Resume building and technical interview session — my Twitter DevelopHER journey
This blog is the second blog in a series of my Twitter DevelopHER journey. Feel free to check out my first blog post about Twitter DevelopHER 2021 India: https://medium.com/@SaijyotiTripathy/twitter-developher2021-india-36e49323f3a0
“I never hear back whenever I send my resume to any company , My resume never gets shortlisted ” Does this line seem familiar to you ?
I attended the Twitter DevelopHER program a few days ago where I learnt a lot about resume building and how to present oneself at a technical interview. So, I am sharing what I learnt in this blog.
The amount of hours people have spent trying to best present themselves on a piece of paper for that chance to interview shows how important a resume is.
The effort put in making a good resume is totally worth it.
The first thing that comes in our mind while building a resume is what should I include on my resume and where do I start?
Lets list out some important points to remember :
- Think about your message that you want to display
- List your jobs, relevant coursework, and/or extra-curricular activities
- Directly relate your experience to the job (Quantify)
- Demonstrate your well roundedness
- Keep bullet points short and simple (Action + Result)
What the reader expects to see?
1.Commitment
Cover letters to express your interest in the role.
2. Passion
Planning, organizing, executing, supervising, leading, getting results, problem solving
3. Intellectual Curiosity
Willingness to work, open to feedback and suggestions
4. Work Ethics
Accountable, self-motivated, disciplined, responsible
5. Technical Aptitude
6. Teamwork
Action and result
As we know nowadays the ATS (Applicant Tracking Software) is also scanning the resumes , so to make our resume ATS friendly we need a proper format and most importantly with no spelling errors and a lot of relevant keywords for the job we are applying for. Here is a concise content.
Content
- Full name
- Current contact information
- Academic history
- School and graduation date
- Major/minor/concentration
- GPA Scale
- Technical skills
- Experience (Work/Volunteer)
- Honors/Awards
- Extracurricular activities
- Personal interest
Formatting
- One page
- Easy to read font
- Clear and simple descriptions
- 2–5 Bullet points
- Action and impact
- Proper spelling and grammar
- Have someone else read over your resume
- Reverse chronological order
Resume Do’s
- Tailor your resume
- Demonstrate your well roundedness
- Use action verbs to describe activities
- Quantify your achievements
- Keep bullet points short and simple (Action + Result)
Resume Don’ts
- Try to fit entire autobiography
- Typos and spelling/grammatical errors
- Exaggerating your role and responsibilities
- Using passive verbs
- Lack of description of position/title
- Lack of formatting/Over Formatting
So, now our resume is ready to face both the ATS and the human recruiter. And I am sure this time it will stand out.
Once our resume gets shortlisted then we need to prepare for tech interviews. Let’s see what we need to do to ace the technical interviews.
TECH INTERVIEW
What the interviewer is looking for ?
- Problem solving
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Iteration
- Adaptability
- Listening skills
Some steps to remember while solving a problem during an interview
- Take a moment to think. Ask the interviewer for some time to reflect on the problem.
- Restate the problem. Discuss the problem in your own words.
- Focus on the problem you are trying to solve.
- What does success look like?
- What key features will help make this solution successful?
- Draw and talk as you work. Ask the interviewer for help if you get stuck somewhere.
- Explain your final solution to your interviewer.
- Offer to answer questions.
- Code Optimization.
Key Takeaways
- Clearly understand the problem
Ask for clarification as needed in areas including edge cases and constraints.
2. Make sure code includes coverage for edge cases
Input validation, unexpected use cases
3. Reusability
Refactor code into common functions/classes
4. Testing
Test codes with various inputs
Lastly , treat the interview process more like a learning experience. Be professional and neutral throughout the interview.
Reach out to me anytime if you want to discuss anything related to this program. Thank you for your patience to read till the end. Feedbacks and suggestions are most welcome.
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