Jobs in the Tech industry are one of the most coveted as it is an innovative career and one of the high paying industries. But, it invites a ton of competition where you need to stand out from the crowd to land your dream job.
So while curating your resume for a technical profile, you need to make sure that you incorporate the best practices and follow the correct approach. Adding generic information will only hamper your chances of getting shortlisted.
In this guide, we will help you with actionable tips that can be directly applied to improving your resume and enhancing your tech portfolio.
Let’s begin.
Correct resume format
Generic resume templates are ill-structured. If you want to land your dream job, your resume format needs to be well optimized.
You should be able to move the sections freely as per the requirements and information should not be repeated. For instance, the header should not repeat in a resume, and footer is not required.
Moreover, most templates are not optimized as per the applicant tracking system. In today’s job market, you need ATS friendly resume templates where you can showcase your skills effectively.
Also, write your profiles in reverse chronological order as it allows you to focus on current/recent jobs and professional achievements.
Creating a professional experience section
This section is for including your work profiles and points around your domain expertise. This is the lengthiest section of a resume, so make sure that you compose it correctly to make it easy to comprehend.
Here are a few best practices that will help you achieve that:
- Write your job details by using bullet points. By using this method, you can dramatically improve the readability of your resume.
- Demonstrate your domain knowledge by creating subheadings for every 3-4 bullets points. For example, the subheadings can be “statistical analysis & reports generation”, etc.
- Highlight important numbers and phrases in your statements to get recruiters to notice your achievements.
In several cases, you may not have work experience to showcase your skills and contributions. In such cases you can list additional sections to embolden your candidature:
- If you are a fresher, you can include your internship experience under the ‘Internship’ section
- If you are a graduate seeking college scholarships for higher studies, you can enlist your school or graduation projects as mentioned in one of the sub-headings below.
Write a resume summary
Recruiters go through this section to gain insights into your domain expertise and accomplishments. So, writing a summary of your professional achievements in a resume is no easy task.
But, keep in mind that you cannot go beyond 3-4 lines for writing the summary. You need to choose the information carefully. So, it is ideal that you make a stellar summary by including pointers that are important for your target profile. Go through the job description to identify sections that can be highlighted in the summary.
Since you are writing a summary for a technical profile, begin it with the number of years of experience you possess followed by your job title.
For reference, here is an ideal example of a resume summary for technical professionals:
“4+ years experienced Software Developer and Certified Data Science professional with a prolific record of developing predictive models. Adept at analyzing the data and showcasing it via Dashboards to senior management and helping make key business decisions. Proficient in applying machine learning techniques to solve industry problems.”
Include your skills
The skills section for a tech resume is different from the resumes of other industries because candidates need to make two sections – key skills and technical expertise.
The key skills include domain expertise like dashboard creation, data analysis, logistic regression, etc. On the other hand, the technical expertise section will entail tools and methodologies such as programming languages, operating systems, and packages.
Since the applicant tracking system scans your resume example based on the skills, you need to make sure that you add all the proficiencies related to your target profile.
Add projects
The professional projects you worked on are extremely important for your target profile. It will help your potential employer understand how you applied your skills to achieve business objectives.
But, you should not create a separate section for your projects. Add them to the work experience section under the corresponding job profile.
Avoid going into detail about the project description, your main focus should be on the work you conducted. So, it is ideal to emphasize the results of your work rather than job responsibilities.
You can follow the “aim, tech stack, conclusion, achievement” format. Using this method, you can create a bullet point for each sub-headings to write the details.
