0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to Developer Tea. My

0:14

name is Jonathan Cottrell. My goal in this show

0:16

is to help driven developers like you find clarity,

0:18

perspective, and purpose in their careers. And

0:21

if you are new on the job

0:23

search, this is very common

0:25

right now. The job hunt is very

0:27

difficult as well. If

0:29

you are new on the job search,

0:31

then you might have an old resume

0:34

that is sitting around that

0:36

you haven't done a lot of work on recently.

0:40

Perhaps you got your last job a

0:42

couple of years ago and it may

0:44

have felt a lot more effortless

0:46

compared to this round. And

0:49

if you are having trouble using

0:53

that old resume, using whatever you've used before,

0:55

or perhaps you haven't even written a resume,

0:57

maybe you're fresh out of college or you're

1:01

fresh on the job market. Maybe

1:04

you're fresh into this industry, into

1:06

the tech industry. This

1:08

episode is intended for you. And even

1:10

if you have spent a lot of time in

1:13

the tech industry, this episode is also for you.

1:16

It's really for anybody who has a resume. Because

1:19

in today's episode, we're going to be talking

1:21

about, first of all,

1:23

the best advice I've ever gotten

1:25

about resumes. I'll share

1:27

that piece of advice with you today. And

1:29

the second thing we're going to talk about is the

1:32

number one mistake. The

1:35

number one mistake that everyone makes on their

1:37

resume at some point or another. If you've

1:39

written a resume, you've almost certainly made this

1:41

mistake. And it's not just a clerical error.

1:44

But if you fix this mistake, I

1:46

can guarantee your resume will be better. I

1:48

can't guarantee what the results will be, but

1:51

I can certainly guarantee that for the intended

1:53

purpose for a resume, your resume will improve

1:55

if you follow these two pieces of advice.

1:58

I'd love to hear from people who decide. to

2:00

implement these two things. The first being a

2:02

piece of advice, the second being a fix,

2:05

a common error, a very common problem

2:07

that I see in resumes that I

2:09

myself have committed in my own resumes

2:11

in the past. So

2:13

first is the best piece of advice,

2:15

the best piece of advice I've ever

2:17

received about a resume, about

2:20

writing resumes, about making my resume better. This

2:22

piece of advice is so simple

2:24

but has far-reaching implications and it's

2:27

not explicit, it's not a tactical piece of

2:30

advice. It's not saying, hey, you need to

2:32

change your font to some

2:34

special font, you need to change the color

2:36

of your back. It's nothing about that. Instead,

2:39

it's about the content of the resume and really

2:41

all of today's episodes about the content of the resume.

2:45

You can go other places to talk

2:47

about formatting or about should

2:49

I have an image on my resume, should I include

2:51

my physical address or not. That's not what we're talking

2:53

about today. Instead, I want to

2:55

give you this piece of advice that is far-reaching.

2:57

The piece of advice is very simple. Your

3:00

resume is not a

3:02

story. Your

3:05

resume is not a story. Now,

3:08

you may bristle at this a little bit

3:10

because, of course, your resume contains parts

3:12

of a story. It's a

3:15

pointer to your chronological history

3:17

in work and in education. You

3:20

may even include some things about yourself in

3:22

there. You might include some of your interests.

3:25

You may include some of your specific skills. You

3:27

might include your hobbies. Your name is certainly on there.

3:31

There's lots of personal things that you include

3:33

on a resume so it may feel like

3:36

it's time to tell a story. This

3:39

is very natural. It's a human

3:41

instinct to try to connect with

3:43

others through stories. In fact, stories

3:45

are perhaps the most powerful

3:48

rhetorical device that we have when we

3:50

are communicating with another person. But

3:53

this is where the problem comes

3:55

in. We imagine that

3:57

when we send our resume, we

3:59

have somehow communicated directly to another

4:01

person. The problem

4:04

is that the person on the receiving end

4:06

of the resumes are not

4:08

tasked with listening and understanding a

4:11

story. Thinking

4:13

about a story takes up a

4:15

lot of bandwidth, takes up a lot of mental

4:18

energy. Instead the person

4:20

who is reading your resume is probably

4:22

only going to give it a few

4:24

seconds worth to capture their attention. I

4:27

want to be careful here when I say

4:29

capture their attention because some people take that

4:31

to mean I should make my resume stand

4:34

out visually. I should somehow set myself apart

4:36

from the rest of the group in

4:38

some flashy way. And that is not the

4:40

message that I want you to understand. But

4:43

this piece of advice instead is intended

4:47

to help you focus on the things that

4:49

matter the most. The things that

4:51

matter the most to the audience

4:53

of that resume. The

4:56

primary and sometimes the only

4:58

audience that is true sometimes

5:01

once you get past that first stage nobody

5:04

ever looks at your resume again. That is possible.

5:06

That is possible that the second

5:09

stage does not even look at your

5:11

resume for longer than two seconds. Once

5:14

you get the initial interview in the

5:16

vast majority of cases your resume no

5:18

longer is the basis for conversation. Now

5:21

this does not mean, hear me

5:23

very clearly here. This does not

5:25

mean to fabricate anything for your

5:27

resume. It doesn't mean that you

5:30

should misrepresent or inflate the facts

5:33

about your performance in a past role.

5:35

You shouldn't add roles that weren't really

5:37

real. And you

5:39

should be prepared to speak to the things that

5:41

are on your resume because of

5:43

course it is in the hands of the

5:45

people that you are applying to. But

5:48

for the vast majority of

5:51

job searches the resume's primary

5:53

and sometimes the only job

5:55

is to get you in the door. It

5:58

is not to tell the story. to represent

6:01

all of the information about you from head to

6:03

toe. As with many

6:05

things, it is very beneficial

6:08

for you to try to put yourself in

6:10

the shoes of the person

6:12

reviewing three or four or five hundred

6:15

resumes for a given job position. What

6:17

are the things that you care about in

6:19

those shoes? You care

6:21

about them meeting the requirements. So

6:24

if you have two people, one meets

6:26

all of the requirements and the other

6:28

one is missing even just one of

6:30

the requirements. The first one

6:33

is much more likely to get passed along. The

6:36

second one probably will get the automatic rejection

6:38

letter. So while I'm not

6:40

going to tell you to add a bunch

6:42

of keywords to your resume if you don't

6:44

have actual experience with those things, what I

6:47

will tell you is make sure that if

6:49

you do have experience with a specific requirement

6:52

on the job posting, make

6:54

sure it goes into the resume. So

6:56

as a bonus tip here, hopefully you

6:58

can recognize that this is necessary. You

7:01

should probably tailor your

7:03

resume to the job posting that you're looking

7:05

at. This may seem like a

7:08

ton of work and it's not zero work,

7:10

but the quality of your

7:13

application, the likelihood that your

7:15

application is going to be selected for

7:17

a follow-up interview goes way

7:20

up if you actually show that

7:22

you meet the qualifications of the role. So

7:25

you can see that there are some practical

7:27

implications to this advice. Your

7:30

resume is not your chance

7:32

to tell your story. A

7:34

good interview process will give you ample

7:36

time to tell your story and

7:38

you should take time to practice that.

7:40

You'd be surprised how much of your

7:42

own story and experiences you can forget.

7:45

And so it may be hard to recall

7:47

a time when you actually did do that

7:50

thing that the recruiter or the hiring

7:52

manager asked you about. You just totally forgot

7:54

about it. Take some time to

7:56

prep for that conversation as well, but

7:59

it should be. entirely separate

8:01

from your resume. You

8:03

can use your resume as a background, a way

8:06

of highlighting parts of

8:08

your story, but if

8:10

your resume is not representative of every story

8:12

beat in your life, that's

8:15

fine. That's not the job of

8:17

the resume. As an additional

8:19

piece of advice, when seeking feedback on

8:21

your resume, recognize that the

8:23

people who are closest to you do

8:26

know your story, and so

8:28

if you write your resume as a story, they

8:31

will look at it as an opportunity

8:33

to identify gaps again in the

8:36

story. They're unlikely to tell

8:38

you to cut out parts that you

8:40

both feel like are significant moments in

8:43

your life, even if the

8:45

recruiter does not care and never read that

8:47

part of your resume. We're gonna

8:49

take a quick sponsor break and then we're gonna

8:51

come back and talk about the biggest mistake that

8:54

I've seen on resumes over and over. This

9:05

episode of Developer Tea is sponsored by

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Neo4j. If your code is

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10:00

again to Neo4j for sponsoring today's

10:02

episode of Developer Kids. Now

10:12

that you have the top piece of advice

10:14

that I've received about resumes, don't make

10:20

them a story. I want to

10:23

tell you the biggest mistake that people

10:25

make in their resumes. The

10:27

biggest mistake people make in their resumes is

10:30

they forget to answer, what does this

10:33

mean? What does this

10:35

mean? On any given

10:37

point in your resume, any given line,

10:39

you should be

10:41

able to answer that question. Specifically,

10:44

the recruiter who is reading

10:47

your resume, the person who is screening

10:49

resumes, should be able to answer the

10:51

question, what does this mean? More

10:54

often than not, what does this

10:56

mean is answered best by providing

10:59

numbers in

11:02

context. This is very

11:04

tactical advice and it's kind of rare for

11:06

the show for me to give you tactical

11:08

advice like this, but most

11:11

of the time your resume

11:13

is going to improve if you

11:16

can represent the meaning of

11:18

a given assertion by

11:20

sharing the data. Not sharing the data

11:23

in its raw form, but instead sharing

11:25

it in a way that explains the

11:27

meaning. For example, if

11:30

you're a software engineer, you might have

11:32

a line in your resume today that

11:34

says, worked with Postgres to

11:37

optimize queries. Now,

11:40

the recruiter may generally know what this means

11:43

that you have some experience working

11:45

with Postgres, but what

11:48

the recruiter is looking for is, how

11:50

good are you at that? What

11:52

level of experience do you have doing that? For

11:55

Two people who have that same line on

11:57

their resume, which one does a better job?

12:00

assuming. You've already met all of the

12:02

base level of requirements. These.

12:04

Are the points where your resume can

12:06

stick out from the crowd? So.

12:09

If you optimized a and

12:11

particularly heavy query. And.

12:13

You brought down as the response

12:16

time for a critical in point

12:18

in your infrastructure by seventy percent.

12:21

Say that. An even better

12:23

if you can explain what the business

12:25

impact was of this particular bit of

12:28

work, so is that. A

12:30

reduction the inquiry time led to an

12:32

increase in Sign Up the you can.

12:35

Qualify as related to the work that

12:37

you did. You. Have had

12:40

a very clear business impact. The.

12:42

Shows that first of all, you are good

12:44

enough at this to actually make an impact.

12:46

And secondly, You're. Communicating in terms

12:48

that actually matter to the business.

12:51

And. As a good example of this, imagine

12:53

that you won some kind of award. Maybe.

12:56

It's in a specific industries that

12:58

the recruiter where the person screening

13:00

your resume is not familiar with.

13:03

Oh, while the a word itself does

13:05

provide some kind of meaning, This.

13:07

Person has been recognized by

13:09

somebody. If you were

13:12

to qualify that with. Let's. Say

13:14

the number has participants in that

13:16

competition. Or if you can

13:18

explain that your peers The other people

13:20

who have won this award before are

13:22

well known. This helps

13:25

provide more. Material.

13:27

I can have more grip if

13:29

you well for the person who's

13:31

reading this to understand to to

13:34

grasp what this particular line means

13:36

again and a war might mean

13:38

something but. You. Can add

13:40

credibility. By adding

13:42

a little bit more information,

13:45

Now. That word is very important. We've been talking

13:47

a lot about this recently on the show Information

13:49

Theory. If. You are adding

13:51

words that explain your skills are

13:54

your strengths. These. typically

13:56

do not provide information that

13:58

is more valuable than the

14:00

next person. Think about it

14:02

this way. Your resume does not

14:04

stand alone. It is one of two

14:07

or three or four hundred resumes that might

14:09

be on the desk of the recruiter, the

14:12

screener, the hiring

14:14

manager. So you

14:16

should consider yourself a part of

14:19

that entire cohort. So

14:21

if you are listing out that you

14:24

know X, Y, and Z technology, while

14:28

this may help you avoid getting

14:30

cut early, particularly

14:32

if those things are in the job

14:35

description as requirements, in

14:37

order to actually stand out from the rest of

14:40

your cohort, the other people who may be hired

14:42

for this role, you should

14:44

be adding information. This

14:46

means more than just what

14:49

the other people have. Many managers,

14:51

for example, have led a team of

14:53

engineers. That is not

14:55

particularly informational in the

14:58

sense that it doesn't provide anything new.

15:00

But if you can show that

15:03

you've led engineers to successful outcomes

15:05

like promotions or you've retained all

15:07

of your reports through rocky times

15:09

at the company, those

15:12

are actually informational pieces that might stand

15:14

out from the rest of the crowd.

15:17

Once again, for every bit of your

15:19

resume, try to ask the question

15:21

from the lens of the person who's reading

15:23

from your target audience. Ask the

15:25

question, what does this

15:27

mean? You

15:29

should be telling somebody what it means

15:32

rather than making them figure it out.

15:35

Don't make someone imagine how good you are

15:37

at something. Let them know exactly how good

15:39

you are at something, not

15:41

with rhetoric, not with words

15:43

because they're imprecise, but instead

15:45

with real outcomes, real data.

15:48

As often as you can, try to express

15:50

things through data points,

15:52

specifically data points that are

15:54

intended to convey meaning. As

15:57

a last little bit here, we can kind of differ

15:59

in between data and meaning for a second,

16:02

data does not necessarily communicate to

16:06

the person the underlying meaning.

16:09

In other words, numbers don't always

16:11

communicate without you providing some context

16:13

for what those numbers mean. People

16:15

don't have an easy time dealing

16:17

with numbers in their raw form, especially

16:20

if they're very large or very small

16:22

numbers. We may do another

16:24

episode on how

16:26

to communicate various magnitudes

16:29

of numbers in ways that provide

16:32

more meaning, but the important

16:35

takeaway here is to try to glean

16:37

or provide as much meaning as you

16:39

can for every line

16:41

item, every assertion that you make

16:45

in your resume. If

16:47

you make these changes to your resume, I can

16:49

almost guarantee that you will

16:51

have a better resume coming out of that.

16:53

I can't guarantee anything about this job market

16:55

right now, but what I do know

16:58

is that these are the kind

17:00

of research-backed ways to improve your

17:02

resume right now. You don't have

17:04

to go and do much at

17:06

all other than providing

17:08

these two things. One, cut

17:11

out the parts that are just the

17:13

storytelling parts, things that are not providing

17:16

new information or critical

17:18

information about your capacity

17:20

to provide results. If

17:22

you are having a hard time explaining the

17:25

results of a given line item, it's

17:27

very likely that it is rhetorical, that it's

17:29

some kind of story item on

17:31

your list, and you may consider removing

17:33

it altogether. Thank you so

17:35

much for listening to this episode of Developer

17:37

Key. Thank you again to Neo4j for sponsoring

17:40

today's episode. If your code is getting dragged

17:42

down by endless joins and long query time,

17:44

try simplifying the complexity with graphs. With

17:46

Neo4j, you can code in your favorite programming

17:49

language and against any driver. Go

17:51

see what graphs can do for you at neo4j.com/developer.

17:55

That's n-e-o-4-j.com/developer.

18:01

Next much listening of Intellects Dumped. enjoy your

18:03

time.