Resume

• General Structure:
  • Statement/Summary at the top is typically best if 1-2 sentences. I am blah, hoping to do blah
  • For CS, maybe link to Github, LinkedIn and portfolio at the top.
  • For CS projects, include links to code and live demos/gifs if possible. No one is actually going to download code and run it.
  • Paragraphs should be limited to one or two sentences, or removed and replaced with bullets. No one reads paragraphs. Bullets for descriptions be facts or provable/quantifiable statements, and preferably only be one line starting with verbs/actions. If you have numbers or percentages, put them there.
  • Put most relevant experience first. Most of the time it’ll be Statement, then Experience/Skills (i.e. what the company values more), then Education/Other sections.
• For Skills, organize into categories if there are lots (Languages, Technologies, Frameworks/Other)
• Don’t put hobbies/what you do outside of work on resume; is not relevant - that should probably be filler for the interview.
• Don’t list information that could cause someone to discriminate against you (picture, ethnicity, possibly languages?, address (look up your location)). Also Age; You can list end dates for degree, but don’t for age because that could cause some ageism.
• Don’t list GPA, they’ll ask for it in a background check if they want it.
• Don’t include self-ratings that look bad on you, just don’t include those. (E.g. good/average/bad sections for technologies; just don’t include the bad)
• Probably shouldn’t include generic things like ‘self motivated’ or ‘team player’, ‘problem solving’ as that’s sort of just expected. Anything soft skill related is sort of hard to prove.
• Try to put everything in one page, minimize whitespace. Mess with margins if need be.
• Use sans-serif - Century Gothic, Verdana, Calibre or Arial; serif fonts can be hard to read in smaller fonts. Should be a widely supported font so it doesn’t cause formatting issues.
• In the US, lowest chance of getting a job is going to be in the holidays/winter months (out of town, vacation, not a lot of budget)
• always send a PDF and perhaps a word/Google Doc, as companies may want to mark-up things in some software
• In the US, can only verify your last (not all) job title and dates of employment. If you changed job titles in the middle of a job, you can list your latest as your job title. Job title at the end typically looks more impressive that ‘showing progression’ through. Also, never have to mention if you got fired (HR is not allowed to ask that). Any of your bullet points can’t be verified.
• Don’t have to mention if something was a group project/you only had some say in it.
• Don’t need to list high school after you have some experience.
• Could do 2 columns, but top-bottom left-right is how people read most pages, so might be better from a behavioural standpoint; don’t want to confuse people from the beginning.
• 3 personal projects is the minimum, may want to go further than that.
• Usually, 7 years or 3 roles is about the maximum for how long you should list job experience with bullet points/responsibilities. After that you can just put company name/role/date.
• May not be a good idea to give out client names, since HR may interpret that as ‘they may give away ours’. If you can use it for outcomes, cool; else don’t. If you’re under NDA, mention that.
• If you want to list something that isn’t completely true (e.g. extending a job gap) to get past the HR filtering stage, should probably bring a ‘corrected’ resume with you an interview, since they’d want one on file for the background check. In any case, the reasons aren’t verifiable, so you should have a reason. This is also true in general if your Resume is more than one page. Limit it to one page/bullet points for the screening HR/process, then bring an extended resume for the hiring manager/interview.
• For Location if you worked remote, can put Remote/Location. If you’re looking to relocate without compensation, probably don’t put your current location (since they may not want to relocate you). If you’re in the same area as the job, fine to list your location

Job Hopping

• In general, in CS, if you want more money, get a new job.
• Should probably job hop early in career because that’s how you increase salary. After you get to a certain age should probably look for a more established company that you plan to retire with. Maybe this won’t be an issue when I’m older, since ‘new generation’ HR may not care as much about this.
• Should probably stay at a job for at least a year before leaving, else it looks sort of bad.