People seem to want my opinion on their resume, and I find myself giving out the same advice over and over again, so here is a guide. We will go through theoretically what I think a resume should be, then some concrete examples. This guide is mainly target for people in tech, since I’m in tech and mainly review resumes in tech, though there is some good general advice that can be applied to any industry. I will not talk about styling except for right now, its subjective, however I recommend using a plain “academic” style. This is the template I recommend. Your resume should be a maximum of 1 page.

Table of contents:

The tl;dr of writing a strong resume point

  1. Identify exactly what you are trying to communicate
    1. “After the recruiter reads this point, I want them to know that I made a positive business impact”
    2. “After the recruiter reads this point, I want them to know I can solve complex technical problems”
    3. etc
  2. Once a focus has been identified, write a sentence with the intention of communicating that focus. Do not include useless details.
  3. Use active voice

Who am I

As of writing this, I have completed 5 academic terms at the University of Waterloo in Computer Engineering. Due to the pandemic I took a year off to work, on top of Waterloo’s coop program, I am currently on my 7th internship...

In the past I have interned at Shopify, Asana, and currently I’m an intern at Amazon Web Services. As well I have gotten interviews from HRT, Flexport, and Stripe. I would consider these results fairly good, and thus feel qualified to give out advice regarding resumes.

Understanding what we’re up against

Our end goal is to get the interview. Typically a recruiter will skim over a resume in 10-30 seconds (this stat is pulled from my ass but its a common saying in the industry), so during that time we need to convince them that we are worth interviewing.

What is the purpose of a resume

The purpose of a resume is to effectively communicate that you are a competent candidate worthy of an interview. Effective communication does not mean using complicated smart sounding words, or spamming keywords. Instead it means that we use language that is easy to read; remember that recruiters skim over the resume, if we use words that are too fancy or hard to read, it requires more effort on their part to parse what we’re trying to say. We want to make it as easy as possible for a recruiter to see that we are a competent candidate.

Think about what is being communicated

Often times, people just end up listing things they’ve done. This shows a lack of intention and thought on their part. The way I like to write resume points (this is a suggestion I give to every person that has asked me for a resume review) is to think about what exactly it is I’m trying to communicate. “What do I want the recruiter to know about me after they read this point?” is a question you should always be asking yourself as you write your resume.