Here are three important resume tips to help your resume tell the right story to a recruiter, so you move forward from review to interview.
(1) Make a recruiter’s job easier by telling a coherent story with your resume, supported by relevant experiences.
Your goal with a resume is to get an interview. Full stop. It is NOT to have the recruiter spend more time on it. You want them to scan it, have no questions, and move you forward to an interview.
Also, a good tech resume has to tell a story vis-a-vis your experiences because many tech companies are doing away with cover letters. Ask yourself: can someone tell what I want to do by scanning just my resume?
Rule of thumb for resume length
If you have less than 10 years experience = one page
If you have more than 10 years experience = two pages
Never use 1.5 pages! It looks like you forgot to add something - and it’s a strategic misuse of space when you could have explained additional projects!)
Struggling to fit everything in a one-page resume version? Try thinking about your experience cumulatively.
If you have managed a budget of $25K at job 1, $50K at job 2, and $100K at job 3, only list it for the job with the best example of that experience - or for the most recent job. Recruiters will assume that if you manage a $100K budget now, you’ve either had prior budget experience at other roles or that you are already at the budget management level they require. The only caveat to this advice is that sometimes, it’s useful to show the progression from job 1 to 3 -- but that’s when you ask me (your tech career strategist) for advice!
(2) Do you have a Master Resume?
We have all had the experience of working on a resume for days and developing the ‘perfect’ bullet(s). We hit save, and never change that bullet ever again. Not the best move though.
I have to tell you: your resume is a living document and needs to be continually updated for new roles/audiences/industries.
A Master Resume is a document that contains ALL the bullets and experiences you’ve had over your entire career and can often extend to 10+ pages. Think of it as a repository for everything (classes, certifications, skills, degrees, work and volunteer experiences/projects, awards, failed startups, hackathons, publications, etc).
As you get further along in your career, you will struggle to remember pieces of your background or which version of your resume had that perfect set of bullets. Creating a master resume will allow you to have it all in one place and serve as a reference guide when you have to create new versions. It’s especially useful for those pivoting to new industries as you may be able to resurrect now-relevant projects to put on your resume.
(3) Use a ‘Projects’ section on your resume to help you when pivoting into tech.
Tech values informal experiences and a Projects section is a great place to capture and collect these experiences. It can be easily modified to add/subtract new experiences depending on the role you are applying for.
This section is also a visual representation of the pivot you are making, so a recruiter or hiring manager doesn’t have to guess about your tech-related skills - they will see it in black and white. Many of my clients only want to put paid experiences in the main Experience section, so this offers them a way to add all the informal experiences.
Maybe you and a friend created an app one weekend? Maybe you took a Coursera class to learn SQL? Maybe you did a tech-focused project in a class or for one of your volunteer groups?
The Projects section is likely to appear towards the bottom of your resume (right next to Skills or Personal). For some clients, we have put it at the top of the resume (above Experiences) in order to highlight these new skills ‘above the fold.’
Don’t have many informal experiences to add? Consider starting a side hustle/project.
Benefits include: builds confidence in your skills; provides a creative outlet; serves as a mini safety net if something happens to your job; helps you when pivoting to a new role as you have evidence to point to of your ability to tackle a new skill set.
