The following feedback probably isn't google-specific, and it's really just nitpicking, but I would say:
- "move to the U.S. for about two years in mid-2010". AFAIK, most employers (maybe not Google) would probably rather just hear "move to the US in mid-2010".
- "Skills: I can... develop web applications". This section can be rephrased as "Skills: I have... developed web applications", etc. This is a job application tip I've had drummed into me, to always stress what you have done rather than what you can do.
- It might sound better to slap a better title than "long-time friend" on your third reference. Maybe you two collaborated on a project at some point?
- Hehe @ the Fermat reference. Nice touch.
Just my myopic 2c, and like I said it's really mostly nitpicking. :).
Some words of advice from looking at your site and resume
UK is well known for having a 2 page resume. But America, this is not the case, its a one pager. You blog & resume speaks of a very european mindset as well,you should know that European Companies =/= American companies in terms of cultural fit. Many european computer science jobs are more B2B than America, which has a large amount of B2C as well
I've done a lot of hiring, your resume has some serious red flags. It shows you jumped around too much, and there is just way too much irrelevant information. You should spend a bit of money and get resume critiquement / career critiques, this would be highly beneficial to you. Learn what your call to action is to both HR and to technical recruiters. Just put down the last 3 jobs you worked on
You would gain a alot by instead focusing on learning UX design, both document and website wise. I have a short attention spam, I could not read your resume. I went as far as measuring the fonts for you.
You put things at 10pt font... that's insane. 8pt font is as small as it goes, 14 to 16 pt is the preferred size for web-font readability.
You would also learn a lot by taking better photos of yourself too. Your photo looks like MySpace Tom is in his prime.
You need to think in a companies' hiring shoes. What is their first impressions of you? If I were a recruiter for a big firm, this is how I would interpret you resume
- 2 pager -> You can't figure what matters in our company. There is way too many things listed that are irrelevant to the job position, what is it you are looking for in the job
- Blog -> it shows you don't have the best communication standards out there. It shows you have poor design aesthetics
- Hobbies / couchsurfing -> This shows you don't know what matters in XYZ company. Companies could not care less about your hobbies, unless its related to work
- "• Entrepreneurship: Buying, refurbishing and reselling a class set of iBooks in 2005; iPod repair at ", " Took online
training courses in big data processing with ElasticSearch and Tensorfow machine learning. ",...etc ? it shows you think a bit too highly of yourself, ego might be an issue. Reading through your writing on your blog suggests the same. I do not know you personally, I am only relaying what every HR person would think. I don't see any perspectives other than your own in your blogs, it suggests you might have issues acclimating to different cultures
Your blog is not a blog. Its a journal. Know the difference.
I am giving you 100% honest feedback on everything I've seen, you have a lot room for improvement not on the technical side of things. I'm not any better though, I recognize my weaknesses, my writing sucks and I tend to repeat myself. But I make strides of improving it everyday
As someone from a country with very different resumes, my suggestion would be to be more explicit about this being about US style resumes. If you want decent rendering, you need to focus on one style anyway (too much variation), so just be open about your scope and optimise the hell out of it, saving you a lot of i18n worries (names, addresses etc.).
I've only had a quick look but like everyone else, I will have a detailed look over the next few days.
Firstly, my market is London & the South East of England so advice on modifying your CV to suit the American market is probably best fielded by someone with more experience in that area.
Secondly, you have been working on your own company for over a year and you have surmised that experience in 45 words whereas you spent 6 months with INA and your description for your time there is almost 90 words. Simple things like that raise a concern in my mind about your current position and how relevant it may be to your career.
Based on another comment you made, I looked at your resume, here are my thoughts:
* Skip the crammed-together logo crap and links on the left.
* More whitepace, it's hard to read.
* Don't jam the position/company/location/dates all on one line.
* It's impossible to figure out what you (think you) know without reading everything: without a summary section you likely won't get past many automated or human systems.
* Even after reading your experience I have almost zero clue what languages and environments you know, have familiarity with, prefer, or enjoy.
* Stop with all the freakin' icons, flags, and pictures.
* References on request.
* Elide all/most of the "Personal Interests"
* Nobody cares about your iBooks in 2005
* I would keep the language, education sections; academic awards, meh; as a hirer, I don't care.
* Add a better summary section.
* Add usable, relevant info to the job history (e.g. "I wrote this", BFD: what did you use to write it?) or add an overall technology section, and don't lie, because if whoever is interviewing you is anything like you, I will ask about the weirdest shit you put on your resume.
Bottom line: lots of wasted space, way too light on actionable data. No clue what you actually know, what you want to do, how any of your experience is relevant to what I'm hiring for.
Tangential: For better or worse, your religious views will raise certain feelings in certain people. And if your life was predetermined, then this is all what's supposed to happen anyway, right? So why complain? Just sayin'.
Thanks for the feedback. Without proper context, I see where you're coming from - but the reality is that this was created in an addition to a submitted resume + cover letter, both of which listed specific accomplishments, core skills, personal projects, and experience. This was certainly not meant to be a standalone "Hey look, hire me!" page, and would be rather incomplete as such.
Edit: Also, one of the primary goals of this project was to display the things that are commonly difficult to convey in a resume - passion and personality.
I’m much younger and less experienced, so what I’m going to say could be irrelevant, but your resume seems too busy.
I’d cut it to 1 page, remove all the symbols, flags and logos. I’d also remove most of the extra stuff (personal interests, volunteering, objective, references).
Essentially, almost anything that doesn’t show that I’m a very talented engineer should go. Also, I’d consider using latex if not already and go for a more sobre style that focuses on ease of reading. The way your education part is indented is great, the work experience part seems to have something wrong with it.
- despite the efforts on your resume, it hurts my eyes. The focus is on the UI most than the content about you.
- At top of your content, I would like to see a summary about "what you have done" and reference links. I had to scroll down to find the info.
- I would suggest you move your code projects to github where is easy to see your work, bitbucket interface it's a bit complex for easy reading
And about the question "would be hire-able with my resume as it is", my answer is NO. Do the changes suggested. Your resume invite to "do not continue reading", fix that.
finally, always demonstrate what you have done, your resume "look and feel" its just a first filter and now it's a blocker.
It seems quite attractive overall, but I think the dark background header and the partially colored text are a little gratuitous. What matters in a resume is the content -- the experience and skills -- not the title or the headings. I would consider moving the emphasis away from the headings and title to the actual content as much as possible.
Also, it is odd that the job experience descriptions are italicized where the education and projects descriptions are not.
Finally, (and you may know this already, but I am just mentioning it for completeness' sake), you should adjust your resume depending on the position you're seeking. So for instance if you are looking for an internship at a company that is not very interested in functional programming, you might want to change or reorder your interests, as well as reword the descriptions if needed.
I'm not the one who offered advice, but I've had to review plenty of resumes in the past, and I have a couple of comments.
- I really like the layout and design of your resume. I find it easier to read and follow than 90%+ of the resumes I've seen over the years.
- Your objective is pretty vague and non-specific. Don't feel bad about that. Almost every 'Objective' section I've seen on resumes is the same. Consider replacing it with a 'Summary' section instead. In this section, tell me who you are and why I should hire you. Don't be afraid to sell yourself a little!
- Your experience points are a bit vague. 'Development of web content utilizing HTML 5, CSS 3 and Javascript' doesn't tell me much. What kind of content did you develop? How many people used it? Also, writing 'Assisting in the development of new technologies as they arise' doesn't really add to your resume, because using new technology sort of comes with the territory when you're working as a developer.
Don't take any of this as harsh criticism, because it isn't intended that way! You've got valuable experience, and I love the design of your resume. When I'm reading a resume, each sentence or bullet point is a chance to convince me to interview you. As you read through each point on your resume, ask yourself if, after reading that point, someone would be more inclined to interview you than before. If not, try to add some detail or context that explains the business value of what you did.
1. In the summary section, I would like to see more "wins" and achievements mentioned. There are a lot of features about you, what are the benefits to employers in terms of past milestones? What can you walk in and change for the better on day #1?
2. The paragraphs in the job description are quite dense. Put yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager or recruiter facing a large pile of candidates (after initial filter by an automated applicant tracking system). Best to distill the history further into the "best of the best" and leave the balance for the first interview.
3. I would like to see dates aligned right which would make the titles more prominent.
4. This misspelling needs to be fixed--> "Continuos integration"
As a point of background, I run a professional services consultancy in Shanghai, China editing English resumes & Linkedin Profiles and interview coaching among other services. Previously 24 years in the US on Wall Street.
If you are looking for more thematic ways to upgrade your resume, I have a free DIY resume course delivered by email. The material has been presented to about 2,500 Fortune 1,000 employees, private continuing education and public university students.
You've gotten tons of great feedback already, so I'm going to keep it very brief:
1. As some others have mentioned, I had trouble extracting a career progression from the non-chronological format. I'll actually read a resume that crosses my desk, but, if you make me work too hard, I'll just move on to the next one. You're making me work too hard.
2. The design sense in the document is good, except that the typeface for the main text is fairly thin. Again, it's not that I don't like it, it's just that you're making me work too hard to get what I want out of this document. Go for a heavier weight typeface when you redo it.
- I'm a U.S. citizen based in the U.S., though my most recent work experience is in a foreign country. I'm applying to jobs in the major tech hubs. I have previous experience in one of those locations.
- All applications in response to ads.
I've been working with a recruiter but they haven't done much for me. Very generic resume feedback (e.g. "Here's an example of a good resume. Just compare yours.") and no feedback from recruiter when companies turn me down.
It badly needs trimming, I found it hard to get a sense of your skills (and which are current) that you want to work with.
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