as well. This also shows the hiring managers that you’re motivated to learn and build cool stuff outside of your school curriculum as well. And of course, internships count too. So if you have any internship experience, don’t forget to mention that in your resume as well.
Bonus:
Well, that was a lot of information, but the journey doesn’t end here! Now that you have the perfect resume ready, use this resume to update your LinkedIn profile if you already haven’t done so. Next, every time you apply to a job using this perfect resume of yours, a suggestion would be to get the name of the hiring manager or the person who posted this job on LinkedIn or any other platform, send them a request to connect with them, to let them know that you’re interested in position X that they’ve posted and, you’ve already applied to it. The hiring managers would appreciate you going that extra mile, and the best thing is, now, they know you, they have your name, and moreover, they have access to your profile, which is basically your second resume. Now, even if your resume gets rejected by an automated machine(or an algorithm) as it never gets to that hiring manager, you’ve at least still increased your chances of getting into the system because now the hiring manager has access to your profile directly.
Thanks for reading! I hope you learned something useful from my experience.