Crafting a Killer Resume
This lesson will help you craft a resume that effectively describes your skills, experience, education, and fit for a job.
Why Does Your Resume Matter?
📺 Watch this video on how to write a resume for software engineering (10 mins)
As we learn in the video:
- The goal of a resume is to stand out to a recruiter. As you craft your resume, consider the perspective of the recruiter, what they are looking for, and how many applicants they are reviewing
- Beyond what's written, the most important thing in a resume is readability
- Your resume should be one page
The Risks of a Bad Resume
A bad resume is poisonous to your internship or job search. Here is why:
- Missed Opportunities: A bad resume may fail to capture the attention of hiring managers, causing you to miss out on potential job opportunities.
- Elimination from Consideration: Many employers receive numerous resumes for a single position. If your resume doesn't stand out or is riddled with errors, it may be quickly eliminated from consideration.
- Negative Impression: A poorly written or formatted resume can create a negative impression of your professionalism and attention to detail. Employers may assume that if you can't present yourself well on paper, you may not be diligent in your work.
- Overlooked Skills and Achievements: If your resume lacks clarity and fails to effectively communicate your skills, experience, and accomplishments, employers may struggle to understand your potential value to their organization. Additionally, a bad resume may not effectively highlight your relevant skills and achievements. This can lead employers to overlook important qualifications that could make you a strong candidate.
Meet Jane
Meet Jane, a 2nd-year Kibo student in Accra with a passion for technology and a desire to secure a data science internship. Unfortunately, Jane has a poorly crafted resume that is getting in the way of her even getting an interview from the companies she applies to. Let’s look through a critique of her resume and discuss the issues with her current version.
Objective Statement: Jane's resume begins with a vague and generic objective statement. It reads: "To obtain an internship in the field of computer science to enhance my skills and contribute to the growth of a dynamic company."
Risk: The lack of specificity in the objective statement fails to communicate Jane's unique skills and goals, making it less appealing to potential employers. Instead of an objective statement, Jane could use a summary or tagline to showcase her career narrative and give context to the rest of the information on her resume.
Educational Background: Jane's educational background is listed, but she has not highlighted any relevant coursework, projects, or achievements during her studies.
Risk: The resume does not showcase Jane's academic strengths or provide any evidence of her practical skills, leaving employers uncertain about her qualifications.
Work Experience: The work experience section is limited to a part-time job unrelated to computer science, and it lacks details about responsibilities and achievements.
Risk: Employers may question the relevance of Jane's work experience and wonder if she has the practical skills needed for a computer science internship.
Skills Section: Jane has a generic list of skills without providing any context or evidence of proficiency. She includes vague terms like "good communication skills" without specifying how these skills were applied.
Risk: The lack of specificity in the skills section makes it challenging for employers to assess Jane's actual capabilities, and it raises doubts about the depth of her technical skills.
Formatting Issues: Jane's resume has inconsistent formatting, with varying font sizes, inconsistent spacing, and random bolding of text.
Risk: The poor formatting makes the resume difficult to read and suggests a lack of attention to detail, potentially reflecting on Jane's work habits.
Grammar and Spelling Errors: The resume contains multiple spelling and grammatical errors, such as typos and incorrect verb tenses.
Risk: These errors convey a lack of professionalism and attention to detail, raising concerns about the quality of Jane's work.
Lack of Tailoring: Jane uses the same resume for every internship application without customizing it for each position. The resume lacks specific details about how her skills align with the requirements of the job.
Risk: Employers may perceive Jane as disinterested or unaware of the specific needs of their organization, reducing her chances of being considered for the internship.
Length Jane’s resume is 4 pages long.
Risk: Employers aren’t going to read through a 4-page resume, especially not for an internship role. More information isn’t better because it means that the important details are hidden among the irrelevant. Jane needs to cut her resume down to just one page.
Read on to learn how Jane should have gone about creating her resume. One of your assignments for this lesson will be to create (or update) your resume using the template and process outlined below.
Sections of a Resume
Sections in a resume can vary, but a strong resume generally includes a summary of your work experience, education, and skills. For this class, you will create a resume with:
- Contact Information (name, email, city/state, links to GitHub, LinkedIn, and a portfolio)
- Summary or tagline
- Skills: programming languages, technologies, tools
- Experience
- Education
- Additional: Languages, Certifications & Training, Awards
General Resume Tips
- Keep it concise: A student resume should be one page long. In the middle of your career, you might have enough important information to extend to two pages.
- Use keywords. When you're applying for jobs online, your resume will likely be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for keywords that match the job description. To make sure your resume makes it past the ATS, include relevant keywords throughout your resume, such as in your work experience, education, and skills sections.
- Integrate your career narrative: Think about how you can integrate your career narrative into your resume. It might show up as part of your summary or tagline. The skills and experiences that you include on your resume may be in support of your career narrative.
- Proofread your resume: Typos and grammatical errors hurt your chances of getting the job. Don't knock yourself out.
- Get feedback: Ask a friend, family member, or career counselor to review your resume and give you feedback. They might catch errors you missed or suggest improvements.
How to Create Your Resume
The first step to creating your resume is refining the content. At this stage, you should not focus on formatting. As you update the information, the formatting will get thrown off -- that's ok. Do not spend time trying to fix the formatting. Formatting is a distraction!
Step 1: Download the resume template document
Make a copy of the template by clicking the blue "Use Template" button. You are then going to complete the sections in the following order:
- Basics and contact information
- Education
- Experience
- Additional
- Summary
Step 2: Update name and contact information
Replace the name, phone number, location, LinkedIn, and GitHub address. If you have a separate portfolio website, add that as well.
Step 3: Add your education experience
Add your 2-3 most recent education experiences. You should not add anything before secondary school.
Step 4: Complete your professional experience
The experience section shows potential employers what you have done in the past and what you are capable of. Like all parts of your resume, it should be clear, concise, and to the point. The goal of the experience section is to show your value. The title or role you held matters far less than demonstrating the impact you had. When writing about your experience, you want to answer the questions:
- What did you do?
- How did you do it?
- What impact did it have?
Keep the following in mind when writing bullet points for your experience:
Use strong action verbs and explain how you did the work.
The video calls these "power verbs." They help convey what you accomplished and are easier to read and more concise.
| Don’t Write… | Instead Write… |
|---|---|
| 🛑 As an intern at the company, I completed many mission-critical features in the UI | ✅ Built a user login integration with Facebook that increased sign-ups by 20% |
| 🛑 Helped the office become more efficient by going paperless | ✅ Implemented an electronic ticketing system which sped up operations and reduced ticketing errors |
Show impact and quantify your results
Explain why your work matters. Whenever possible, quantify the results of your work.
| Don’t Write… | Instead Write… |
|---|---|
| 🛑 I increased sales | ✅ I increased sales by 15% in my first year |
| 🛑 I was responsible for developing marketing campaigns | ✅ Developed marketing campaigns that increased website traffic |
Step 5: Include additional information
- Add a list of relevant technical skills (e.g., programming languages) and tools you are comfortable with
- If you have relevant certifications and training, add them
- Optionally, you may add languages you speak and your interests/hobbies
Step 6: Add your summary
Once you have finished adding all of the sections, update the summary.