In this blog, I will talk about what I did to update my resume for my 2024 job search which ended up with 3 interviews and 3 offers: Acrisure, Apple, and Airbnb. This is not a How To by any mean but a share out by a seasoned engineer who still enjoys using and improving on her craft 🙂
For my job search in 2024, I took these steps:
- Add more details to my current job on LinkedIn, add skills (to help keyword search)
- Simplify previous experiences (reduce some to just one-liners)
- Add quantifiable new achievements
For a few years now, I keep most of my experience on my LinkedIn profile, and being an oldie in tech, my tech experience section could get a little too long. Some might suggest to trim down on the experience, especially the earlier ones, to avoid agism. I feel that I probably do not want to work for a company that has agism tendency anyway, and also I don’t think agism is real, at least I have not experienced it. I have worked with engineers who are fresh out of college as well as OG who has been around for more than 20-30 years at the same companies. They get the respect because of what they can deliver, not how many wrinkles (or lack of).
So I kept my resume as long as I have the experience for, and I don’t intend to remove any meaningful experience.
During the job searching process, I would create resume if the recruiters or job site requires it, and here is my typical steps (which usually takes me 10-15m if my linkedIn profile is up-to-date)
- Create a resume from LinkedIn profile
- Edit the experience, if necessary, to fit the role description better, including relevant tech-stack and recent accomplishments
- Simplify if possible (to make it easier on recruiters and reviewers)
- Export to PDF
I would not recommend adding too much details on one’s resume. Sometimes the fluff would give away that one can not even discern the level of complexity of a project. The resume typically is reviewed as followed:
- software to categorize the applicants’ resumes
- reviewed by talent sourcers or recruiters
- reviewed by hiring managers
- reviewed by interviewers
- then used by the interviewers at interview
As someone who has interviewed others for years, I would suggest that your resume is informative, coherent, clean, succinct, and BS free, because these reviewers can catch them easily. Moreover, if your resume lands on hiring managers’ hands, they should not spend more than 5-10 min to determine if you might be a good fit for the team. You want to make that time pleasant and effective.
“Help them to help you” is the guideline I always follow when I created or revise my resume. The resume is to help the hiring team or company to find a good match, and you should be an active participant. Don’t embellish or add experience that one can not go in depth for >5min discussion for. For any experience that an applicant added, she must be able to describe it in details. The level of details determines the level of expertise as well as involvement in that project.
When a resume is printed out, I usually make sure that it’s up to 2 page long and no more. A resume should not be a book. It’s like a flyer, regardless of how long one has worked. When reviewing it, I imagine what it would look like if printed on a T-shirt (front and back). Would I be proud of this T-shirt? If so, then ship it; if not, keep editing until it’s precise, informative, and clear.
