├── LICENSE └── README.md /LICENSE: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | MIT License 2 | 3 | Copyright (c) 2021 Nicholas Vadivelu 4 | 5 | Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy 6 | of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal 7 | in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights 8 | to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell 9 | copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is 10 | furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: 11 | 12 | The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all 13 | copies or substantial portions of the Software. 14 | 15 | THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR 16 | IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, 17 | FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE 18 | AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER 19 | LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, 20 | OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE 21 | SOFTWARE. 22 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Tech Resume Checklist 2 | 3 | This checklist serves as concrete (but not complete) criteria that a resume for the tech industry should fulfill. It was originally designed for student organizations hoping to host resume critiques: have your reviewees check off all these items before coming to the critique so more time can be devoted to meaningful feedback. 4 | 5 | A lot of useful tips were excluded due to their subjectivitiy. This way, there should be no discussion on whether or not your resume should tick a box. More detailed tips and explanations for all the checklist items can be found in this [“Resume Tips” document](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rIcPf0HxjhHT9nZPqRGgzvPDn1CoFBWDsfJ-jpbVQyw), which was created and refined over time by experienced UWaterloo students. 6 | 7 | Please feel free to open an issue to discuss any of these points or a PR to add/change/remove points! 8 | 9 | ### Content Checklist: 10 | - [ ] Contains the key sections/information: Experience, Relevant Projects, Education, and Contact information 11 | - A Skills section is optional depending on the role. General roles likely don't need one, specific roles (e.g. React Developer) probably do. 12 | - [ ] No soft skills in the Skills section. They say nothing: anyone can claim to be good at “communication” or “critical thinking”. You should demonstrate these skills through your bullet points in your experience section. 13 | - [ ] No Summary of Qualifications. Your whole resume should be the summary! 14 | - [ ] Experience includes your title, company, dates worked, and (optionally) location 15 | - [ ] For contact information, include your email and (optionally) links to your personal website, GitHub account, and LinkedIn 16 | - Unless the role asks for it, you don't need to include your physical address 17 | - [ ] Resume is catered to the role. This can be as simple as re-ordering/selecting relevant skills and projects. 18 | - [ ] Bullet points describe **impact** not just **responsibilities** (i.e. what was the result of your work, not just what your work was). The reader should also understand _why_ your work was important to the company/project. 19 | - Basic template: _\_ [by/through/via] _\_, _\_ 20 | - Of course, this structure won’t work for all points 21 | - Quantified impact could be: reduced time needed to y from x to z, deployed feature with x% higher user satisfaction (you can get this info via a/b tests), improved latency/throughput by x%, acquired x new users, etc. 22 | - What you did (hopefully) had _some_ impact, otherwise you wouldn’t have been paid to do it. 23 | 24 | 25 | ### Format Checklist: 26 | - [ ] Resume is one page max. 27 | - [ ] For a one column resume, each bullet should be 2 lines max (3 lines max for a two column resume) 28 | - [ ] No text has font size smaller than 10. 29 | - [ ] Resume should be accessible and clear, even when printed in greyscale (no dark backgrounds, light text on light backgrounds, complex color patterns, etc). 30 | - [ ] All links you have are clickable and not just plaintext . 31 | - [ ] **Bolded** technologies/tools in your bullet points. This makes it easier for recruiters to see that you've actually used the tools/tech you claim to in your Skills section. 32 | - [ ] Ensure capitalization is consistent throughout your resume, especially for the names of tools/technologies. 33 | - [ ] All dates and date ranges use a consistent format (e.g. mmm yyyy - mmm yyyy as in May 2020 - Aug 2020). 34 | - [ ] No acronyms unless they are listed in the job description (or are _very_ common) 35 | - [ ] Whitespace is balanced. If one section (e.g. skills, awards) is a bullet point list on the left side, consider making it a flat comma separated list or use two columns for just that section for visual balance. 36 | 37 | 38 | ### Optional Checklist (don't have to check all of these off): 39 | - [ ] Bold achievements/recognition/metrics in your experience/projects. This is optional because you may have too much bold when combined with bolded tech/tools, so be wary of that. 40 | - [ ] If you have relevant experience/projects, put that above your education (but this depends on the role!). 41 | - [ ] Remove or greatly reduce your Relevant Courses section. 42 | - You probably don’t want to include mandatory courses for your major, since your major implies you learned those things. 43 | - Specialized electives may be relevant, but it’s always better to demonstrate those skills via a project. 44 | - [ ] Use between 1-4 bullet points per experience/project 45 | - Exception: when you only have one or two relevant experiences/projects, you _MIGHT_ want to use more bullets to emphasize those. 46 | 47 | Special thanks to Tech+ Fall 2020 Resume Critiquers and Data Science Club execs for providing feedback on this initial version! 48 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------