Ask HN: How does a great resume look like? What are the best tools to make one?
Hey everyone! I'm a self-taught full-stack web developer. I've spent the past few years learning webdev, working on personal projects, and building a portfolio (https://startuplab.io/portfolio).
Now I want to find good clients, or work remotely for a startup, and to do that I need to make a resume(or CV?).
So I wanted to ask a few questions:
- What should I put on my resume?
- Can you share some examples of how a great resume should look like?
- What are some of the best tools for making one?
- What do you look for when deciding to hire a developer?
- Can you share some advice that would help me increase my chances of finding a good job?
100 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadYou are also not likely to get a remote job without some relevant work experience that demonstrates you can work independently. So your resume should heavily focus on that - show you can learn on your own, manage yourself, etc.. Lacking any programing job experience, though, it's going to be somewhat difficult.
If you don't have relevant job experience, can you get a non-remote job to begin with?
https://www.linkedin.com/redir/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Flca...
https://cvmkr.com and https://visualcv.com
"What does it look like" and "how does it look" are both correct, yet for whatever reason, using both the words "how" and "like" in that construction ends up sounding awkward.
I hope that doesn't sound critical, I'm just trying to be helpful. When it comes to resumes, every little detail matters, even the ones that shouldn't. Good luck!
- http://www.polishmywriting.com/
- http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
Use these if the above don't cut it:
- https://readable.io/
- https://www.kibin.com/
So definitely, proofread it yourself, have a grammar nazi proofread it, etc. Your eyes will completely miss mistakes you made -- and not because you don't KNOW they're mistakes, but because you know the content you wrote, and what you MEANT to say, so your eyes won't even see the error, even if they'd easily spot it on someone else's.
Unfortunately, this works against non-native English speakers, but that's all the more reason to seek out help if you need it, to put a non-native speaker on the same footing, to begin with, as a native.
Interestingly, the guy was a 180 degree opposite from what I expected based on the carelessness on his resume and the person who referred him. In the end, he still wasn't anywhere near up to my expectations, but, again, details.
Be achievement focused. i.e. don't water down what you write with a job description.
(1) Not concretely listing the candidate's contribution (vs the team or project description), and
(2) Not focused on the most impressive and relevant items, but instead a laundry list of things unrelated to the opportunity at hand
Some tips and a resume template: https://www.careercup.com/resume
Tailoring, in this case, meant relatively minor tweaks - if it was a more engineering role I'd highlight those skills and contributions whereas with the more data science-y roles I'd highlight more relevant aspects. I think it's very arrogant to think that a single resume is appropriate for every job application.
If you're "just another developer" applying to a "just a developer" req, then yes there's probably no reason to tweak. For anything else, you should absolutely be reconfiguring your resume to highlight your relevant skills.
Another favorite is people who don't trim down previous experience. Every time I add a position to my resume, I go back over every other position and remove or compress bullet points based on what I think is important from that job now. And, of course, I've completely removed things like irrelevant college summer jobs. This is the main mechanism that allows my resume to still fit on a single (!) page.
For my next job hunt I definitely concentrate on the things relevant for the kind of thing I'm looking for. Especially adding bullets about things one dislikes backfires eventually after taking a position. At some point one will get asked to work with exactly that stuff because nobody likes doing it
My resume is ultimately more than one page, not much more, but it reads very quickly. In the source material I vaguely recall you have seconds, like maybe 30-90 to really hook the reader. Long paragraphs read much more slowly than concise yet robust bullet points. If you want to pack absolutely everything on your resume, keep the unimportant stuff towards the end. I list time travel as one of my interests at almost the very end of my resume. Getting comments on it let me know someone was either skimming for an interesting phrase or really read all of it.
In terms of getting a job, that's a completely different story. That involves the steps necessary to get a resume on top of a desk, and to inspire the person reading it that this person has more value than the others. Those are not easy things to do, but they often do more to determine whether you will get hired than the content of your resume.
But not necessarily in a "you should try to make it pretty" sort of way. Looks should be more about readability and making it easy to scan and easy to find the pertinent information. It should look good in an engineering sort of way, not an art sort of way, if that makes sense.
Sometimes I get a recruiter who demands I send them my resume as an editable Word document rather than a PDF, so not having one at the ready makes it easier to just say no :)
You're basically selling yourself and your skills. Length, design, content, formatting, etc. all will depend on who is actually reading your resume.
For a fantastic example of how your writing changes based on audience, check out https://getcoleman.com/.
Going to either extremes are chuckleworthy too.
https://github.com/evinr/Graphic_Design/blob/master/Resumes/...
Were you trying to block machine readers by using an image for skills?
The bars require me to tilt my neck to read. If I don't, it's still challenging. The graph isn't very intuitive either.
What I care most about is the description of your role at your previous employment, but it seems to have the smallest font which makes it difficult to read when everything else is so large.
Testimonials also take up a lot of space and doesn't provide much.
Yes, there are spelling mistakes, but for me, these show a human being behind the words and design.
Excellent work.
It's a resume... it doesn't have to be paired with the paper equivalent of a LSD trip...
I've been very happy with limecv, check out https://olivierpieters.be/projects/limecv and https://github.com/opieters/limecv
When hiring devs, or anyone really, but this seems particularly problematic in tech: I always look for people who aren't completely full of themselves. If you think you're infallible or arrogant, I don't care what you've done. You're likely awful to work with. Be a person and remember you work with people.
https://breakoutlist.com/engineer-resume-checklist
Regarding examples of a great resume, see the one in the photo above.
Also see the following template regarding this and your question about the best tools for making one.
Example resume on ShareLaTeX: https://www.sharelatex.com/project/55db6ac384d1be370a7d4b9a
> Can you share some advice that would help me increase my chances of finding a good job?
Treat it like an engineering problem. Analyze your funnel - what companies/opportunities are you starting with? What's your conversion rate between funnel steps? How can you increase that?
And, vitally, how can you put yourself in the shoes of the person on the other side? How can you simulate their perspective? At every point of interaction with you, if you were them, what would you think? And given that knowledge, how can you improve what you're doing?
Other things: check out @sehurlburt on Twitter, Stephanie gives great advice on this topic. Also search around and read threads like the following: https://www.reddit.com/r/engineering/comments/23e4df/entry_l...
It condenses information to one page.
you can have one for free as long as you promise to upload it on your website and make it live :)
I myself use inkscape. The result is neat, pixel perfect resume and i can adjust the size and content aesthetically to make it fit on one page.
Of course it supposes that you got the content already figured out.
[1]: https://www.sovren.com/resume-job-parser/
Keep a master resume with everything you have accomplished so you don't forget something in the future, and edit it accordingly.
1. Write a list of 5-10 places you'd love to work and the role you'd want to have
2. Research the people who work there, the company's mission, and the company's marketing materials
3. Spend a few hours writing a job description from the employers perspective, to get you in their mindset and see the importance of certain attributes and skills over others
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After you do the above steps, you'll be able to see the parts of your resume/cover letter/portfolio that are important and the ones that can be left out.
All you need to do is learn how to shift your perspective... which is a hard thing to do. By doing the above steps, you should be able to achieve it, however.
In my experience, the insights you'll get from doing so are invaluable.
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Also, use a professional paid-for resume generating service, subscribe for a month, and then cancel. I'd recommend: https://resume.io/?ref=producthunt (I left the parameter on the url so you'll get the 80% discount)
Good luck!