Last updated on 2021/09/26
Resumes are one of the worst inventions ever.
Not only do you have to look up what special keyboard keys are needed if you want to type the word resumé correctly (stupid accented é!) but there is also that tiny little detail of boiling down who you are as a professional and a person into one or two pages of formatted text.
Ugh.
Could we have come up with a worse system to try and fill a job?
Even online dating profiles are (just barely) better than this. At least there the goal is to sell yourself as a person.
With resumes, you aren’t supposed to include fun pictures of you and your dog, your likes and dislikes, or really much of anything personal.
However, more and more people are putting greater weight on finding people that are both capable of performing the intended roles as well as good cultural fits for an organization.
Guess what? Most resumes are so bereft of anything significant from a culture standpoint that they are dry enough to use as kindling.
Honestly having read hundreds of resumes at this point in my career, I would probably give an immediate interview to someone who included a picture of them and their dog on a submitted resume just for the sake of having something fun and new to talk about in the interview experience.
The main problem is that a LOT of people will check the boxes that need to be checked from a technology standpoint for any open position.
If all any hiring manager needs is someone to read a script and perform the same task over and over and over again then they can skip over all of the rest of this.
If all you want to hire is a transient button-pusher then go for it.
However, if you are trying to make something greater than the sum of the parts that make up an amazing team then you better damn well pay attention to culture and personality.
With more and more businesses struggling to find solid, dependable people just to keep their doors open, there are definitely things that business owners need to address on their end.
Also, for the Engineering Manager, finding the right people is more critical than ever.
So we need to attack this problem as a team. Here are three ways to improve this broken system of resume submission and reviews that will benefit all parties in the long run.
Show Me Your Culture On Your Resume
So many submitted resumes are cookie-cutter variations of the same boring script.
For a recent Engineering position I could even write up a recipe for a cookbook that 98% of the submitted resumes would easily match:
Take one blank paper filled with text, schools, and education taking up 1/3 to 1/2 of the page along with school projects that might have been fun and exciting to create back in college but don’t mean a lot in a professional setting.
Add a dash of regurgitated technology and computer languages of which 50% of them were either used so many years ago that they are now forgotten or were required for a class where everyone did the same development project.
Sprinkle in as many buzzwords as possible, shake gently, and serve chilled.
Yeah, this recipe leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
A pink rose among a thousand white daisies stands out; be likewise.
Matshona Dhliwayo
When reviewing resumes, there are always baseline requirements. Experience with a tech stack for a developer, classroom experience and a license for a teacher, or leadership experience for a manager.
You are either going to check these basic boxes and move on or you won’t. That one is pretty cut-and-dry. That is a quick pass or fail first round.
Making it to the second round is where you want to show off your pink rose.
As a hiring manager, I want to read the story of you when reading a resume. Your flower needs to stand out and be visible in the field with all of the other flowers out there.
Add some color. Find different formatting. Break it up. Tell me a story. Tell me your story.
This doesn’t need to be a narrative essay. There is no word count. And by all means, don’t go overboard and add flowery background images to your resume.
Color accents separating different sections or simply color highlighting the section headings go a long way to adding some extra spice and pizazz to your resume.
As for your story, try treating each previous role like a tweet is a great way to relate your story. Try to explain what you do for an organization in 160 characters or less.
Make Your Footprint Larger Than Your Resume
Most guides recommend keeping the length of your resume to one page, two at the most.
You wouldn’t buy a car after reading one page of text and not seeing any pictures or taking a test drive.
So why would you expect to get hired with just a single resume?
This is where your extra-curricular efforts can make a huge difference.
Create a GitHub public repo. Have a LinkedIn profile. Write and publish an article. Start a blog.
All of these things give you so much more space to provide context on you and your likes, dislikes, and abilities.
This is where you jump off the two-dimensional black and white page and become a 3D person who is creative and colorful and collaborative.
A single link to a website takes up very little space on a resume but unlocks a whole new world beyond the page.
Just don’t forget to make it a hotlink on your resume – nobody likes typing those things in by hand!
Define Your Future Capabilities, Not Just Your Past Experiences
A lot of resume guides talk about adding soft skills and past experiences.
However, one topic seems to always be overlooked.
Don’t forget to sell what you can do going forward. Most resumes only look back at what you have done in the past.
You bring value to the table. You can not only do the job, but you can also make this a better place to be.
If you haven’t realized it by now, the business world runs on “What have you done for me lately?” When hiring someone that is pushed even further forward to “What will you do for me tomorrow if I hire you today?“
Very few people target an answer to this question on their resume.
Finding a way to answer this question can be a great way to stand out. There are many ways to be creative here and do this. Here is one idea:
Why not customize your resume and go ahead and add the role and company onto your resume that you are applying for? This gives you the ability to call out how you will attack the role and bring value to the table. It might look something like this when applying for a developer role at AcmeDev:
(2021 - ) Developer at AcmeDev (Pending Hire)
- Will put in extra time to come up to speed on current code and projects
- Bringing fresh ideas and perspective to current challenges and roadblocks
- Working hard to be a great team player and to create the best Acme products everIt doesn’t take much to stand out.
Finding ways to show your culture on a resume will help you find better positions and more suitable organizations.
Remember, not everyone is a fit for every role and team. However, working together we can find a way to build a team that is greater than the sum of its parts and work together to make something amazing.
Thanks for reading!
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