I have been commenting on technical resumes in Discord channels by the Tech Interview Handbook and cscareers.dev. I want to compile a set of commonly given comments, so that I can copy and paste them. This also helps me retrieve how I have exactly written similar comments for clarity and thoughtfulness. I also document some thoughts behind the comment as well.

This blogpost is for my own reference. Please refer to the other blogpost if you want advice.

Formatting

If the design is ok, I would not force a template. If there are multiple formatting errors, I would recommend using the template (i.e. Jake Resume Overleaf Template).

This is the list of formatting issues, copied here for reference

Inconsistent indentation
Inconsistent alignment
Inconsistent newline spacing
Inconsistent date formats
Inconsistent use of separators (e.g. between company and job title)
Inconsistent chronological order
Inconsistent font
Inconsistent font size
Inconsistent use of emphasis (underline, bold, italics, allcaps)
Excessive use of emphasis
Wrong use of capitalization for technical terminologies
Incorrect usage of whitespace within the text (e.g. space before full stop)
Large empty space

I see multiple [formatting] issues. Would recommend use of Jake’s Resume Overleaf Template (https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/jakes-resume/syzfjbzwjncs).

I strongly recommend resumes take up exactly one full page. I will definitely make this recommendation if the candidate did not manage to fill up the second page, or the resume feels bloated.

I would suggest limiting your resume to one full page. You can summarize/remove [sections]/[entries].

Organization of Roles

Job titles used should be conventional, even if they may differ from your actual title in the contract or the company. In big tech companies, “senior”, “staff”, “principal”, “manager” and “lead” means something.

Would prefer that you do not brand your previous role as “senior” or “lead” as they mean something specific in the industry you are applying to. Brand yourself accordingly if you want an internship or a new grad role.

If “intern” is not an accurate description, you might want to consider “freelance developer” or “consultant” to describe your role.

Candidates should not dilute the message that they have solid industrial experience.

Given that you have at least one strong internship, I suggest you move your teaching assistant / research assistant roles to a “Teaching and Research” section.

Consider keeping the “experience” section in the experience section. Move [item] to the “Project” section.

The reader wants to know the sequence of companies you worked at. Having multiple appointments going on at the same time makes it difficult to infer.

Consider re-organizing your work experience so that you do not have more than one ongoing role.

Using the Google XYZ formula

I strongly suggest that candidates use the Google XYZ formula to write their resumes.

Please use the Google XYZ formula “Accomplished X, as measured by Y, by doing Z” (https://youtu.be/S_Macvy5CQE?t=83). Please extrapolate this advice to other bullet points.

Do give praise if the Google XYZ formula is well applied.

Bullet points are well-written. It is easy to understand what exactly you worked on in [company]. They illustrate your impact with clear metrics.

I think that STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method is bad for resumes. It does not get to the point early, and it is not clear that each statement is utilized well.

Some resumes like to mention the technology in front of what they accomplished. I propose accomplishments provide a much better signal of their impact at work. If they want to emphasize the technologies they employ, they can use boldface.

Would prefer that you state your accomplishments before your methods (e.g. prefer “Analyzed data with Python” over “Employed Python to analyze data”).

Would prefer that you state your accomplishments before the context (e.g. prefer “Built the app with 5 people” over “Worked with 5 people to build the app”)

Completeness of Context

The bullet point should not be generic that anyone in the field can simply use. The bullet point should be clear on exactly which system or product are they working on.

It is not clear exactly which feature or system you worked on. (e.g. What is “solve and remediate privacy problems”?)

You mentioned that you implemented a chatbot for [company]. What does the chatbot do?

You mentioned that you “created a new web application with React”. Give some details by explaining the features you created, and what the websites were for.

Consider writing bullet point that does not apply to any role.

Some resumes use terminologies that require Googling, or are not even Google-able. Readers should not be required to query external sources to understand the resume.

You mentioned you worked on [product name]. It is not clear what [product name] is.

Even if the function of the product of the system they are working on is clear, the bullet point should be clear on the exact contribution.

You mentioned that you are a teaching assistant for [course]. Could you specify exactly what did you helped? (e.g. Created the problem set? Consulted for project ideas?)

You mentioned that you are a research assistant for [project]. Could you specify exactly what did you contribute? (e.g. Collected dataset? Wrote half the paper?)

You mentioned that you worked on the recommendation system for [use case]. Could you specify whether are you the person building ML models, or building real time systems, or building offline pipelines, or firefighting/maintaining pieces built by others?

For the projects you worked with a team, specify the specific parts that you contributed to.

The candidate should not appear to claim to be doing work that needs an entire team to do.

[Accomplishment] does not seem to be the sole work done by one person.

Consider specifying how many people you worked with, or what exactly was your contribution, or specify that you “single-handedly” did it.

The candidate should not claim to be doing work that is likely already done by the company years ago.

You mentioned you [created models to detect fraud]. I am sure [company] has such models already. Was yours actually the first, or how it is different from previous methods?

Language

Bullet points should start with a power verb. This gives an appearance of varied experience.

Please start each bullet point with a power verb. Would prefer that you vary your power verbs that start your bullet points. See https://www.faangtechleads.com/resume/general-guidelines for a list.

If the bullet point is verbose (using more words than necessary), call that out.

Would prefer that you write more concisely. (e.g. “Developed and managed” over “Led feature development and project management”)

Please write in active language.

Bullet points should not end with one or two words. Fulling up the last line makes the resume looks fuller, and provides you a better use of space.

Would prefer that the last line of each bullet point to not end with only one or two words. Try to fill up at least half of the line in the last line.

If there is something is written not in a tactful manner, I think it is important to call it out.

You might want to review how this is written - [cite statement]

I want to make sure that their content is understood by an international audience.

You mentioned that your improvements saved Rs 6 per order. I would prefer you denote the amount in US dollars.

Metrics

Some bullet points clearly could have a measurable impact. However, its metrics are missing. For some projects like internal tools, it is difficult to obtain metrics.

You implemented [solution] to speed up [system]. Have you measured its impact?

The metrics described should be specific as well.

You mentioned that your work [increased the number of users by 10%]. Could you specify how the metric is measured? (Daily active users? The number of unique browser visits? Is it A/B tested or an observed increase after implementation?)

Metrics should make sense to domain experts as well. I can comment on Machine Learning projects and achievements. I am unfamiliar with frontend or backend technologies, however.

You mentioned that you “Improved model training time by 10%”. What was done? What is the benefit?

You mentioned accuracy as your metric. The accuracy metric does not account for data imbalance.

When reporting performances in your ML model, please compare with a benchmark (e.g. the performance of a human, a baseline solution, the state-of-the-art, a publicly available solution).

Skills

I suspect that it is common to see recruiters scanning the skills section to determine a skill fit.

It is common to see resumes giving too much space for the skills section, especially with the two-column resume format.

The skills section is taking up a lot of space. Would recommend use of Jake’s Resume Overleaf Template (https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/jakes-resume/syzfjbzwjncs).

While soft skills are important at work, it is not something you want to claim to have on your resume. Let the reader infer the soft skills from the resume. Soft skills will mostly be evaluated during the interview.

Please include only hard skills in the skills section. Let the reader infer the soft skills from the bullet points, and evaluate your soft skills during the interview.

It is common to see resumes rating or quantifying their own skills. Certifications are an acceptable display of skills, but candidates should be aware they do not mean everything.

Please do not rate your own skills. Let the reader infer that from your bullet points.

I think you are placing too much emphasis on the lines of codes written which is not a good measure of proficiency.

How I Comment on Resumes

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