Resume Cheatsheet

10 tenets I believe in when writing/reviewing a resume:

1. Your resume is like a trailer if your career is a movie, make it worth the reader's time.
2. Brevity is key: On an average, a person spends 45 seconds on a resume and scans for the most important content, make it easy for them.
3. Less is more: 1 page length for work experience under 10 years.
4. A clean and well-formatted resume with enough whitespace is 10x more likely to be read than an overwhelming one.
5. Your resume is your first impression and is often the biggest barrier to entry.
6. Every word and every sentence should add some new value.
7. Personalize your resume such that it is unique to you and tells your story.
8. A good resume is always a work in progress. Never complete. Never perfect.
9. Your resume is not enough. Most people will first browse your LinkedIn profile and form an opinion about you.
10. Start writing your resume early and keep enough buffer to iterate before applying for a job.

Fact: I revised 23 versions of my resume over 35 days before I applied for my internship in grad school. I was never satisfied and that has probably been the best outcome of my imposter syndrome. I feel fortunate that I started writing my resume early and had the most patient mentors who spent hours coaching me. I hope my checklist saves you a few iterations!

?My resume cheat sheet: I've shared the common mistakes I made (or often observed during resume reviews) and the best practices that I learned from my mentors, books and blogs. I hope this saves you a few iterations!

See tabular format here

HEADER

Best Practices:

• Add your full name and pronouns (top line, biggest font)
• Add your city, state, country, email address, LinkedIn profile URL
• Optional: Link to your portfolio/GitHub repo/blog/website

Common Pitfalls:

• Don't share your full address or phone number as this is PII info. Your resume is going to travel to many unknown places, keep your identity safe!

EDUCATION

Best Practices:

• Education should be the 1st section if you are a student. Always mention "expected graduation date" if you are currently studying (eg: Sep 2022 - Mar 2024* Expected)
• If you have been working for 5 years or more, put your work experience section above education.
• Add name of university, institute, city, country and hyperlink to university website.
• Add degree and core specialization (eg: MS in Data Science with a specialization in NLP | BE in Computer Engineering)
• Any exemplary achievements only - be very choosy! (eg: 1st rank in university)

Common Pitfalls:

• Add your GPA only if it is above average in your cohort. No GPA is always better than low GPA.
• High school info is not required after completing undergraduate study.
• Avoid a laundry list of coursework or MOOCs. You should add such details in your LinkedIn profile in education or courses.
• Avoid jargons and use full words. Keep this section short and concise.

WORK EXPERIENCE & PROJECTS

Best Practices:

• Mention your 3 best achievements in each role. Limit to 1 achievement for roles < 6 months experience.
• Quantify outcomes and impact first, followed by process if necessary. The "why" and "what" is much more important than "how"
• Use data and facts to justify impact wherever possible. Do not use adjectives!

Avoid: Led a massive effort in xyz and delivered unprecedented results that was highly appreciated by leadership

Recommended: Led a team of 10 engineers to deliver xyz which resulted in 2x increase in revenue ($XXXM) in 6 months.

• Use strong action verbs that demonstrate your leadership and ownership.
• Show career progression if you have been promoted in the same team/company.
• Choose to showcase the experience makes you a good candidate for your next role.
• Use reverse chronology - latest experience first. Always mention start and end dates of the job (Format recommended: Jan-2020 - May-2021)
• Provide hyperlinks to company website or LinkedIn page.
• Mention the company name, your job title, team/department (optional), city, country.
• Mention notable publications, patents and key initiatives.

Common Pitfalls:

• Do not explain your job duties or role responsibilities - this is common knowledge and can be found on the internet.
• If you have mentioned something as a skill in a separate section (eg: Tableau), do not repeat it in work experience as it adds no new value.
• Do not include very old internships, academic projects or jobs that are no longer relevant to the role you want to apply for.

SKILLS (OPTIONAL)

Best Practices:

• You are hired for the skills you bring to the table. Ask yourself: "Will this skill help me get the next job?" before adding something
• Only add relevant skills and be prepared to demonstrate hands-on knowledge of any skill during the interview.
• You can also blend in the skills used in a role/project as a last bullet point under each work experience (for a role). This makes it relevant to the role and has a context in time.

Common Pitfalls:

• Avoid laundry lists and overstatements. It is not possible nor expected for someone early career to be "skilled" at so many things.
• If you cannot demonstrate a skill acquired in the past, be comfortable to exclude it.

BEYOND WORK

Best Practices:

• Add this section to share some things about yourself that makes others want to work with you.
• Add voluntary work that has a meaningful impact on society or community.
• Any proud moments that make you unique.
• Any initiatives that you drive or causes you care about.

Common Pitfalls:

• No laundry lists of all your "hobbies" unless you are really passionate about something or have a noteworthy achievement
• Do not add fake volunteer work - it will not give you brownie points

LANGUAGE

Best Practices:

• Triple check for grammar, spellings, and punctuation.
• Use short sentences and concise language.
• Be original and avoid using templatized language which makes your resume look like any other resume.

Common Pitfalls:

• Avoid jargons and very domain specific terminology.
• Use words that are country-friendly for the geography in which you are applying (eg: In India, they use 1st/2nd/3rd/final year for engineering. In US they use freshman/sophomore/junior/senior)

DESIGN

Best Practices:

• Whitespace is key - have enough spacing for words to have breathing room.
• Use a single font face and size 10 or 11 minimum.
• Recommended fonts: Roboto, Calibri, Segoe UI
• Use 1-2 colors at most.
• Indent dates to right to form a timeline - no zigzag patterns

Common Pitfalls:

• Avoid using bold, italics, underline and other formatting unless necessary.
• Avoid filling up every inch of the page.

Leave me a comment if you have a question, have a resume tip to share or just found this nugget useful. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you next week with a new product nugget!?