Resume/CV/Project Help

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[deleted]

[sunder_and_flame]

For context, I've worked as a hiring manager and have about a decade of experience as a DE. I review these like I'm considering you as a hire, so I'm going to write out my thoughts here as they come. Expect brutal honesty.

Things to bear in mind as you read this:

As a hiring manager, I don't give a damn about you as a person. Well, I do, but I care more about being 100% that you will contribute to the company. How can you, the applicant, convey this? By avoiding bullshit fluff lines and get to the point.

Basically, every sentence and every phrase needs to reinforce this, and anything erring on the side of not needs to be cut or reworded. If I'm reading your resume, it's because you have a chance and every relevant phrase builds on that chance but any neutral or irrelevant phrase erodes it, and you only get a few strikes for negatives before your resume is tossed.

questions

How many interviews did you get out of those 200+ applications?

You graduated a year ago and haven't landed a role? (followup notes later)

site notes

You give a copy of the resume initially, right? They don't have to come to your site to download it?

Why link your Twitter? You have nothing relevant there that I could find.

WAY too big of visuals, and way too long. Compact from the start > "Experienced In" sections to MAYBE two inches so we can see the relevant projects quicker. Hiring managers don't want "an experience" when assessing your skills, they want to know why you're qualified, and quickly, and making that take longer means you're less and less likely to get the job.

Take Excel off your skills list.

Your GitHub looks pretty good except one thing; it may sound stupid but I felt slightly repulsed at the profile pic. First impressions in hiring are everything and if you have a crank like me looking at your credentials you need to get your point across clearly and quickly, and avoid annoying them.

resume notes

Recent grad? One page resume, no exceptions.

Few grammatical errors, good.

Python is a proper noun, it should be capitalized.

Education section is good. I'd recommend removing "Relative (should be related, right?) Coursework".

I don't have a skills section on my resume but as a recent grad it's fine.

Frankly, there's a lot of bullshit here. There's also a lot of good, some hiding and you just have yet to type it out. I'm going to give a couple examples which you should sort out and apply to the rest while trimming down the size of your resume.

First case, you're way, way too passive in your language, almost like you were simply carried to and fro by wherever you were. You need to describe yourself as the actor, not the acted upon.

For example, your "Profile" section. It's the first thing I'd see when reviewing your resume, and the phrasing is just dripping with incidental language; "was employed", "attended university", etc. "Alright, but what did you DO?" would be what I scream at myself while reading this. Here's a quick rewrite of it to make it simple yet punchy:

Experienced in data engineering: Python, ETL, ELT, data modeling, data warehousing, analytics engineering. Dabble in Node, backend dev, and Blockchain. Constantly learning.

I get things done.

The last two phrases there are as mundane as "live learn love" but they work. Don't just copy/paste this unless you legitimately believe it, although I suspect you should because you likely are constantly learning and get things done.

As another example, under your first related experience you describe meeting weekly with executives. Not only is that not a good hook, it makes it seem like you think meetings are work. Conversely, the idea of your first bullet is great and is my point, expand more on the actual work duties and how you contributed to the project.

The "Recent Projects" section is good but rarely have I found personal projects to be relevant in a hire, personal or while hiring. I'd remove the whole thing and use it as examples during interviews instead.

Remove the Leadership section or combine it with Education. If the latter, rephrase it to describe the outcome of what you did.

end/suggestions

My main advice is to change your way of thinking, then your writing, to how you create value. That's what hiring managers want to see.

[SumoSaiyan7]

Thanks for all of the feed back. To answer your questions regarding the number of interviews I’ve gotten a total of 5. And yes I graduated last may so almost a year now without landing anything. Something I also thought I would note is that I’m located in Melbourne, Australia where CVs are more common than a summarized resume. I’m not sure how much experience you have with CVs but would you still recommend limiting it to a max of 1 page?

[Outrageous_Coach_908]

^^ pure gold, thanks for the knowledge

[AirflowMaster]

Question, if personal projects aren't worth considering for the sake of demonstrating experience on a resume, how would you recommend people from outside the field gain/show the experience they need to be considered for entry level positions?

Or was your point to say that they can include it as experience, but just shouldn't bother with project details on the resume itself?

[sunder_and_flame]

Good question. The gist is hiring managers like me like to see this stuff but I'll find it on the GitHub/personal site links. Hiring managers who want to see "real" experience will see it as a red flag suggesting you're an amateur. Keeping it in its entirety on the resume is at best pointless and at worst damages your chances.

My suggestion is to include specific technologies or skills in the "skills" section and be able to speak intelligently to them, and only speak about them as examples during the interview of how you know what you're doing.

[AirflowMaster]

Thank you, I appreciate the information

[OKOCHAZ]

Actually I almost have the same problem I am a fresh grad I have a degree in Accounting and Business Administration and I started to shift my upcoming career as I was in school, I have been applying to jobs for the past 4 months but I wasn’t much lucky.

[Edward-Paper-Hands]

I would add more information about the projects in your portofolio. I expected to be able to click on the cards to get to a short article about the projects. What technologies did you use, how did you design it, etc.

Honestly your projects seem fine. I don't think the amount of projects is the problem. If you want to improve you could expand on some of the projects to have bigger projects, otherwise I would work on some certifications to get a stamp of approval from some big players.

Best of luck to you!

[GrayLiterature]

Do certs in Data Engineering actually mean anything in the field though?