(Photo credit @craftedbygc)
When applying to a job in tech, use the bullets of the job description as a checklist.
Take any well-written job description which can help you to do two things: customize your resume for the specific job/company AND allow you to conduct a gap analysis of your skills.
Customizing resume:
This is very important to do in tech, as most tech companies do not look at cover letters -- so your resume has to do the double duty of telling your story and describing your skills.
The job description can also provide you with keywords that are important to the company, so make sure that you use their words in your resume whenever you can.
Skills Gap Analysis
No candidate is an exact match for a job description (because then there would be no room for growth!). However, you want to have a high percentage of experiences/skills that the job requires (greater than 50%).
If you don’t have a high percentage but are really interested in the job, then the job description can give you a list of skills & experience you need to go get - so you can add them to your resume!
Once you’ve done this a few times, you’ll see the pattern and won’t need to spend a lot of time on each application.
