The Perfect Resume

The less you do the more you do.

WHY RESUME WRITING MATTERS

Let’s start with a real world example. Jerry Lee applied to dozens of companies and landed 29 interviews with a resume that…

• Led with the name “Kismaa D. Nhuhts”

• Admitted to misuse of company property for mining ETH

• Admitted to use of drugs while on the job

• … And many more interesting tidbits

This example may seem stunning or absurd - maybe even fabricated. But, as a recruiter who has reviewed >250k resumes, I’m not at all shocked. It absolutely seems possible this resume could generate the type of responses Jerry claims it produced.

This happens because recruiters (or any resume reviewer, really) do not spend a long time on each resume. Per a study published by Ladders in 2018:

“Despite operating in the toughest hiring environment in decades, many recruiters are still skimming resumes for details—with the average initial screen clocking in at just 7.4 seconds in 2018.”

Recruiters not spending a long time on a resume is a function of habit & routine, and it is highly unlikely to change. So - if you’re a job seeker - you have a few choices. First choice: you can shake your fist at the sky and decry recruiters for not taking the appropriate amount of time to understand every inch of your snowflaked outline. Second choice: accept that you won’t change recruiters, and find a way to speak their language.

MY ADVICE ON RESUME WRITING

The Easy Stuff:

Make it very easy to figure out who you are and basic info like where (unspecifically) you live, and give OPTIONALITY for the recruiter or hiring manager to learn more about you by linking out to other profile sites:

1. Include email, linkedin, github/portfolio

2. Include city / state (or relevant to country), full address isn't necessary

Use The Standard Template

Remember: when it comes to resume review, recruiters turn into robots, trained on tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of iterations. They follow a pattern of reviewing resumes and if ANYTHING is out of place, there’s a big chance your resume will get auto-rejected. This is not the time to innovate:

• Name / contact details --> work xp --> education

• Work xp should be in reverse chronology (most recent xp first)

• Use specific dates (month + year)

  • You can omit months only if you have long (>4 year) stings

• No sensitive info (DOB, Citizenship, Marital Status, Religion, etc)

• No pictures

• No skills / jobs chronology "side-bar"

No Alphabet Soup:

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a version of a resume like the one below. This is resume cardinal sin. Do not put a giant chunk of text between your name and your experience. Even if the keyword inclusion helps push this resume up to the top for review, the chance of it getting any further is incredibly low:

No “Fun” Stuff

Similar to the above re: following a standard format. You don’t want to “catch a recruiters attention” with formatting. You want to CONFORM to their standard method of reviewing information. Fit into their processor. That means:

• No weird colors (just black)

• No "fun" font selection

• No non-standard chronology (eg, jumping around, or non-reverse)

Artists + designers: you are not exceptions when it comes to the resume. Link to your portfolio, where you should absolutely put your dazzling skills on display. But your resume is not that place.

Be Concise:

Distill, distill, distill - resumes ARE NOT exhaustive. Any opportunity for the recruiters mind to wander will be taken. You need to cut every needless letter and word, and you need to create exacting clarity for the reader to quickly understand each point. So…

• No more than 2 pages (pref 1)

• No more than 6 bullets per job.

  • You can do multiple roles at a single organization, list as separate jobs

• Bullets should be no longer than 1 line (no wrapping text)

  • » SERIOUSLY. NO. WRAPPING. TEXT «

• Do not use evasive language (unclear dates, titles, etc)

Highlight Impact, Not Duties

Try to use commonly understood (but select) metrics to exhibit impact. Just because you were responsible for something doesn’t mean you did it well - so you need to clarify what you specifically did (vs what you were asked to do).

You also need to bring context (eg: numbers, users, dollars, etc) because most reviewers will not instantly understand [insert business, technology, etc.]

Some examples…

Example 1:

• Bad: “responsible for overall hiring output”

• Good: “Led teams that hired >6k staff in 3 years”

Example 2:

• Bad: “responsible for global headcount planning process and outcomes”

• Good: “delivered Riot’s first accurate headcount forecast (99.7% accuracy)”

This approach can be applied to almost all jobs. If you managed a business, then say something about the P&L, revenues, margins. If you are an engineer, you should be talking about users, requests rates, read/write times, etc. If you are a game designer, you need to speak in terms of player impact, sentiment, metacritic scores, etc.

Errors / Mistakes

Finally… Proofread your resume, don't make unforced errors

The Short Version:

Resumes are not a place for innovation. More is not better. Be selective and thoughtful. Accept that you will get very little attention from resume reviewers - your job is to decide what to communicate in that very short span.

What else belongs on this list? Any ya'll disagree with?