as they occurred on Windows operating system.
Oversaw upgrade from Windows 95 up through Windows 2000. Monitored system to ensure there were no service interruptions.
7. Almost without exception these bullets are responsibilities. They should be accomplishments.
8. The other major issue is that the responsibilities are not terribly relevant to his career. Does anyone care about his fixing computers? No. He’d do better to list just the most impressive stuff, and back it up with concrete data about uptime, power usage changes, etc.
Education
Washington University , Dec 2001
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
Awards
Recipient of Five Microsoft “Ship It”s
Dean’s List, 1995
Won Microsoft Gold Star Award: 2008, 2009, 2010
Honorable mention, West Coast Hackathon. 2003
Microsoft Innovation Award: 2008
Recognized for Contribution to Microsoft SQL Server. 2003.
9. Well, now this is unfortunate. Finally we’re at the bottom of his résumé, reading very carefully, and we discover that Steve’s won some pretty impressive awards. Steve should cut the list’s interesting awards (Ship Its, Recognitions, Dean’s List, etc) and just list the Gold Star and Innovation Award.
10. Because not everyone will recognize those awards, Steve should explain what the awards are and, if possible, some data about the selectivity.
Assessment
You certainly walk away from this résumé with a strong impression of the candidate, but how much of that is his résumé versus his actual experience? I’m betting that a good part of the position impression is due to the fact that he is pretty impressive. Even a bad résumé can’t screw that up that much.
At the same time, I’m not sure he’s doing himself many favors with his résumé. Steve’s résumé needs to his list accomplishments better and prove to us why they matter.
Résumé C: Geena Roberts
Employment
Blippd . New York, NY (2008–Present) Software Engineer
Reduced time to render the video by 75% by implementing prediction algorithm and delayed graphics.
Implemented integration with OS X Spotlight Search by creating tool that extracts metadata from saved video transcripts and provides metadata to a system-wide search database.
Redesigned video file format and implemented backwards compatibility for search.
1. Geena uses a substantial, quantifiable accomplishment for the very first bullet. She kicks things off on a good note.
2. Though it’s never easy to explain why something was hard or easy on a résumé, this candidate has done a fairly good job.
3. The “tangible” accomplishments are reasonably clear—we can guess as to why backwards compatibility matters.
Microsoft Corporation. Redmond, WA (Summers 2005–2007)
Software Design Engineer, Intern
Visual Studio Core (Summer 2007)
4. Two of the four bullets show quantifiable results. It’s clear from here that she made a substantial impact on the project.
Implemented a user interface for the VS open file switcher (ctrl-tab) and extended it to tool windows.
Created service to provide gradient across VS and VS add-ins. Optimized service by 29% by caching toolbar gradient paintbrushes.
Programmer Productivity Research Center (Summers 2005, 2006)
Built app to compute similarity of all methods in a code base; reduced time from O(n2) to O(n log n ), enabling processing on Windows source to complete in a mere hour, down from 40 hours.
Created test case generation tool which creates random XML docs from XML Schema.
5. The first bullet is valuable in its own way—it’s a highly visible feature, which speaks to her credibility.
University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, PA (Fall 2005–Spring 2008)
Courses: Advanced Java III, Software Engineering, Operating Systems.
Promoted to Head TA in Fall 2006; led weekly meetings and supervised four other TAs.
6. The important points here are the course names and the fact that she was promoted. Both items are immediately obvious.
Education
University of Pennsylvania , May 2008
Master
Oversaw upgrade from Windows 95 up through Windows 2000. Monitored system to ensure there were no service interruptions.
7. Almost without exception these bullets are responsibilities. They should be accomplishments.
8. The other major issue is that the responsibilities are not terribly relevant to his career. Does anyone care about his fixing computers? No. He’d do better to list just the most impressive stuff, and back it up with concrete data about uptime, power usage changes, etc.
Education
Washington University , Dec 2001
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
Awards
Recipient of Five Microsoft “Ship It”s
Dean’s List, 1995
Won Microsoft Gold Star Award: 2008, 2009, 2010
Honorable mention, West Coast Hackathon. 2003
Microsoft Innovation Award: 2008
Recognized for Contribution to Microsoft SQL Server. 2003.
9. Well, now this is unfortunate. Finally we’re at the bottom of his résumé, reading very carefully, and we discover that Steve’s won some pretty impressive awards. Steve should cut the list’s interesting awards (Ship Its, Recognitions, Dean’s List, etc) and just list the Gold Star and Innovation Award.
10. Because not everyone will recognize those awards, Steve should explain what the awards are and, if possible, some data about the selectivity.
Assessment
You certainly walk away from this résumé with a strong impression of the candidate, but how much of that is his résumé versus his actual experience? I’m betting that a good part of the position impression is due to the fact that he is pretty impressive. Even a bad résumé can’t screw that up that much.
At the same time, I’m not sure he’s doing himself many favors with his résumé. Steve’s résumé needs to his list accomplishments better and prove to us why they matter.
Résumé C: Geena Roberts
Employment
Blippd . New York, NY (2008–Present) Software Engineer
Reduced time to render the video by 75% by implementing prediction algorithm and delayed graphics.
Implemented integration with OS X Spotlight Search by creating tool that extracts metadata from saved video transcripts and provides metadata to a system-wide search database.
Redesigned video file format and implemented backwards compatibility for search.
1. Geena uses a substantial, quantifiable accomplishment for the very first bullet. She kicks things off on a good note.
2. Though it’s never easy to explain why something was hard or easy on a résumé, this candidate has done a fairly good job.
3. The “tangible” accomplishments are reasonably clear—we can guess as to why backwards compatibility matters.
Microsoft Corporation. Redmond, WA (Summers 2005–2007)
Software Design Engineer, Intern
Visual Studio Core (Summer 2007)
4. Two of the four bullets show quantifiable results. It’s clear from here that she made a substantial impact on the project.
Implemented a user interface for the VS open file switcher (ctrl-tab) and extended it to tool windows.
Created service to provide gradient across VS and VS add-ins. Optimized service by 29% by caching toolbar gradient paintbrushes.
Programmer Productivity Research Center (Summers 2005, 2006)
Built app to compute similarity of all methods in a code base; reduced time from O(n2) to O(n log n ), enabling processing on Windows source to complete in a mere hour, down from 40 hours.
Created test case generation tool which creates random XML docs from XML Schema.
5. The first bullet is valuable in its own way—it’s a highly visible feature, which speaks to her credibility.
University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, PA (Fall 2005–Spring 2008)
Courses: Advanced Java III, Software Engineering, Operating Systems.
Promoted to Head TA in Fall 2006; led weekly meetings and supervised four other TAs.
6. The important points here are the course names and the fact that she was promoted. Both items are immediately obvious.
Education
University of Pennsylvania , May 2008
Master
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