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Let’s discuss the document between you and your dream job! It will not be a love letter, it will be no thesis, and not even an exhaustive list of everything you’ve accomplished since you left high school. It’s your resume. For many of you that are reading this, this probably is the most dull piece of writing you’ve ever written.
We get it. It’s hard to write about oneself. You don’t want to sound like you’re bragging and you certainly want to be conspicuous. We see these same resume mistakes over and over at Net2Aspire, best staffing agency in USA and review hundreds of resumes monthly. The biggest one? Considering a resume to be a job description rather than a work sample.
But if you’re a student, graduate or anybody who’s transitioning into tech, you may feel panicked right now and say, “Hey, I don’t have any experiences to showcase!” This is where you’re mistaken. You have projects and internships. And even if you don’t have an official internship, you have projects. Here are your golden tickets! How to avoid the trap of setting yourself too low a standard and get the attention of employers on the things that truly count.
So, let’s cut to the chase for a moment. The top of your resume doesn’t get read by anyone. You have heard the one before — “Looking for a challenging role in an organization that is growing, in which I will be able to use my skills and learn new technologies.
It means nothing. It is filler text.
Do not tell employers what they want or need – tell them what you can do. The first thing or “above the fold” of your resume is the most valuable real estate. This area should not be a “catch-all” for a vague synopsis if you’re a student or recent graduate. The highlight reel should be a “Technical Skills” section or a “Key Projects”.
Imagine that your resume is a portfolio of evidence. If a recruiter from Net2Aspire or a partner company is reading your resume in six seconds (as in, that is the amount of time a recruiter has on the initial pass), keywords and proof are what they are searching for. For the skill of “Python”, they will want to know where you used it. Have you automated an excel spreadsheet? Have you developed a web scraper? Don’t make them guess.
The most frequent reply we get from students is: “I don’t have work experience, what can I put on my resume?”
This is a lie and it’s getting in the way.
As the adage goes, a project is experience. Hackathon is an experience. Experience is an open source contribution. All you have to do is to use the appropriate frame.
If you’re listing your projects on your resume, don’t simply write one liner such as: “Built a weather app with React. That’s dull and doesn’t reveal anything to the employer about your problem solving skills.“
Rather, do that project as if it were a job. Follow “Action + Technology + Result“.
Note the distinctions:
Is there a change in the tide? You’re no longer a student and you made this for yourself. The “Result” does not have to be a million dollar increase in revenues. It can save time, solve a problem or satisfy a user requirement. Technology firms appreciate the process and the effort.
So, you did get an internship! Great. Don’t destroy it on paper, though, by listing chores.
If your internship resume bullets are something like these:
You are not commanding the price you’re worth.
You’re a student intern and we know you get the jobs others avoid in the office. But even grunt work has an impact on the business. What’s needed is to take off the word duties and put contributions in.
Ask yourself: Why did they need me to do this?
If you were writing unit tests, then you were doing a better job of making code better. You’ve been at stand-ups, you were working in an Agile environment. If you’re responsible for fixing bugs, you stabilized the production environment.
Here are some tips to rewrite those bullets:
The first thing to do here is to try and measure what you can and qualify what you can’t according to Net2Aspire, best staffing agency in USA. There is no need to overestimate but there is a need to “contextualize“. The internship is a mutually beneficial experience. You learned and you also added value. It should be evident in your CV.
No one takes you seriously when you have a skills section that only contains “Team Player“. The proof of your soft skills is your projects and internships.
Include these in project descriptions. Do not include the term “Team Player”, just say “Collaborated with a team of 4 developers to develop a full-stack application in a two week sprint, in an Agile manner”. Now you’re proving it, rather than saying you’re claiming it.
Think of your own projects, hackathons, and open source projects as your work experience. Include a “Projects” section at the head of your resume and explain each project in the following format: “Action + Technology + Result“. Emphasis on the product, on how the product was constructed and on the problem that it addressed. This demonstrates to the employers that you know how to use your skills in real-life situations, even though you do not have an official job description.
Addressing responsibilities rather than impact. Mere attendance at meetings or a lack of coding ability will not be of any benefit. Ask why those things were important and write them up as contributions. An example of this is replacing “Wrote unit tests” with “Wrote Jest unit tests, increased test coverage from 60% to 85%“. Have a goal of always presenting the product of the work, not only the activity.
No. Objective statements are filler without any specific point and do not use up important words. It only takes a few seconds for a recruiter to make an initial scant on a resume. Add a “Technical Skills” section or “Highlighted Projects” summary where you will describe the selected objective. This is a great way to reveal your abilities to a recruiter instead of telling them what you want to do.
Avoid writing “Team Player” in the Skills section. Rather, include soft skills in your descriptions of your project and internship. For instance, write “Collaborated with a team of 4 developers under Agile sprints to deliver a full stack application” or “Presented Technical demos to stakeholders”. This offers context and evidence of your soft skills, not just words.
A GITHUB link is usually more beneficial than a GPA. It’s direct proof of your coding skills. In order to make your profile presentable, ensure that it is clean: pin the top 3-4 projects; create readable README files for each project; delete unfinished or messy repositories. A well-crafted GitHub profile helps foster trust and authority with hiring managers.