Are you a tech talent, looking to upgrade your resume?
We are excited to bring you our latest career blog with Erin Mathew, one of our senior talent sourcers, sharing her best practices for resume writing from her experience working with tech talent.
Here are several simple yet effective changes you can make to elevate your resume and ensure it will make the mark on your way to your next challenge:
- Include your contact information and any relevant social profiles near the header of the page. This may seem obvious, but many people often forget that at the end of the day, a recruiter needs an easy way to get ahold of you. Including relevant links is also helpful to quickly give insight to who you are as a professional. Are you a software engineer? Include a link to any social coding platforms like GitHub, stack overflow, dev.to etc. where you write code. If you have a LinkedIn profile this will allow recruiters to connect and keep you apprised of future opportunities.
- Format in a way that makes it easy to read. List your experience in reverse chronological order with your most recent experience first. This is the preferred format for recruiters. Use standard fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, or Calibri. Ensure that each section has a clear header. When listing skills like proficiencies in programming languages, be specific about how you have used those technologies. For example (“I used react.js to build out the new user interface on my company’s website”)
- Highlight your technical skills and abilities. It is important to be specific when highlighting your proficiencies. Are you a UX designer? Have you worked with InVision Studio, Axure, Adobe XD (Xoom Direct) or any other relevant programs? Include it on your resume. It is especially important to include any of your proficiencies that are listed in a job description of a role that you are interested in pursuing.
- Make sure your content reflects what you accomplished in each role. Rather than listing day-to-day tasks required in each position, explain the impact you made. Include no more than 4 to 5 bullet points and start each statement with action verbs such as “led”, “built”, “implemented” etc. Quantify any accomplishments wherever possible.
- Be concise but include all relevant experience. Many believe that a resume needs to be limited to one page, however for many candidates a two-page resume is appropriate to support their candidacy and give a full picture of who they are as a professional. Having a complete history of experience is also helpful to the hiring manager and recruiter to decide accurate leveling for your role. Some content that can be left off would include things like part-time jobs from high school or general proficiencies in computers.
Erin has been in Talent acquisition since 2014. She started off in healthcare recruiting for 3 years and later transitioned into Talent sourcing. She has worked in other industries such as e-commerce, marketing, aerospace, and education. She is also a regular contributor to several recruiting media outlets and has spoken at conferences such as Source-Con and Sourcing Summit.
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