
How to Create a Software Engineer Resume Hiring Managers Will Love - rileyt
https://standardresume.co/resources/software-engineer-resume
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knute
One thing that's not on here: Proofread your resume. Have a friend look over
it for you. Spell things correctly. I don't care if you use "JavaScript" or
"Javascript" but pick one and stick with it. If you're a software engineer,
the ability to type and attention to detail are important so show it in your
resume. The number of resumes I've seen with glaring mistakes is too damn
high.

~~~
pmiller2
I don't know if you meant to imply this, but if you think having "Javascript"
in one place, and "JavaScript" in another is a "glaring mistake," I think you
might just be too damn picky.

~~~
prewett
In a profession where

    
    
      void f(const std::vector<std::string>& arg);
    

and

    
    
      void f(const std::vector<std::string> arg);
    

do very different things, I'd say that you should at least sell yourself as
paying attention to detail.

You could say that this is a poor design of C++, but pick your language,
there's usually something like this somewhere. At least in any of the commonly
used languages. (Although, C++ is particularly bad about it.)

~~~
colanderman
I am torn on this.

I want to agree with the logic.

But many of the best software engineers I know can't spell or format English
consistently.

Of course resumes are higher stakes than code comments.

But I care #1 that your resume communicates clearly to me what I need to know
to judge whether you would benefit my team. If you typoed something, or your
formatting is a bit wonky, even if I notice, I am not likely to care.

(Obviously, an excessive amount of errors can demonstrate a communication
issue.)

Another aspect to consider is that weighting English errors strongly can
introduce bias against many demographics.

Rather, I find it best to assume good faith, that the candidate prepared their
resume to the best of their circumstance. Only evidence to the contrary should
hold weight.

------
colanderman
Most important to keep in mind is the immediate goal that each recipient of
your resume is trying to achieve.

The hiring manager is trying to narrow down a (potentially large) field of
candidates. Make it easy for them to spot on your resume the reasons they
should consider you.

Your interviewers (i.e., future co-workers) are looking for things to talk to
you about, ways to connect with you. Include on your resume conversation
starters which will provide you the opportunity to connect positively with
them and demonstrate the value you will bring.

I have not been a hiring manager, but I am often the "future co-worker". Often
we are handed your resume minutes before interviewing you. If I cannot quickly
find anything interesting to ask you about because your resume is too
difficult to scan, contains too much jargon, or has too much extraneous
information, you may not get the opportunity to tell me those interesting
things.

The classic writing advice applies: remove anything unnecessary to convey your
message and help the reader achieve their goal.

------
raghava
Before a human reads it, a machine will read it.

It is 2020, every other HR who wants to squeeze out a little more time for
themselves (may be to use it to browse insta/whatsapp/FB) would end up using
some shit "AI/ML tool" sold by some snake oil vendor portraying it as suberb
intelligent automation that aguments recruiters' intelligence for recruitment,
at scale.

Every one first has to please the API/ML-model even before a human casts a
look at the resume.

Tune resume to be read easily by a machine.

~~~
JustAPerson
Does anyone have suggestions for how to check if your resume is correctly
parsed by these tools?

------
stonecharioteer
I have a question that I haven't seen answered. How do I put mentoring skills
in a resume?

I am currently mentoring 2 interns, two new college graduates, 3 new college
grads from last year and a few others that I met over at other companies or
online.

How do I put those skills on a resume? Because I've seen that my colleagues
aren't very good at this. They're neither patient enough nor expressive enough
to mentor someone and share learning resources, sympathise with newcomers, or
slow down their pace and not make it seem so obvious that mentoring or pairing
with an inexperienced engineer sometimes does slow us down.

------
jedberg
Do a lot of employers still ask for resumes?

I haven't applied to a job in a while, but as a hiring manager, I usually just
ask for their GitHub and LinkedIn, making the resume optional if it's more up
to date than LinkedIn or the don't have LI.

~~~
drglitch
Yes. In finance, pretty much all you do is proprietary and all opensource work
must be painfully precleared, so most of GHs for people are empty.

Most companies (even megabanks) also have strict rules what you can and can't
put on your linked in.

A resume is therefore crucial.

~~~
jedberg
> Most companies (even megabanks) also have strict rules what you can and
> can't put on your linked in.

Fascinating! I hadn't heard this. Do those restrictions apply to resumes too,
and are just harder to enforce? Or are they actually LI only restrictions?

> so most of GHs for people are empty.

Oh, to be clear, I don't ding anyone for having an empty GH. There are lots of
reasons not to maintain one. I just like to see it if they do.

~~~
drglitch
Resumes are much harder to enforce, so they tend to be juicier. But if someone
comes in and starts spewing clearly proprietary stuff, its a huge red flag
during hiring.

------
cosmotic
The post says to use a 'modern font'... what is that?

~~~
pixelbath
I'm a designer who usually cares a great deal about typeface usage. On your
resume, I don't care if you use Times New Roman (but pick _one_ ) as long as
you can present your information well.

------
bcrl
I still prefer to send my resume as a plain ASCII .txt file.

