Your résumé sucks

Look, don't take it personally. It's probably not your fault. The internet is full of crap that encourages you to do stuff that doesn't make any sense. This site is here to help - no strings attached.

TL/DR: Here are the templates in Word and TeX. TeX is highly recommended. Trust me.

A couple of caveats:

I work in tech. This doesn't matter but you might think it will. Trust me, it doesn't. This is applicable to everyone other than c-suite/senior VPs in organizations larger than $100M in annual revenue. Statistically speaking, this applies to you. You're not an exception, even if you think you are.

This résumé template expects that you have done something in your life in the past. If you haven't, it makes things a bit tougher. If you don't have an established work history, you may not need a résumé. Go find something to do to improve yourself. Get a job that requires an application rather than a résumé. No one needs a résumé to work at Taco Bell. If you're in school, get some internships or volunteer at your institution. You can't make a résumé out of nothing. Most of the really horrible résumé ideas come out of trying to make something out of nothing. If you're trying to spin up a page of garbage, look elsewhere - like Microsoft Word templates or something.

This essentially rips off Manager Tools. If you haven't heard of them, go listen to their podcast and look at their résumé template. They also have an awesome résumé workbook that provides further guidance. The best professional advice I can give to someone is to listen to Manager Tools and Career Tools. Listen to the backlog too. Some of it is a bit boomerish and that's okay. As Mark would say, a one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind - whatever that means. My goal here is to give you some templates and encouragement in written form. Mark is the pro. I'm just a guy.

Finally, all arrogance on this page aside - I don't know everything. But these templates really work. They communicate in a straightforward manner and highlight what hiring managers actually care about. Give it a shot. I think you'll be really happy with the results. Keep in mind that people are different. You might not get a job because the hiring manager doesn't like the way you look. You might also not get the job because the hiring manager doesn't like how your résumé looks. Those things are out of your control so don't worry about them. Keep in mind that a résumé isn't intended to be a sum total representation of the person/worker/whatever that you actually are. It's job is to get you an interview and this template does a fantastic job at that - better than the one that 99.9% of you are using. And if you're on this site, you're definitely in that category.

So, let's get started.

Résumé: Noun. A one page, one column document detailing what you have done, where and when you have done it, how well you did it, and a list of credentials.

Résumés should not include lists of keywords, logos of certifications, or any sort of graphics/infographics. Templates that include competency bars are garbage and should be thrown out. Anyone who recommends this should no longer be listened to. Even if they're your career counselor, teacher, parent, whatever.

The résumé contains a reverse chronological list of jobs, starting with most recent and ending at 1 page. If you have more than 10 years on the résumé and it's not relevant to the position that you're applying to, eliminate it. The résumé ends with one line of education, if you have graduated from college. If you have post graduate degrees, you can add them too in reverse chronological order - one line per degree. If you have a Bachelors degree and an associates or similar, list only the Bachelor degree unless the lower credential offers you an advantage.

I disagree with only one thing that Mark says. If you have certifications, you can list them on one line on the bottom below your education or last job. Choose short acronyms. For the love of all that's good, please don't use images or logos from the certifying body. That's a bad move of the first degree. The people reading your résumé aren't idiots. Well, maybe they are. Nevertheless, assume otherwise. As a counterpoint, look at this résumé from someone that I used to work with. Don't be like this guy.

Don't get hung up on formatting. Your job is to communicate information as efficiently as possible. This template does that. If you think otherwise, you're wrong. Choose small margins, reasonable size text. Underline and bold the job data (i.e. title, company, dates). The first part of the job section is a paragraph describing what you did. Be reasonable. Not too long. The bullets describe unique achievements. They follow this formula.

Action verb + brief description of task + quantitative result.

Not everything you do can be quantified. I get that. But 80% of your bullets should. If you can't, do the best you can and then go out and do more stuff. As you go through your career, think about your work in terms of résumé bullets. Build it up over time. It may not happen overnight.

Nerd alert: If you're able or interested in learning, I highly recommend using the TeX template. This a free piece of software. If you're on a PC, look at MikTex. If you're on a Mac, look at MacTex. If you're on Linux, figure it out. I also recommend learning to use Git. Create a free github account and create a private repository. Commit changes to the Git repository. This will allow you to diff between versions, maintain a history, and never lose the document. I also recommend using TeX to personalize your résumé for every job by commenting out irrelevant bullets. If you're really into it, look into using branches for specific jobs, and then merge that back into master. You can also tell other people that your résumé is in Git which is pretty damn cool. Bonus: look into hooking github commits to AWS CI/CD pipelines and publishing it automatically to an S3 bucket and link to your website. *Magic* YMMV.

The TeX version has a cool feature in the underlined, bolded job details. Look at the template PDF for letters that have descenders such as g, p, q, y. Pretty cool, eh? Totally unnecessary but pretty sweet.

Last but not least, I'm interested in your feedback and success. If you have suggestions or would like to send in an anonymized résumé to be featured here on the site, send me an email at [email protected].

Good luck.