Improve Your Software Engineer Resume (3 steps)

Resumes suck. The hiring managers don’t like reading resumes and writing them aren’t exactly the high-light of your career. However there is almost no way around this since every application is online and you are asked to upload a copy of your resume.

Because of this process, hiring managers are bombarded with thousands of resumes with endless bullet points. Resumes are here to stay, so you might as well improve your Software Engineer resume to make hiring managers’ lives easier. I’ll go over 3 steps you can take to improve your software engineer resume.

What NOT to do with your resume

I know you’re tempted to find shortcuts for generating a resume. LinkedIn has a feature that generates a resume for you based on your LinkedIn profile. DO NOT DO THIS as LinkedIn is typically more informal and has a more personal style of writing.

Resumes, especially Software engineering resumes, are short and targeted while LinkedIn is more conversational. Good resumes give just enough details to point out what role you played in the projects you worked on. LinkedIn provides a space to showcase your strengths, personality and accomplishments throughout your career.

On top of that, recruiters and hiring managers want to see something different. They don’t want an exact copy of your LinkedIN profile. This shows laziness and not attentive to detail. Avoid this.

What you SHOULD do with your Software engineering resume

Because hiring managers are going through so many resumes, yours will only be glanced at for around 5 seconds. Hiring managers are not 100% focused when going through hundreds of resumes at a time.

So what does that mean for you?

You have a small window of opportunity to make a good impression. How do you make a good impression on your resume in a very short amount of time? A good software engineering resume has 3 characteristics:

1. Resumes are based on easy to consume information in the first few seconds. Because hiring managers are reviewing resumes at an intense level, they only have a few seconds to make a judgements based on the bullet points and main details that they can keep in mind. It’s simply not possible to read your resume word-for-word and have a complete analysis of who you are as a candidate.
2. The title will be the main focus. This may be obvious, but they want to see what’s your job title and if it matches the hiring position. Sometimes your role isn’t clearly defined on paper. That’s ok. Just give yourself a role on your resume that closely resembles what you did at your previous job.
3. Look for indications a of high performer. Hiring managers aren’t just looking for roles. Everyone can be a “Full stack developer”. List out the technology stack that you used for your project and detail out how your project helped the business deal with pain points.

3 Ways to improve your Software Engineering Resume

1. Declutter

There’s a good chance that your resume may have TOO much information. Focus on bullet points with no longer 2 lines. Focus on the main roles at your previous job and what technology you used. Go into detail but just enough for the hiring manager to get a grasp what your job was.

The simpler the resume, the better. In other fields, resume design may be acceptable if not necessary. However as you and I know, we’re Software Engineers and we focus on functionality. That goes the same for our resume as well.

Split your resume into sections and split those sections into smaller sections. Here is a sample format of my resume and what worked for me.

1. Name and Job Title
   1. Contact Information (Email and LinkedIn)
2. Summary
3. Job Experience
   1. Job #1 – # years employed – Company Name – Job Title
   2. Job #2 – # years employed – Company Name – Job Title
4. Education
5. References

Remember, no fancy designs. Just get the point across.

2. Change job title to the job you’re applying to

This may sound obvious, but hiring managers are looking for candidates that match the job position. Change your job title to something that you may have done for your company, such as web developer. If you’d like to go into detail about your role, do that during the interview. Our goal here is to capture the hiring manager’s attention.

In additional to job titles, use words that are relevant to the job description. Words such as API, Azure and AWS all stand out to the hiring manager to let them know that you are the right candidate. Take a look at an example of what my resume looks like.

But if you’d like to be a Web Developer but truly haven’t done it, try to get it on your resume. You can volunteer at a local business that needs work on their website. You can create your own projects and list them under the Experiences section.

3. Show that you are a high performer

Show that you were a high performer at your last job. Hiring managers are always looking for the best candidate for the job, so it’s important to let them know that you helped a business with their pain points. You can list them out in your resume like this:

In addition, use easy-to-read stats such as “Increased traffic by 65%” or “went from developer to manager in 6 months.” Using this tactic will improve your resume from the typical resume that everyone writes to one that truly stands out.

Putting on the finishing touches

Finally, make your resume as simple as possible. Many follow the 1-page resume rule to help hiring managers read quickly. I would say if you’re resume is clearly structured and you have a handful of experience, a 2-page resume is enough to not be too vague but also not too wordy.

Improving your resume is simple. Imagine yourself as a hiring manager looking through hundreds of resume. How does yours stand out? Make your software engineer resume the way the hiring manager wants to see it and you will make a strong case for yourself.

Thanks and best of luck on the job search!

-Bao