Writing a tech resume is a daunting task for the best of professionals but it is something you need to perfect to get the tech job that you are after. To get to the interviewing table, it is important that your tech resume is up-to-mark and impeccable.
Knowing these 5 essentials can help:
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Customize your resume according to your target tech job
Every tech job has a particular pre-requisite or set of pre-requisites and each job will be distinct from each other. This is why you need to be extremely cautious when it comes to curating your technical resume.
For instance, a company might be looking for tech graduates for the same profile as another company which might have other specifications such as a minimum work experience criteria. On the other hand, while some tech jobs might specifically be interested in your coding abilities, other tech jobs might want a more specialized skill criteria for the same profile.
This is why blindly sending out your tech resume without modifying it according to the needs demands of your target tech job is detrimental.
All you have to do is create a standard framework for your tech resume and tweak it according to the specifications of each job description.
Not only will this help you make unique resumes but you will also be able to best address the needs of each tech job. It also has the added advantage of helping your resume get parsed by an applicant tracking system which will drastically increase your shortlist chances.
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Endorse your tech skills under a distinct section
While writing a technical resume, it is important to distinguish your technical skills from your core skills. Since it is your skills that makes you the techie that you are, your job here is to make your skills stand out like tar on freshly-fallen slow.
Your resume should be drafted in such a manner that it is the first thing that a recruiter notices. It is not something that a recruiter needs to take great pains to identify.
So to make an impeccable tech resume, use a distinct ‘key skills’ section to highlight your core tech skills, and a ‘technical skills’ to endorse information regarding your tool knowledge.
Your technical skills will include skill sets such as:
- Tools
- Knowledge of Programming Languages
- Web Design Knowledge
- Databases you are lingual in
- Web/Application Servers that you are proficient in
Here’s what the skills section of a technical resume for a Data Science Engineer looks like:
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Showcase your industry-relevance via certifications
That you are proficient in coding is not enough. Any engineer can do that.
But have you picked up the latest industry skills? If you can’t, then you have successfully dug yourself a professional grave.
It is important for tech professionals to evolve their skills according to the evolving changes in technology because we live in the age of technology and their ability to up-skill will render them redundant in no time.
For instance, the next conclusive step for a Software Engineer is to pick up more skills and get lingual in evolving technologies such as ML and data science.
However, just getting up-skilled is not enough.
You also need to be able to showcase this excellence and industry relevance in your resume.
According to the career experts at Hiration, a great way to do this is by showcasing the certifications you have picked up. This will show that you are aware of the latest industry trends in the tech domain, and that you are willing to upskill.
You may be a simple software engineer, but simply mentioning that you’re an experienced software engineer with relevant certification will drastically help you build your brand value.
So make sure that you showcase your industry relevance through a clever presentation of the industry-relevant certifications you have picked up in your resume.
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Use achievement figures in the professional experience section to showcase the impact you delivered using your expertise
Nothing converts a job application more effectively than showcasing the impact that you have delivered using your technical expertise.
Your resume should not simply state the obvious by simply mimicking the obvious roles & responsibilities that comes with holding the job that you do.
For instance, it is a given that you can code and design websites if you are a Web Designer. But what have you achieved with your web designing skills that has helped your company grow is a question that you should answer in your resume.
Flooding the professional experience section with your work experience details is not enough. But showing the visible impacts of your contributions using numbers can help you show the relevance of your skill sets in unprecedented ways.
For instance you should use action-oriented statements that talk in numbers to show the achievements of your skill sets.
Example:
- Designed a customer segmentation algorithm leading to increased market shares by 30%
- Developed user friendly websites leading to a 50% increase in on-page traffic
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Write a summary that attests to your expertise and suitability for the job
Writing an effective resume summary is the missing ingredient you need to spice up your tech resume and make it shortlist-worthy.
Who cares if you can design a website? Any engineer can.
Similarly, no one cares if you can develop an algorithm if it doesn’t amount to anything.
What matters is the feasibility of this algorithm. If it doesn’t identify or solve a business problem, you are better off not having them.
It is along these lines that you need to think while formulating the summary of your tech resume. It needs to stand out and most importantly, it needs to convince that the job that you are targeting is one that you can do justice to.
Your goal is to captivate the recruiter and show the feasibility of hiring you. Speaking of your achievements and tying it up with your expertise areas can help make an impressive tech resume.
Here’s an example of a tech resume summary for a Machine Learning Engineer:
In the above image, we see that the ML Engineer has the following qualities:
- Proven success in developing models & algorithms across different industries.
- The ability to solve real world business problems with his/her ML skills.
Conclusion
To sum up:
- Your resume should be tailor-made and modified according to the needs of each and every one of your target jobs.
- Your tech skills need to be differentiated from your core skills and they should both be easily visible in your tech resume.
- You need to upskill and showcase your industry relevance in your resume. Listing your certifications is a great way to do this.
- Talking in terms of numbers is crucial to showcase the feasibility of your technical expertise.
- The summary of your tech resume needs to be packed with flavor and direction. It should tell recruiters why they should hire them.
