Is Your Resume Holding You Back?🤚🏾
How to Tailor Your Resume and Catch a Recruiter’s Attention📝
Not landing interviews can be frustrating no matter where you are in your tech career.
While market competition plays a role in being noticed by recruiters, the biggest roadblock might actually be your resume.
As a recruiter, I see it all the time: candidates who are fully qualified but still not getting calls. Nine times out of ten, the issue is their resume. Even more experienced professionals need to refine their resumes to stay competitive.
Resume Tips From A Recruiter ✍️
Tailor Your Resume: Tailoring your resume to each role and company takes time, but it’s non-negotiable. Use keywords from the job listing and replace generic terms in your resume with specifics that match the role you’re applying for.
Don’t Apply With A General Resume: General resumes are great for tracking your experience, skills, and accomplishments, they’re not meant for job applications. Instead, make a copy and customize it for each role you’re applying to. Why? Because general resume’s makes the recruiter’s job harder. They shouldn’t have to dig through irrelevant details to figure out if you’re a fit. If your qualifications aren’t clear and aligned with the role, you’re making it too easy to get passed over.
Below, I’ve shared a standard resume template from Canva with my notes to guide you. Keep in mind that depending on your industry, your resume format and content may need to follow specific standards.
Name: Put your name at the top in bold, big enough to stand out. Keep it simple and easy to spot.
Occupation (Optional): Right under your name, you can add your job title or expertise, like "Front-End Developer" or "Data Scientist." It’s not a must-have, so if it’s taking up space you need for your experience, leave it out.
Contact Info: Include your full phone number, professional email, and links to your portfolio, GitHub, or LinkedIn. If space allows, add your city and state (e.g., Boston, MA), but skip your full home address unless it’s specifically required. Make sure your professional profiles, like LinkedIn, show your current city, state, or country. *Recruiters don’t just use your resume to verify your identity and experience—they normally check your other professional profiles too. If possible, make sure your profiles align with the info on your resume.
Professional Summary (Optional): In 2–3 sentences, sum up your skills, experience, and what makes you a fit for the role or company. It’s optional, but if you’ve got room for it, add it.
Skills: This section should focus on what’s relevant to the job you’re applying for. Pull keywords from the job description and highlight hard skills (like React or SQL) over soft skills unless they’re specific to the role. Focus on showing how you match what the employer is looking for.
If space allows, you can organize your skills into categories instead of listing them randomly. For example, group them into sections like Front-End, Back-End, and Tech Tools to make them easier to read.
Professional Experience: This section should focus on impact! Use bullet points to show what you accomplished, not just what you were responsible for. Start with strong action verbs, include measurable results, and keep it relevant to the job you’re applying for. Avoid vague phrases like "helped with" or "responsible for" and instead show how you added value.
If you have space, add a brief sentence under the company name to explain how your team supported the company’s mission or product. This helps recruiters quickly understand the industry and context of your previous work.
You’ll notice two different formats for presenting the company name and your job title—both are fine.
Education: This section should be simple and to the point. List your degree, major, school name, and graduation date. If you’re still in school, add “Expected [Month, Year].” Also, avoid cluttering this section with irrelevant info like high school details if you’ve already graduated college. Keep it focused on what’s most relevant to the job.
Additional Info: The additional info section is where you can throw in stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else but still adds value—like certifications, languages, volunteer work, or personal projects. Keep it relevant and avoid listing hobbies unless they directly tie to the job or show unique skills. Think of this section as bonus points to round out your relevant experience.
Resume Length: If you can keep your resume to one page, that’s ideal. But if it needs to be longer because the content is relevant and adds real value, two pages (or more, if absolutely necessary) is fine. Just make sure it’s focused—keep it concise, tailored to the role, and avoid unnecessary details that don’t match what the job requires.
Don’t Get Too Fancy: When designing your resume, avoid overcomplicating the format, especially if it’s being reviewed by an ATS (Applicant Tracking System). Fancy designs can interfere with how an ATS reads your resume. I covered this in detail in a previous newsletter here.
Update your resume, showcase your best self, and check out the new Black Tech Pipeline job board! You can also create a talent profile to take another step closer to landing your dream opportunity. Let’s go! 🚀