

Ask HN: What's a good resume format? - stretchwithme

Need to redo refresh my tired resume.  What has worked for you in terms of layout and what sections it contains?
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leeny
It depends on your industry. I work on hiring engineers at a startup, so I can
only speak to the kinds of things I look for in an eng resume, and my comments
probably don't apply to more creative fields like design (where layout is much
more important).

For engineering resumes, content trumps layout. As long as your resume is
_legible_ and is in a common format (pdf, doc, txt), it should be fine. Before
I go on to talk about content, here are a few legibility fails I've
encountered:

    
    
       - 3+ pages (unless you invented the lightbulb; otherwise STFU)
    
       - Poor use of endlines.  
    

OK, now onto _content_. You should have the following sections:

    
    
       - Contact info (email, phone, and [GitHub, your website, StackOverflow, etc])
    
       - Education
    
       - Jobs
    
       - Personal projects, if any (NOT CLASS PROJECTS)
    
       - Skills (optional, see below)
    

That's it. No objective (in 99% of resumes this is bullshit fluff), no summary
(see the part about bullshit fluff), no "references available upon request".

The last thing I'll say about content is that you should try your best to
explain what you actually worked on at each of your jobs. I don't care about
how you used Hibernate to accomplish Object Relational Mapping. That's what
Hibernate does. That's not what you did. Similarly, please try not to pepper
your resume with a bunch of buzzwords. I know that you my need buzzwords to
get past the HR filter, but if so, please list the languages you know and all
the frameworks you've used in one "Skills" section at the end. Use common
sense when trying to decide how many languages to drop in in a job description
-- if you were explaining to your friend what you did, would you mention the
language? If so, include it. If not, don't.

If you found this helpful and have further questions or want me to take a
look, please feel free to email me (see my HN user info).

~~~
caw
\- Personal projects, if any (NOT CLASS PROJECTS)

When I was going through resume workshops at the end of college, they
recommended putting class projects, so long as they're actually worth a damn.
CS 101 fish tank in java? No. Senior design project for a nonprofit? Yes.

Of course, my resume format for those was:

+Info

+Education

+Experience

+Skills | Projects

+Misc

So with that, I didn't actually list out what I did in each class, like some
people seem to do.

~~~
leeny
The problem is that most of the projects that people list are _not_ worth a
damn, so at this point, my strategy is to ignore unless you specifically draw
attention to a project and prove that it's something that required some amount
of initiative/originality.

Senior design project for a nonprofit, assuming it's something you had
ownership over, definitely sounds like it's worth listing, but projects like
this, unfortunately, are in the minority.

------
wtvanhest
I think it is industry/point in career dependent, but some good rules of
thumb:

Do not use MS word templates Start with education if you are a fresh grad
Start with last place you worked, or are currently working Use bullets to
denote major things you were responsible for… And did.

There are lots of resources on the internet for this. Go to your school and
ask them for a sample resume. Email me (my email is my hn name at gmail) and
I’ll send you an example. I was hired by Intel Corp (finance) and currently
work at a prestigious finance company.

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Jack000
I recently took part in the hiring process at a large company.

I think the main purpose of the resume is to get you on to the shortlist. You
basically need to look at the requirements and try to match their keywords.
When the HR guy is looking at 100+ resumes and need to whittle it down to 5~10
for interviews, you know they're not reading it in depth. Make your resume
scannable, and eliminate fluff as much as possible.

After that, it's all about the written/phone tests and the interview process.

------
eshvk
I use LaTeX to design my layout and it has worked pretty well for me. I have
an education section, skills and a set of projects that I have worked on.
Obviously the most emphasis is on the projects, languages I have used, team
work etc. I have seen resumes with hobbies, references etc which IMO are
irrelevant. If we get to the stage where I have to ask you culture fit
questions, I would rather ask them in person rather than read them of a
resume.

