Are you a software engineer looking to land your dream job at a top tech company? Writing an impressive resume is crucial to standing out from the crowd and getting noticed by recruiters. In this blog post, we’ll share 10 expert tips to help you craft a standout software engineering resume that showcases your skills, experience, and impact in the best possible light.
Tip #1: Don’t Be Shy – Sell Yourself
When applying for jobs, it’s time to put modesty aside and really sell your abilities. You’re in a competitive market, so your resume needs to be as impressive and impactful as possible. Adopt a confident, winning mindset and don’t hold yourself back from highlighting your biggest achievements.
- Write a technical blog describing things you solve
- Build in public on twitter/X
- Create youtube tutorials
- Staying active in open source
- Staying active in the community of tech you are actively using, It can be a subreddit, discord server or anything as long as you are active there to make an impact.
- Pick up freelance jobs on side of your main job to understand and work on stuff you are enthusiastic about and maybe you create a lead from there in future as well.
- Build tools, templates, plugins and apps that solves users/your problems – It can be anything as long as it solves a problem
There’s N number of things you do that can help you with visibility and reaching more people who could possibly hire you or recommend you to a job.
Tip #2: Keep It Concise with a One-Page Resume
On an average a recruiter scans your resume for 6-7 secs and then decide whether to scrape it or consider reading further and deciding to book an interview with you, so make every word count. Keep your resume to a single page view, well-organized page that’s easy to scan by ATS. Include only the essentials and avoid irrelevant or redundant information.
Tip #3: Make It Easy for Them to Learn More
Include links to your online profiles like LinkedIn and GitHub as well as your portfolio, projects, or publications. This allows recruiters to easily explore your skills, experience, and work samples further and grasp an understanding of your skills and capabilities.
Tip #4: Focus on Relevant Technical Skills
Instead of an objective statement like Software Enginner, Web Developer….list your most relevant technical skills at the top like React Front End Dev, Nextjs Full Stack Dev.
This quickly showcases your expertise to recruiters. Avoid listing obvious skills like Microsoft Office, Slack, Google Sheets…… Just focus on the abilities that matter most for the role.
Like for example pranav here, don’t be like him
Tip #5: Lead with Your Experience
Unless you’re a recent grad, your work experience is more valuable than your education. Place your experience section front and center to highlight your accomplishments and impact right away.
Companies would rather hire an experienced guy than a new guy who knowns nothing and had to be trained from scratch as it increases their cost of spending on training you so they would hire a candidate with experience.
You can get more experience through working on Tip 1
Tip #6: Amplify Your Achievements (Ethically)
Don’t be afraid to use powerful language to really sell your achievements, as long as you’re still being honest. For example: “Led the design and development of a revenue-driving, enterprise-grade microservice application.”
Tip #7: Use Metrics to Quantify Success
Companies love data, so back up your claims with hard numbers and metrics whenever possible. For example:
- “Reduced API latency by 80%, from 10 seconds to 2 seconds.”
- “Reduced cloud hosting cost from 43k / Month to 20k / Month with an optimized code”
- “Increased Desktop page speed performance from 56 to 98 serving the content from the server rather on the client side”
Tip #8: Explain the Business Impact
Avoid mentioning excessive technical jargon as most of the recruiters hired by organizations are not so technical and don’t have experience working in whatever tech stack you are using. So instead, explain the real-world problems you solved and how your work helped the business succeed using language that anyone can understand.
Tip #9: Focus on Recent, Relevant Experience
Employers care most about your latest experience, so prioritize your space accordingly. Don’t go into too much detail on older roles, education, or hobbies unless it’s directly relevant to the job you are applying.
Tip #10: Project Professionalism & Confidence
Portray yourself as the skilled professional you are. Don’t use modifiers like “entry-level” or “intermediate” that could make you seem less qualified or confident.
By following these 10 tips you’ll create a resume that grabs recruiters’ attention and increases your chances of landing interviews at top tech companies.
We hope this post was helpful! Feel free to share with your friends who are looking for jobs