We have all heard recently about a wave of layoffs in high-tech, about the slowdown in the economy and the industry and the decrease in the number of open positions that are published on high-tech job boards. The practical meaning of all this is that today more than ever – no company has unnecessary resources to waste on unsuccessful recruitment, therefore even the companies that continue to recruit new candidates, and there are quite a few of them, are currently running much more selective and meticulous recruitment processes.
Therefore, whether you are actively looking for a job or fear that the wave of layoffs will also reach you and prefer to prepare for any eventuality that does not come – this is exactly the time to refresh your resume. High-tech resumes are one of the most important tools to invest in. You cannot rely only on your ability to make a good impression in the personal and professional interviews or on the fact that you googled questions from high-tech job interviews and plowed through them until smoke came out. If your resume doesn’t do the job – you won’t get to these interviews at all.
A document called a high-tech resume has clear rules and an accepted structure that recruiters expect to see in every candidate, whether he is a data analyst or a software engineer. It’s enough that your document doesn’t pass their initial scan – and you’re out. But even if you have already passed the initial screening, you still need to stand out from the other candidates to get to the interview.
How do you do that? High-tech resumes are usually written in English, and aim to summarize and represent your experience in no more than 1-2 pages. You don’t need to look for someone to draft a high-tech resume for you for a fee, nor download dubious documents called “programmer resume in English for example”, because we have prepared the attached template for you here – high-tech sample resume – which you can download and complete with your details.
In order for you to create from this template an impressive and intriguing resume that represents you in an accurate and useful way, we contacted our senior recruiter at Gotfriends, Maayan Tal – Technology Recruiter, and we received the most important highlights from her:
Saving the best for the beginning: the Summary
High-tech resumes usually start with the Summary chapter. As someone who appears at the top of the document, the first thing that catches the recruiters’ eyes. We would like to use the Summary in order to bring to the front everything that is important to stand out. Below your contact information (name, phone number, email address, link to the LinkedIn page), we will create a list of 5-6 standouts that detail your main skills:
Your total years of experience in the industry + relevant education
Your work abilities in scale/data types/products/industries/work environments in which you worked -Data products, High-scale, Web, Mobile, SaaS, Big Data, Cloud, Analytics, etc.
Number of years in startups and/or corporates
Working practices, methodologies and main interfaces
Technological expertise – the place to emphasize your strengths
Marks of excellence – any relevant achievement that you can highlight, such as service in a technological unit, a high average in a degree from a leading institution, publications and articles, accompanying an IPO and so on
If you have management experience – state it in a separate highlight and detail – how many people you managed, details regarding the growth of the department while you managed it – by how much did you increase the department from X to Y staff members, what was the level of involvement Hands On / the ratio between management tasks and leadership Technologically, what is the involvement in the growth and what are the tasks you performed as part of the management role, etc.
You can also add in the summary a line that describes what positions you are looking for or what types of jobs you are interested in.
Details in descending order, also in the Education chapter
Resumes in high-tech and in general are written in reverse chronological order: the most recent/current position will appear at the top of the list and the oldest position at the bottom of the list. In the same way, your education should also be listed in descending order: MSc will appear above BSc, and below the academic degrees it is recommended to add relevant courses, including those you took online, such as in AI or big data.
Another important principle is that the resume is not the place to start being modest, but the opposite. Just as you mentioned in the Summary chapter that you have a high average in your degree, here is the place to mention it again.
We have reached the main point: Professional Experience
The professional experience chapter is the most important and detailed chapter in your resume. As mentioned, it will also be written in reverse chronological order, and there is also an accepted structure for how the breakdown will be done:
(Dates) January 2021 – Present (Position) Senior Data Scientist (Company) (Industry/ Domain)
For each job you performed, we will indicate in the same line: the dates you worked there, the job title, the name of the company and the product/service the company developed. Here, too, it is not enough to state that you have held a position as a software engineer, for example, as we want to give recruiters an idea of your specific experience and skills. Therefore, below this line, we will again use the bolds and specify about each role:
Current tasks you performed within it
Areas of Responsibility
Additional achievements in the role
Technological stack
It is important to note:
Your resume should be adapted each time to each position for which you want to be interviewed. This means that every time you send a resume, you will have to choose what is more relevant to emphasize – and expand on – and what is less important for the current position. Accordingly, be careful not to specify more than a line or two about past positions that are not relevant to the current search.
Make sure that the titles you specify are not only internal organizational titles but correspond to the broad definition of the position in the industry. In addition, make sure to be logical in choosing the titles you specify and match them with your career path – if in less than 3 years in the industry you already receive the title of VP R&D it does not make sense, and the same goes for moving from Junior Developer to Data Science Team Leader without being DS, and more.
If you have frequent transitions between positions and short work periods – it is important to state the reason for the end of the job, especially if it is a startup that has closed down, whose funding has run out, etc.
If there are “gaps” of certain periods between positions – it is recommended to insert a line that describes what you did during this period.