Jordan Hudgens: We're not just going to talk about what goes inside a resume because that is very important, but it's also very important to first have an understanding of everything.

Even if you have a perfect resume, it's no guarantee that you're going to get a job. There are so many other factors that go into that, so I want to not just talk about the contents.

I want to talk about the world surrounding that, and how just sending out the most beautiful, polished resume in the world to a thousand people cold may not actually get you a job. Let's talk about some of the other things that go into that.

Stephanie Conley: Yeah, absolutely. The world of resumes has changed drastically. It used to be that you mailed in your resume, or you stopped by a company and you left them with your paper resume on a nice piece of cardstock. That's how you would grab the attention and set yourself apart.

Nowadays LinkedIn is the number one recruiting tool, and LinkedIn and resumes go hand in hand. The purpose of a resume is to get an interview.

Jordan: That makes sense. Through the years resumes, as you said, have changed quite a bit. I remember 15, 20 years ago a resume without a cover letter pretty much didn't even count as a resume. Is that still the case or what is the format of a modern and effective resume?

Stephanie: A modern and effective resume is very targeted. You're going to have one resume for each job that you apply to. The reason why is that you're specifically looking to see how you fit within the company.

The reason that the job is posted, to begin with, is that the company has a problem that needs to be solved. How do you solve that problem? How are you going to take away their pain?

Jordan: That makes sense. Another thing that I've heard about, now I haven't really seen it, but you have with everything that you do, is that the keywords that you put into a resume are very important because of some of the automated processes that are out there. Is that correct?

Stephanie: Absolutely. When you submit your resume, whether it's through indeed, whether it's through a company's internal website, it goes into a database. In order to bring up the candidates for that job, you do a simple keyword search, for the most common skill sets that the individual needs to have in order to be successful for that job.

Jordan: Because it's a keyword search, that means that if you simply create a generic-looking developer resume you're not really going to be able to stand out among all the other candidates. If they type in, say, a React developer, and they have 500 React resumes, then they're most likely going to make it more specific.

Stephanie: That's right.

Jordan: They'll say React and Python or React with Postgres database knowledge, or they're going to start to refine it, and the better keywords you have on what you've done the more effective you're going to be and more likely you're going to pop up.

Stephanie: Exactly. The more times that React is listed in your resume, it indicates where you'll be on the list. You want to be at the top of the list. Once you have a good handful of candidates that you want to interview that the rest of the list doesn't matter anymore.

Your resume may not even be looked at at all.

Jordan: Now, You said that you had a couple of sample resumes, can we take a look and show some of the featured items that you want to make sure everyone has included?

Stephanie: Absolutely. The most important part of the resume is how you explain your projects. A good example of that says that you have a side project that you're doing that scrapes the internet for pictures of cat faces on human bodies.

What you need to do is you need to explain what open-source technologies that you're using, what are you using to scrape the web? How are you storing files? What are you uploading them to? Then give information about your database, how you actually put that project together from start to finish, and all the technologies that you used in there.

Jordan: That all goes directly to the keyword searches as well. You may think the one little gem or library or technology you're using is not that popular, but I promise you there are organizations that are using it. If you're using it there's most likely someone else that is as well.

There's also a good chance that there are people looking specifically for individuals that have experience with that technology stack or with that library.

Now, we've talked a lot about the types of projects, listing your technologies, making sure that you have your skills filled up with all the kinds of keywords that people are going to be searching for. What about education.

We specifically said this course is focused on how to pursue a job as a code school graduate and the majority of code school graduates do not have a bachelor's degree, and they may not have some of those formal education items that other people might have.

What is the best way to position that so that it's the most attractive from a hiring perspective?

Stephanie: List it as a certification, don't try to list it as a degree. It's very valuable. Another thing is don't oversell the code school. We don't need cheerleaders for Bottega.

We know that we had this great time with you, and you learned a lot of great things, but when it comes down to it we don't need information about how many hours you spent coding in a classroom in your education section.

Jordan: That makes sense because I've been on the other side and I've hired a number of developers throughout the years. I could really care less about their education.

All I really cared about was "Is this person I'm interviewing going to be able to take projects that I give them and will they be able to then go and build it to what I need?" That's really all I cared about.

That goes specifically to what you talked about with making sure the focal points on the projects and the applications you've worked on stand out because that's what will give that person that you're talking to the confidence that you're going to be able to get the job done.

Stephanie: Exactly. So the education portion, especially when you go through boot camp, you want to be at the bottom of the page. Contact information is always at the top and in amongst your contact information you need to have your GitHub.

You have to have examples of your code and it needs to be easily accessible. So GitHub, and your personal portfolio if that's applicable, your LinkedIn because recruiters pay much more attention to your LinkedIn than they do your resume.

Jordan: Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is updated as well. Don't just send them to a blank one. Also, don't send them to a Github site or profile that doesn't have very many projects.

That's part of the reason why it's so important to always be working on side projects and be pushing up code that you're wanting to learn about so that other people can see it.

I've actually gotten a job out of the blue one time from someone who just came across my GitHub profile. They just contacted me right out of the blue and said: "We saw that you have experience working on these technologies would you like to come work for us?"

It's kind of a developer's resume, in a sense, it's almost more important than a resume for certain people.

Stephanie: Because you can see the code, and you can see the syntax of it. You can see if it's clean, maintainable and you know if you can work with their style.

Jordan: Absolutely.

Stephanie: In place of the cover letter, cover letters are rarely applicable nowadays.

Jordan: That's good because I don't actually know what they're supposed to look like. I'd have to google it for an example of a cover letter because I've never used one. So those aren't used anymore, what is something it used in place of it?

Stephanie: We have a summary in place of it, and with the summary, and this is your value proposition. What problems do you solve? Where are your strengths? This is where it needs to be very specific to the company that you're applying to.

Although it may be annoying to have 16 different resumes, you'll have so much more luck if you can tailor the summary portion to solving their pain points.

Jordan: I can't stress that part enough, because I've had a number of jobs through the years. You can go on my own LinkedIn and see all the jobs I personally have had, but as many jobs that I've had, I've had about ten times as many freelance consulting jobs.

Those consulting jobs made a lot less money than regular full-time jobs, but whenever I was going out and I was going and sending out proposals for someone to hire me as a consultant, every one of those proposals was customized for the client and for that specific project.

So, I find it really funny when, and I know that as a freelancer you have to do that, but so many people create one resume and don't customize it for who they're sending it to.

Stephanie: Exactly. Now the skills portion is another place that needs to be customized for the job and the skills that we're listing are hard skills, like Java, or Ruby on Rails, not that you're a great communicator.

Those are not as important to put on a technical resume. Those are interview questions that the recruiters will go over with you. No need to put those on.

Underneath the skills is where you put your experience, and with experience, projects go on there. If it's a small project that you did freelancing, whether paid or unpaid, if it's completed then it should be in your GitHub, and it should be in your resume listed as a project.

Jordan: Absolutely. Now, if you're building projects for other people, then you may not be able to make some of that code public.

What I've personally done through the years when I had a project I wasn't able to make public, I would pick out certain parts of the project, not exactly a copy and paste kind of thing, but I would take out maybe some feature that was kind of challenging to build and I would build some other project that showed that made that part public.

That way anyone else who wanted to come to see it would be able to see a public profile with the code and they would be able to see that I was able to build out that feature.

Stephanie: The best project that I've ever seen someone put on their portfolio was from a student who wanted to interview at MX. MX is a fintech company, so what he did is he built his own version of their website, and he sent it to them with his resume attached. And obviously he got that job.

Jordan: That's fantastic. You talked about sending out customized resumes, that is an incredibly customized resume when you've actually built that out for that client.

Stephanie: Absolutely. I believe it took him half a day to do it. But when it comes down to it, it's worth it.

Resources

• Example Resume