You’ve probably heard that a recruiter will only look at your resume for 6-7 seconds. That’s often true. How do you catch someone’s attention in such a short amount of time? 

OrganizationIt may seem simple, but organizing your resume can go a long way. An effective resume structure will make it easier for recruiters to scan your resume in seconds. These are the sections you should include:

• Contact Information: List your name, city, phone number, email address, LinkedIn profile, GitHub profile, and portfolio website (if you have one). Add these to the very top of your resume in a clear and easy-to-read format.
• Education: List your school, expected graduation date with your degree (e.g. B.S. in Computer Science), any relevant coursework, achievements, and your GPA if it’s above 3.5 (or major GPA if higher).
• Skills: Highlight specific skills relevant to software engineering. We recommend breaking your skills up into programming languages (e.g. Python, Java, …), technologies (e.g. VS Code, GitHub, …), and concepts (e.g. Algorithms, Agile Development, …). You should order each line from most to least experience, but you don’t have to qualify each item as “Beginner,” “Intermediate,” or “Advanced.” Even if you don’t feel like you know a lot about a certain skill, add it! You can always explain in an interview that you are still learning the skill, but know some of the basics. It’s important to list as many (relevant) skills as possible to give yourself the best chance at passing the automated resume screens.
• Experience: List all of your work experience, including volunteer work and part-time jobs, with a focus on skills and responsibilities.
• Projects: Highlight any noteworthy school or personal projects you’ve completed. Include a brief description of each project, the technologies you used, the skills you used or developed, and any positive outcomes or feedback received.
• Extracurriculars: List any extracurriculars you take part in, your role, and your responsibilities in that position. Extracurriculars are a great place to demonstrate that you have leadership abilities and are a strong team player.
• Languages and Interests (optional): This section is a chance to highlight any foreign languages that you speak and to add a bit of personality to your resume. If you have extra space, use this section to share a few work-appropriate and mature things you’re passionate about (sports, travel, food, etc.).

EmphasisMake sure to note which technologies you used for each personal project and work experience you list on your resume. Even better, you can bold these technologies to make them stand out to recruiters (this tip is from an Apple recruiter).

TemplatesIf your current resume is outdated, badly-formatted, or bland, we’ve included two modern and well-formatted templates here. These templates have landed us interviews and offers at companies like Amazon, Microsoft, JP Morgan, Capital One, and Palantir. So we know they work!

LengthOne page. Period. You should try to use as much of the page as possible, but it’s far better to use ¾ of a page than to go even a few lines onto the second page.

If you’re having trouble cutting down your content, ask family or friends which of your experiences and projects they think are the least impressive. You can try reducing the font size and margins, but don’t make your resume unreadable with these formatting tricks.

If you’re having trouble filling a whole page, make sure you’re including all of your previous experience, your extracurriculars, and your projects (even if you did them for a class). If all else fails, try to complete some new projects, join a club, or add more detail to the current contents of the document.

Resume ReviewsIt’s essential to have someone else read over your resume. Reviewers don’t even have to be familiar with software engineering or tech. They’ll likely be able to find typos and oddly-worded sentences that you weren’t able to pick up yourself (probably because you’ve read over the document so many times). 

If you’re able to, also try to find an engineer (or a recent tech intern) who is willing to take a look. They can help you rework the content of your resume and give an outside perspective on how to put your best foot forward.

Presenting Yourself on LinkedInYour LinkedIn page is essentially a web-based version of your resume. Fill in all the sections on your page including Bio, Projects, Experience, and Skills. Make sure to add a nice photo of yourself, a banner, and see this post for more specific tips on your headline.