Beat the Bots: The Comprehensive Resume Writing Guide for Students Applying to Tech Internships

An in-depth guide on the Dos and Don’ts of how to make a resume that will beat applicant tracking systems and look good to recruiters. Plus, the template that I made and personally use.

What’s an ATS?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is what companies, especially large ones, use to keep track of, filter, and rank resumes. Oftentimes, a single job posting will receive hundreds, if not, thousands of applications. With limited time and resources to scan through applications, companies may opt into using an ATS. Most companies use ATS systems created by various 3rd parties such as Taleo, Brassring, and Jobvite. Although, some companies create their own systems.

Why Should I Read This Article?

Among the hundreds or thousands of applications, only a small handful are actually read by a human, let alone selected for an interview. Many applicants with impressive credentials miss out on jobs that they would have thrived in due to not ranking well on an ATS. With a few simple rules to follow, you can significantly increase the chances of your resume being read by an actual human.

Who Is This Guide For?

I am writing this article to be geared towards post-secondary students searching for tech internships at mid to large size companies. Although this guide may be intended for college students, most if not all of my points below can be applied to any online application that uses an ATS.

A Bit About Me and Why I Wrote This

I’m an engineering student currently studying at McMaster University. About a month before this article was first published, I spent hundreds of hours over many long days and sleepless nights looking for internships related to software and DevOps within the US & Canada. I have scoured countless forums, online guides, asked dozens of engineers and managers, and even consulted professional career coaches for information on how to optimize my resume. After many weeks of learning and after hundreds of iterations, I believe I found the most effective ways to optimize a resume.

I decided to make this article as I have not seen many up-to-date, comprehensive guides that I found were good. Since I already wrote the points below in my personal notes, I thought that I might as well share them.

General Use Case Note

Not every ATS works the same. The way the ranking algorithms work, the criteria used to filter, and possibly many other aspects of applicant tracking systems may differ from each other. What I include below are what I have found to generally be the most effective ways of formatting and writing your resume.

If you believe I should take something out or add something in, scroll to the bottom to contact me. I’d be more than happy to make this guide better.

Formatting & Readability

Text Only

Sweet and simple is often the best way to approach something. This is true in the case of resume writing. ATS systems are programmed to parse your resume and extract relevant data. Adding anything that isn’t text such as graphics, shapes, lines, or columns may cause problems for parsing. Although some more advanced ATS systems have become quite good at parsing resumes with non-text objects, it’s safer and simpler to have a clean, text-only resume. Use spaces or tabs to move text (e.g. dates) to the right side instead of using columns.

Content Density

Once it gets past the bots, you want to make sure that a human can and will read it. A resume too dense is overwhelming; don’t add every little thing you’ve done since you were 12.

Font

Make sure the font for your bullet points is no smaller than size 10, preferably size 11–12 for better readability. I’ve even heard that some systems ignore text under a certain size. The size of your name and sections names should be noticeably larger but the exact size is up to whatever you think looks best. Use standard fonts such as Calibri or Arial (Times New Roman works also but sans-serif fonts are cleaner) to avoid any encoding errors. Don’t use more than 2 types of fonts. Bold and use all caps for section names as some systems may use that as an indicator to split sections. Left align text so everything is neat and as simple as can be. Don’t italicize- I’m not sure about this one but I’ve heard from multiple places that you shouldn’t italicize (will update if I can find a source saying otherwise).

Whitespace

Too much makes you look inexperienced. Too little makes it overwhelming.

Margins

Between 0.5" and 1" is ideal. What you choose to go with in that range will be for aesthetic reasons. Under 0.5" may cause issues when printing. You could go over 1" although it may make your resume look cramped and a bit off.

Section Names and Order

This point may be a bit controversial and for some, choosing a different order may work. For me personally, I’ve found that having a quick skills summary up top, followed by education, allows the reader to pick up some keywords while being able to quickly find your education so they know you meet any educational requirements. Recruiters may only spend a few seconds looking at a resume so having them notice and find key points and information as quickly as possible is what you want. After education, you can either put work experience or projects (I usually group extracurriculars with projects). If you have more relevant experience, put that first. If your projects are more impressive, then put that above work experience.

Names should be generic like “work experience”, “projects”, “skills”, and “education” so you don’t run the risk of a bot parsing it incorrectly.

Dates

Use the full month name and full year to avoid any confusion of bot or human. E.g. August-December 2020.

Education

Add the full degree name as well as the abbreviation (Bachelor of Engineering (B. Eng.) ). Add any minors or specializations. You can include relevant courses if you want. You may find it best if you leave a GPA under 3.3 off your resume. Add expected graduation year.

Skills Section

Use this to highlight your top skills. Don’t add too many as it may be seen as keyword stuffing and will remove the spotlight from the skills you are most proficient with. 2 or 3 lines, with commas separating different skills is best.

Bullet Points

When describing your experiences, use short (1–2 lines) bulleted points. No one wants to read a paragraph.

Number of Pages

One full page. Not 2, not 3, not half a page. Just a singular filled out page. You can do it. Unless you have 10+ years of experience working multiple jobs, then maybe more than one is fine.

Punctuation

Keep it consistent. If you end a point with a period, end all your points with one.

Contact Info

City and state are enough for location. No need for a house address or apartment number. Add your LinkedIn, phone number and a professional email. Please make sure the information is correct.

Single Column

Single column. No tables, graphs, or whatever dividers you can add in your word editing program. If you need to stick something to the right side like dates, use spaces or tabs. Columns may mess with parsing.

Chronological

Within each section, put the most recent experience first. This prevents any confusion for both humans and bots.

File Type

A PDF is best to keep a consistent look. If the application says a preferred or required file type, use that. You may read that some systems have a hard time reading PDFs (and therefore making .doc better), I have yet to hear about any issues of using PDFs, especially given that it’s 2020 and it just wouldn’t make sense to not be able to read a PDF.

Content

Keywords

Read the job description and include as many keywords as you can that you are actually proficient with on your resume. Use full name and abbreviations (e.g. Amazon Web Services (AWS)). Keywords are best used if it’s contextual. Sticking a block of keywords may be ignored as some bots are programmed to recognize and ignore keyword stuffing. Repeat keywords in different areas where applicable; the more often a skill appears, the better. The more your resume matches the job description, the better. Also, don’t just stick random soft-skills somewhere. Soft-skills need to be in context or word it so it is implied that you used a certain skill to do some task.

Quantify

Quantifying points helps readers better understand the nature and scale of your achievements as well as bring attention to certain points. Add $, %, and other numbers where applicable.

STAR Method

Use the STAR method to demonstrate your problem-solving abilities, written communication skills and to showcase your achievements.

Tailor Every Resume to Each Different Job

I’m not telling you to start from scratch. I am saying that you should switch out experiences and skills so it better suits the role you are applying for. Don’t just use a one-size-fits-all resume.

A good method to manage the creation of multiple resumes is to make a master resume that is multiple pages and full of everything you would add to a resume. Pick and choose the right content so that it will work best for a specific job and fit within one page.

Sell Yourself

Creating a resume and filling out an application is basically you marketing your skills and abilities. You want to show recruiters how you can benefit the company and make them more money.

Things to Avoid

Lying

Anything mentioned in your resume is fair game to ask about during interviews. You may be asked to have your various experiences verified.

Fluffing

You may have seen posts about stating your KFC Cashier experience as “Transaction handling of a multi-billion dollar company dealing with thousands of clients”. Sure, feel free to brag a bit but recruiters and managers will know when something doesn’t sound right. Fluffing is often cringy as well.

Keyword Stuffing

Don’t think you’re being clever by stuffing dozens of keywords in size 1 font or changing the text colour to white. When an ATS parses your resume, everything will show up. Some systems may also ignore text under a certain size and may ignore keywords that aren’t used in a proper context.

“References Available Upon Request”

It is assumed that you will provide them reference info when asked. Adding that line just wastes valuable space.

MS Office

Not impressive. Applicants are expected to have a working understanding of the MS Office Suite. If you can make advanced macros that interact with different apps and it is a relevant skill for the job, then go ahead and say you are experienced with Excel.

Adding Anything to the Header or Footer

These will be ignored when parsed.

Summaries and Objectives

This one may be controversial and I could definitely be wrong about it. Summaries and objectives are often lengthy, generic, not well made, and cringy. They aren’t very nice to read most of the time and take up space that could be used for something more important.

Buzzwords

“Decimated”, “Go-getter”, “Synergy”. Similar to the point above, these are cringy and often don’t have much meaning to them.

Paragraphs

Annoying to read and overwhelming. Will probably be skipped over.

LaTeX

LaTeX is a bit overkill. If you know it well already then go ahead and feel free to use it. A word document, however, will be much easier to create and modify.

Not Spellchecking or Getting Peer-Reviewed

Typos are big no-no’s. You made an easy to catch mistake that any detail-oriented person would catch. Proper grammar is professional and easier to read. Have multiple people read over your resume to make sure everything sounds good and to help catch any errors.

Adding a Title or Credential With Your Name

Adding something like Dr. or Ph.D. on the same line as your name may confuse systems to think that it is part of your actual name.

Adding Irrelevant Information

Don’t add “worked as a grocery bagger 7 years ago” to a resume used to apply for a top-secret robotics engineering job. It’s a waste of space and says nothing about your skills and capabilities. Avoid adding skills that are not really relevant (e.g. adding CNC machining to a resume for front end dev jobs). As well, don’t add things you did before college (if you are a freshman, before high school). Anything within the past 4 years is generally safe but it is best to pick the most recent, impressive, and relevant experiences.

Resume Template

Here you can find the template that I use. I made sure to keep it simple, clean, readable, and easy to modify. This resume was the result of at least a couple hundred iterations. I have had it looked over by quite a few people including other students, full-time engineers & hiring managers working in Silicon Valley, and professional career coaches. If I find anything to change, I will update the link above.

Quick Note on Networking

The odds of being called for an interview and getting a job is significantly higher if you get referred by an employee. By significantly, I mean by a factor of 10-100. Employees are often given cash incentives when someone they referred gets hired so it is a win-win for everyone. Here you can find an article where I include a few tips on networking as well as good resources for internship hunting.

Final Thoughts

These tips aren’t for everyone. It may be a good approach for some but not for others. Generally, however, I believe that these steps will be very relevant and significant to students searching for tech internships. The culmination of my job hunting journey has led me to believe that these tips are what you need to have your resume pass applicant tracking systems and get noticed by recruiters.

Disclaimer: I am in no way an “expert” in writing resumes or giving career advice. The views and opinions expressed in this article are mine. Any information presented here is in no way official or absolute, and may or may not be fully factual. I receive no compensation of any kind from this article.

I plan on creating more stories on Medium geared towards engineering students and internships. I would greatly appreciate a follow!

Want to contact me? Any comments, questions, or concerns? Looking for an intern? Feel free to drop a message on my contact form: jedg.me/contact. Connect with me on LinkedIn!

Note: This article was originally posted on my Medium page.