This was the resume that led someone who worked in Gas Stations for over A DECADE to landing my first job as a software developer.
There is one super big pro tip at the end.
Let's break it down and the strategy behind it. There is also room for improvement on this resume but I still believe this one to be great.
Now I will say this, Networking did way more for me than the resume did. The networking opened the doors for me to hand the resume over. I still stuggest that to be your primary place of effort. Especially in TODAY'S market.
Summary statement.
Short, sweet and direct. I was applying to larger companies so my focus was on highlighting that I had made a project using languages within their stack.
Languages/tools
I wanted a small footprint for it but to highlight this first to set expectations.
Project first.
The project solved a problem and allows me to discuss my solution. It also gives me something to discuss since this isn't the average project, like a Twitter clone. It sets me up to talk about a strength of mine in the interview and how it relates to their tech stack.
Technical experience.
This is also my volunteer experience. Is this everything I have ever done? No. But it is placed with the intent to set me up to talk about something I am very comfortable discussing in an interview. Allows me to highlight my strengths in relation to the role I am going for. It also gives the interviewer extra information that is relevant to the role and myself. Once again allowing me to set up a better interviewing situation.
Work experience and Bullet points.
3 - 5 bullet points MAX.
Each bullet points doesn't just say what I did, but the actual contributions I have made.
Discuss the things you did besides the basics. The details and contributions give them the relevant information needed to make well informed decisions.
Mistakes I made with this resume.
- I don't quantify anything. There are no hard metrics, especially for my work experience.
- Obvious items are included like "created this group to help educate" I don't feel that is a very impactful point and something else could have been stronger.
The pro tip?
The way I named the file. Now I do not personally know if this worked but I would like to believe that it had an impact. I named my resume 01DannyThompsonResume.pdf
This way when they download the resume, in their folder it would be at the top of the downloaded resumes when sorted by name.
Hope this helps and gives you some ideas! If you found value in this please do not hesitate in sharing this with others!
So many folks coming to #TheOdinProject express the worry of needing to learn technology/library/framework/language X, Y, and Z in order to have a fighting chance in this field.
When I got my job, I didn't know the technologies they used. I still got hired.