Ask HN: What would you like to see in a students resume

7 points by picc 15y ago ↗ HN

I've decided to join my college's co-op program and I'm going to start applying for jobs probably in October.

I'm a bit unsure as to what I'm supposed to include in the "technical skills" section of my resume. I was told that since I lack experience, I should use a combination (highlight skills and education rather than experience) format resume. Unfortunately, I've been coding for only two years and I don't have cool or huge projects to show my potential employer. What I have built are small tools (command line and GUI) that I use personally. I know only a bit about lots of things (Linux, Windows, Java, C, Python, SQL, git) because when I discovered my passion for programming, I started reading and learning as much as I could.

My question now is, how would you like me to present these skills in my resume? Am I supposed to include as many buzzwords as possible? Would you like me to talk about those small tools that I've made? Or would it be better if I emphasize what I've learned in school?

3 comments

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swolchok 15y ago ↗

1) Use the apostrophe correctly, when applicable: "student's". Your resume should have no obvious proofreading errors.

2) Include everything relevant without being too verbose. Education, Experience, Skills. Probably relevant coursework in the Education section. Don't put anything in Skills that you wouldn't be comfortable being asked about in an interview; it's appropriate to differentiate between "strong experience" and "experience".

By the way, I am not a recruiter, but my student resume landed me interviews for internships with Microsoft and Google, among others. If my experience is any guide, your first resume will suck, but getting the content out there is a good first step, and then you can improve. Spend several short sessions on it.

toolate 15y ago ↗

What area are you looking at? If you're looking for web roles then put together a website explaining who you are and a portfolio if you have enough to show. Polish your smaller projects, publish them on GitHub and link to them from your site.

exline 15y ago ↗

Its the classic catch 22, no work experience to put on the resume, hard to get a job to gain the experience.

But I think it is a lot easier now then it was in the past. There are lots of opportunities to work on open source projects. What I look for in student or recent graduate resume is decent list of technical skills (languages, db, methodologies, etc.) These you can pick up at school. The biggest issue for me is to see some code. You can learn a lot about a person by looking over their code. So I'd publish a few of your personal projects. Reference the website where the code and documentation sits on your resume.

I less concerned about buzzwords. They don't tell me anything. They may help you get past a resume screener, but they will not help you beyond that. If you have experience in the area, you should specifically list that.