The resume that got me interviews with all of FAANG (New Grad, SWE)

Summary

The article provides insights into crafting an effective resume that successfully secured interviews with all FAANG companies for a new graduate software engineering position.

Abstract

The author shares personal experience on creating a resume that led to interviews with top tech companies, emphasizing the importance of including essential information, optimizing for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), and ensuring a visually appealing format. The article suggests using Google Drawings or Canva for template customization, stresses the need for consistent formatting, and recommends incorporating measurable achievements and strong action verbs. It also advises tailoring the resume with keywords from the job description, getting feedback from multiple reviewers, and keeping contact information and links updated. The author concludes by sharing their own resume as an example and invites feedback from readers.

Opinions

The author believes in the importance of a clean, well-structured resume that includes all necessary information such as name, major, work experience, and coding languages.
They advocate for the use of personal projects, even from academic settings, to demonstrate passion and expertise.
Consistent formatting and the inclusion of relevant keywords are seen as crucial elements for a standout resume.
Quantifying achievements and using strong action verbs are recommended to make bullets more impactful.
The author values the balance of white space on the resume for aesthetic appeal.
They suggest that including awards can effectively showcase one's value and passion.
Getting feedback from others is considered essential to refine the resume.
Customizing the resume for each job application using keywords from the role's description is highly recommended.
The author emphasizes the importance of having a functional online presence, including an up-to-date website.
They encourage readers to follow them on their platform if they find the advice helpful.

The resume that got me interviews with all of FAANG (New Grad, SWE)

Hello There! I hope you are doing well. Today, let’s dive into what works on my resume and how it got me interviews with all of FAANG. Make sure to check out this article’s predecessor here! At the bottom of this post I included the resume I applied with but make sure to read through all the tips so you can curate a resume perfect for you.

via RedChairRecruitment

The Basics:

So clean slate — let’s say you are creating a resume from scratch, here is the bare minimum you should be including:

Name, Major, & College/Program attended

Point of Contact (Email and Phone Number)

Recent, relevant work experience (Most recent at the top)

Citizenship Status

Coding Languages (*for Software Engineers)

Projects (*for Software Engineers)

ATS-friendly format (https://www.jobscan.co/, super super important)

I created my own resume “template” using Google Drawings to customize my margins and ensure I could fit all I wanted into one page. I also prefer and checked the PDF version of my resume was ATS friendly and the correct information about me was being read. If you don’t have the time or feel like you can’t get the resume to look as neat as you want, check out Canva for a great variety of templates. If you don’t have personal projects yet use ones from classes that you were more passionate about. You can be questioned about anything on your resume so make sure you are confident in everything you list.

The Nice to Haves:

Keep consistent formatting (2022 vs ’22, ending bullets with ‘.’ or nothing, what is bolded/italicized and what is not).

Search up your role and the best keywords to include in your resume to optimize it.

Make your bullets measurable or quantified (estimate if you don’t know the exact statistic, STEM people love numbers and percentages).

Use strong action verbs at the start of each bullet, I like the list compiled by Harvard here.

Balance out your white space, too much and too little looks bad on the eye.

While I categorized these as “nice to haves” these should definitely be included or worked on at least on the resume you submit to your dream company!

The Finishing Touches:

Make sure all links and contact information is up to date and working. (I got my resume reviewed by someone at Facebook once and my website was down… yoikes)

Have as many fresh eyes see it as possible, see what they remember and stuck out to them, and edit accordingly.

Customize resumes using keywords from the desired role in sub-bullets. (Ex: Take specific qualifications you have that match the posting and include them into the bullets you have under related experience)

Include awards! I think awards are a great way to showcase your value and that you are passionate about what you do.

If you are struggling to cut down on things, think about what you can talk about most and add things “cut” onto your LinkedIn!

My Resume:

And now the moment we have been waiting for, the resume I used that got me interviews at all of FAANG (except Apple lol):

crossed out my phone number but here it is!

And that’s a wrap! Thank you so so much for reading through this. If you have any additional advice or strongly agree or disagree with anything here feel free to drop it in the comments below!

If this article was helpful in any sense I’d really appreciate a follow to help me reach my 100 follower goal by the end of March :)

Best of Luck!

Aparajita Rana