Resumes for New Grads?

CastrTroy asks: "I recently graduated from the software engineering program at the University of Ottawa. With 4 terms of experience, and good marks, I am still unable to even get interviews for jobs. What makes a good resume? I've gotten some good pointers from people I know, but it just doesn't seem to be working. Is there something that works really well for technically related jobs? What is a good way to include skills that I don't have on-the-job experience with? Some people say 3 pages is too much, while others say their resume is 25 pages. Are there any actual proven methods for writing good resumes, or is it all just hit and miss"

Comments

You want to keep your resume

[foidulus]

as short as possible while still highlighting your skills. Remember, recruiters are busy people, and they usually spend a very small amount of time per resume(unless they are interested). Sometimes your resume may even get filtered out by computer.
Your best bet is to make a tight, targeted resume. Flooding monster or hotjobs with generic resumes probably won't get you very far. Find the jobs you think you are most suited for, and go for them! And of course, networkin never hurts either!
Happy hunting!

Keep it simple... but sell yourself with it.

[ChibiOne]

25 pages? A resume is supposed to give a glimpse of who you are (profesionally speaking), no to tell the story of your life since birth.

Keep it simple. And I don't mean cryptic. I mean, it must have a clean layout, nice itemized lists instead of clumsy paragraphs of post-modern crappy descriptions of your work. Of course, this doesn't mean you have to write a list like "tech support, programming in Java, computer mainteinance, bla1, bla2, bla3..." either.

Remember, you have to write something that can give the reader a grasp of who you are in 10 seconds. Otherwise, the whole thing will end up in the trash basket.

Keep it short and sweet

[Chelloveck]

For someone fresh out of college with no work experience, there's absolutely no reason to have a resume that's more than one page. No offense, but you probably haven't done anything worth taking that much of the reviewer's time.

List your coursework and your strengths. Describe some of the relevant projects you've done for class. You can list summer-job type work experience, but if all of it was just flipping burgers don't dwell on it. On the other hand, if you've interned or done anything related to your field, play it up!

If you've done anything applicable outside of schoolwork, be sure to list that! That's what's going to catch someone's eye. When I'm looking at resumes I give top priority to people who have technical hobbies. It shows that they really like this stuff, and aren't merely going to be punching a clock.

Also, make sure you send out resumes. Lots of resumes. To anyone and everyone. I graduated in 1988 with a BSEE degree from a respected university. Jobs were easier to find then, but I still ended up sending out over 400 resumes. That netted me only a handful of interviews, and a huge pile of FOAD letters. You know how I got my first real job? Through a friend-of-a-friend, who happened to have also graduated from my school ten years before. That's right, in the end good ol' social networking gets you the most action.

All I can say is keep at it. Definitely get involved in some sort of activity related to the work you want to do, if only to keep your knowledge fresh. Send out lots of resumes. And especially, chat up your friends and see who's hiring.

Short and Focused

[mgoff]

As a new college grad, your resume should not be any longer than a single page. Screeners are spending less than a minute on each resume-- they're not going to waste time paging through tons of detail. Here's a few tips I think will help you be successful:

• Cusomize your resume as much as possible for every position. What industry is the company in? Highlight non-engineering experiences you have that would help you (as a programmer) in that sector. Of course, you don't have time to rewrite your resume for every employer, but a little tweaking (with the right buzzwords) can help your resume get a few more seconds of attention.
• Focus, focus, focus. Pretend you're the employer; do you really care that a candidate was a lifeguard in high school? Probably not. Do you care that he or she provided weekly status reports in his last internship? Again, probably not. Remember, resume screeners are skimming your resume. They're not going to read every word. Make sure that most of the words on there are valuable. Leave off obvious stuff. It's great that you know how to use Windows XP and Microsoft Offce, but those skills are assumed.
• Bullet your accomplishments. For every job/school, list a short summary of your primary duties so that the screener knows what the role was. Then, give a list of bullets that show concrete accomplishments in that role. Things like "reduced cycle time by 15% by restructuring development process" or "wrote credit card transaction module for BuyFast middleware on time with zero errors, as verified by validation team."
• Links. Done online work? Why not include a link? Especially if you're on the UI or creative side, if your resume makes it past the first cut, a look at your work might get you an interview. On that same note, if you do provide a link to your web site, make sure everything is Safe for Work (tm). That picture of you puking off a balcony might be hilarious to you and your friends, but not so much for a potential employer. Same thing for blogs.
• Have a few friends proofread it.
• You've got one chance to make a first impression. Make sure it's a good one. Nothing will get you in the "NO" pile faster than misspellings and grammatical errors. Even one. No matter how much of a perfectionist you are, you will miss your own errors. Have a few people read over your final draft for you. Yes, it's embarrasing-- but less so than moving back in to your parents' basement when you run out of money.
• Consider adding relevant nonwork experience. Don't limit yourself to programming experience. Show an employer that you've got the skills they need to work for them, including teamwork, leadership, creativity, networking, and influence. Don't just throw them on there-- you need to spin how it will help you in your career as a programmer. This one is a little trickier to use (and still follow the other advice above), so use carefully.

I used to be a resume consultant for younger sutudents when I was in grad school and am willing to provide brief help if anyone wants to email me. I've put a decent amount of time into crafting my own resume-- it's online, but I fear the mockery of the Slashdot community. If anyone's interested in an example that follows the notes above, email me and I'll send the link.

Good luck!

Advice

[Inexile2002]

He used to get around 50-100 resumes a week even when he didn't have a job posting up or any availabilities. Basically, IF he looked at them at all, he wouldn't spend more than 3-5 seconds with any given resume. The layout has to be clean and really easy to follow. There's very little that can be interesting or eye catching about a resume, but that said the good stuff has be OBVIOUS.

Basically though, in this job market, resumes basically resemble spam. Sending companies resumes is not really an effective way to get a job. Start calling people at the company, and don't be afraid to be a little pushy. Don't be afraid of approaching the same company multiple times, especially if you can talk to different people. Network like crazy. Everyone in your life up to and including your aunt's neighbor's mailman should know you're looking for a job and what kind of job you want.

A good resume is really a springboard for the kinds of questions you want them to ask you in the job interview.

As for the basic format considerations, go for information density on a single page. Bold key terms that you want people to notice right away, but embed them in sentences so they're not just looking at lists. I don't like lists of just words, but used to have a section titled "Other Technical Skills" where I put the stuff I wasn't emphasizing.

If you're really convinced that you're doing everything else right and it's the resume that's holding you back, go hire a service. They're cheap and they do decent work. Or do what I did, look at like 20 other people's resumes and steal the format of the best one.

One other thing that a friend did that was a little weird, but worked. She got the name of a manager at a company in her field, called him and sold him the following line. "I understand that you're not hiring right now, but it's a lean market and I want an edge on my competition. Do you have a project that I could be involved with as an intern? I understand that you probably couldn't pay much if you can pay at all, but at least I can start building up experience and if you love me, and trust me, you're going to, you can offer me something when it comes up." It was ballsy but she pulled it off and later parlayed it into a job with one of their competitors.

Maybe it's not for everyone, but the moral of the story is that a one or two page piece of paper is a weak way to job hunt. Start thinking about what else you can do and don't sweat your resume.

Be brief, be positive, be honest

[wowbagger]

You are fresh out of school - one page.

Hell, I have been an engineer for 17 years, and I would try to keep my resumee down to 3 pages!

First pass, your resumee will get about 10 seconds of review, if that. If I cannot extract the meaningful information in that length of time, bu-bye.

If you are using a head-hunting service, they WILL hammer the shit out of your resumee - it will look like absolute CRAP when they are done with it (scan it, OCR it, condense it, fax it, convert it back to a PDF). True, IF you are sending your resumee directly to the company you need to make sure it is cleanly printed, preferably on a good high bond weight paper. But don't be like Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes - a shiny binder and pretty paper will not disguise the absense of content.

You need to play up whatever experience you have - even if it was just washing dishes or pushing a lawnmower for a parks department (those items are autobiographical). Demonstrating a good work ethic at a crap job is STILL very valuable.

But DON'T exaggerate yourself - you may have taking Signal Processing 101, but you don't know CRAP about signal processing yet (substitute anything from your own education you want). I cannot count the number of times I've interviewed someone who said "C++ experience" on their resumee who could not tell me the difference between IS-A and HAS-A, or even what a class is!

Since you are staring out, you DO need to tell me where in general you want to go - a one or two sentence goals section is helpful. Be real, be specific - "I want to develop Web applications for public use" or "I want to be a technical writer" is good, "I want to excel in creating software" is bad.

Apply for approrpiate jobs. I had a candidate come in the other day - she had been an engineer for some time, but had basically been doing mostly apps level work. She had studied DSP in school, and wanted to get more into that. Unfortunately, she was applying for a senior DSP position. She wasted our time and airfare for the second interview, and that makes us LESS likely to hire her.
I am going to give you the three most important words any technical person can learn, right now. Study them well:

I don't know.

I'd FAR rather deal with somebody who is willing to say they don't know (but are willing to try to find out) than to deal with somebody who is unwilling to EVER admit ignorance. Hell, I am one of the "go-to guys" at work, I *do* know the answers most of the times, but I still often have to say "I don't know, that is not my field of expertise - I can look it up, or you might talk to [person] as they would know more about it"

One last piece of advice: Be trustworthy. Be the sort of person your supervisor can say "This needs to be done. Handle it." and feel that it will be handled. If you have problems, by all means ask for help - but make sure that what has been assigned to you gets done - if not by you then by somebody. One of the best job recommendations I had was from the foreman at the Parks department - while all of the other summer help fuckoffs needed constant supervision to insure they did their jobs and weren't out joyriding or smoking dope, he knew he could just say "The city building needs work today." and I would do it - quickly, properly, and professionally - the Mayor would not be calling about me screwing off.