Ask HN: Can someone help critique my resume? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can someone help critique my resume?

3 pointsHAL9OOO7 comments

Hi!

I'm looking for a new job and just redesigned my resume. It's been a while since I've done this, I would appreciate it if anyone could give me any feedback on the content or styling. Rip me a new one please :).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gaooqcdvqz5zswm/jahamed_resume.pdf?dl=0

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I agree with bradley_long on making the business impact of what you've done clear. $XX saving or creating $YY revenue or saving ZZ hours for a team. It shows that you understand the business impact of your role, the 'value' you create, as you surely do create value.

Perhaps also put a short mission statement on the top, with 2-3 bullets of who you are and what you seek.

Great on keeping it on one page for 8 years experience. Also have a backup which may span multiple pages when a HR or headhunter wants to learn more.

Deal with the gaps. For example, 2009-2012, what was going on? I have similar gaps on my CV. Easily document them, for me it was a 2 year paternity break, and another break of 3 years freelancing. A HR or manager is going to ask, and may waste-paper-bin-it based solely on self-prejudice.

I like you put 'willing to relocate' right at the top. If you speak other languages, also put that in the header. It can be an unexpected bonus for a feature of a role not in the JD.

Thanks for the suggestions! I've been thinking of ways to show the impact of the projects but I can't think of any hard numbers for them. Most of the projects at my old job were for clients but I only ever had a vague sense of how much money we were billing them for and my current job is a government contract, I just listed that we increased the rate of study completion which we have since before the system didn't exist/wasn't digitized.

Also I graduated in 2011, but I did have a gap last year since I was hiking the AT/traveling. I've gotten mixed advice on whether to keep it on my resume or not hmm.

The biggest improvement you can make is to make it obvious at a glance what your skillset is. I've skimmed over it, and I'm still not sure what you can do (note: you very clearly quash any doubts about your work status and location, so good job on that). The easiest way to do that is to put a 'summary' line at the top (or it can be a 'description' or 'objective' or whatever you want to call it). Maybe, "Full Stack Java developer with mobile experience" or whatever. Have it focus on the kind of job you want.

Since you have a lot of work experience, you might consider moving your education towards the bottom. Follow the principle of "make the most important stuff most obvious;" several years of experience should usually be higher up than a university degree.

I am not working in US and in a different industry. I am doing marketing. You may just take my opinions as reference. From the point of view of business, I suggest you can describe how you helped your employer/ company/ clients in the job description. I am not familiar with IT so I use things related to business as an example.

e.g. H&M Salesman Original: Sold clothes to customers. Suggestion: Provided professional advises to customers in order to help them to develop their personal image.

Numbers and descriptive phrases can help HR manager to remember what you have achieved.

I think it looks good. I'd clean up some capitalization/punctuation (U.S., Ruby, Python, JavaScript) and fix some sentences ("web forms with track changes functionality" would be better written "web forms with change-tracking functionality"). I haven't looked at resumes in a while though so hopefully you'll get better input from someone else.

Thanks for the suggestions! Changing that sentence around definitely sounds better.

On top of the others' suggestions, I would suggest you to keep the sentence short and understandable. I don't know what company you are going to apply. Just a reminder that not all HR managers have the knowledge of IT/ programming/ coding. Try to prepare an easy version for those who have no IT background.

Showing the impacts/ results would definitely help.

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