The Resume I Used To Get a Job at FAANG — And How I Would Fix It

Hey friends,

Today, I am sharing the resume that landed me a job at a FAANG company. When I was on Tik Tok, a lot of people were asking me what I had written on my resume. That was mostly because I was an inexperienced college kid that has never had any internship, tech job, or mentorship. It’s an honest question. Since people were interested, I realized it might be a cool topic to go over.

So let’s talk about it.

I’ll be the first to say that there are many things wrong with this resume. It is far from perfect.

I would not recommend replicating it. If I were ever looking for a job, I would not even dream of reusing it.

The biggest flaw is that this resume is a Canva resume. Recruiters always say it should be a very simple, straightforward document. There shouldn’t be columns, different fonts, and font sizes. It should look bland and boring, like lines and lines of single-spaced text. There should be no flair and pizazz.

Part of the reason is that the content of your resume is what matters most. Do the recruiters think you are qualified for the position? Another big reason is that your resume will get screened. It’s an automated process that looks for candidates based on keywords. It’s not even a real person looking at your resume. So if you’re using a Canva resume with some designs on it, these screening technologies might have a harder time reading your resume and looking for those keywords. It might not even pick up half the words in your resume. If that happens, your resume will never see a real person because it was tossed.

So definitely don’t use a Canva resume. Keep it simple.

(update as of July 11 2023

I have talked to a lot of recruiters at Amazon — many of which have work experience at other FAANG companies — and they have all denied this idea that ATS machines filter out candidates based on keywords. They do use ATS systems, but the recruiter will read every single application themselves. Its allegedly a popular misconception.)

I will say that one thing I think I did really well is use keywords.

I thought semantic HTML and Responsive Designwere good keywords. I would imagine accessibility is an extremely huge priority for these big tech companies. Had I known ARIA roles weren’t deprecated, I totally would have mentioned it too.

I mentioned all the languages I knew. I figured those would be good keywords to include. Looking back, I now realize that was unnecessary. I thought knowing more languages was a flex. It’s not. Only mention the language, even in interviews, if it was mentioned in the job description. If it wasn’t mentioned, don’t bring it up. Instead of talking about things they never asked for, spend more time talking about how well you fit the job description.

In fact, let’s bring up a job description.

This is a job description for a random Apple engineering position. The job description is where you are getting the keywords from. This is not a groundbreaking, exclusive revelation, but it is worth mentioning for my friends that need help with their resumes.

So for example, for this engineering position at Apple, I see keywords Java, MVC, mobile development, Jest, API, HTTPs, REST, Javascript, AJAX, React, and jQuery.

So you are not pulling these keywords from anywhere. You are not assuming what keywords they might possibly want. You are pulling the keywords from the job description. You are using your resume to highlight the fact that you check most of the requirements that they are looking for.

That said, resumes are not one-size-fits-all. For example, I applied to three different Amazon positions: Front-End Engineer, AWS Front-End Engineer, and Software Engineer. For every single one of those positions, I tailored my resume to match the job requirements. What are they looking for? and how can I show them that I am exactly what they are looking for?

And you might think: okay, obviously there’s a difference in requirements between software engineers and front-end engineers. It’s true. However, there are also differences in requirements between software engineering positions. It’s not one-size-fits-all for the same positions. So definitely look out for that. It does matter. Those tiny details do matter.

I also wanted to add one more thing. In my experience (which is extremely limited) I noticed that you should not really care about requirements that say “x years of experience”. I applied to some level one engineering positions that had “x years of experience.” I had zero. I still applied and landed phone interviews.

Granted, I also applied to level 2 and level 3 engineering positions. At the time I did not realize those levels actually meant something. Needless to say, I never heard back from them. But for entry level positions? I’d say you should still apply anyway. Worse case scenario they say no.

Another thing I did well was the heading.

Obviously, the formatting should be simpler. However, I included my name, contact information, and my city. For some reason, it’s universally accepted that you should not use your full address anymore.

And I also included a link to this blog as well as my GitHub. Undeniably, my GitHub played an extremely gigantic role. That’s where all my projects were located — and my projects were my only source of experience. Without my projects, I had nothing. I would have had a blank resume.

And my Medium may have played a role as well. I have no idea. I would like to think it helped. In the online dev community on Twitter, a lot of devs attribute their success in getting a job to their Twitter following. If you spend a lot of time writing tech content, it arguably builds authority and ethos. It indicates that you’re knowledgeable in the topic. Again, I would like to think it helped. If I get a chance to talk to tech recruiter, that will definitely be a good question to ask.

But circling back to my projects, that section on my experience was ehhh…. alright…

I think it was great that I used the project descriptions to plant in some more keywords. I talked about APIs, event listeners, asynchronous Javascript, responsive design, Single-Page architecture (which is like Vue & Angular), GitHub, Jira (which is a software management tool), and agile.

Not all of those things were asked for in the job description; however, they were relevant. Like who doesn’t use an issue management tool? Who doesn’t use agile or something similar? Who doesn’t care about responsive design?

While I am proud of my experience section, I think it could have been stronger. There is an abundnace of repetition throughout my experience section that I could have replaced with new, fresh information that tells more about me.

On that same note, I think it was great to have introduced even more keywords in my education section.

I talked about sprint planning, user stories, and UML diagrams. Again, those were never mentioned in the job description, but they still hold relevance. I see user stories all the time.

In that section, I also talked about C++, C#, and python. Again, they don’t really care. It’s irrelevant to the role. Front-End Engineers don’t use those languages. They don’t want to hear about it.

And also, in my education section, I listed keywords that are already listed elsewhere. For example, semantic HTML and scrum/Agile . Instead of being repetitive, I could have used that real estate to offer more information about how I’m qualified for the job.

These recruiters don’t know you so you have to tell them what you know. And again, truly, the only thing they want to know is information related to your qualifications. If you’re adding additional information they didn’t ask for, you should just make sure it's worth the space you’re sacrificing.

As for education and certifications…

Genuinely, nobody cares what school you went to. In one of my recent posts, 8 Lessons I Learned During My First Month at FAANG (as an inexperienced new grad), I talked about how none of the engineers I have met thus far have gone to an Ivy League or a US News Top Ranking university. ZERO. So if you are the type to worry about the social status of your university, it does not matter.

In your education section, assuming you have space to fill, you should talk about relevant things you did. For example, data structures and algorithms tend to show up in job requirements.

And as for certifications, I have heard from recruiters that they amount to nothing. You can get certifications from a billion different places, all with varying degrees of difficulty. If you have a random HTML certification from a company no one’s ever heard of, will it mean much?

However, if you are breaking into the industry, I have also read that they are better than nothing. Especially for internships or new grad opportunities — which tech has a bunch of — certifications can show that you’re making an active effort to learn and you have some level of proficiency on the subject. And I guess, ultimately, if it's between you and another inexperienced candidate, those certifications might help sway the recruiter in your favor. Who knows?

Ultimately, experience is definitely king. Experience will always beat certifications. If you don’t have experience, take what you can get to set yourself apart. It wouldn’t hurt.

And that’s my resume. If you want to find my GitHub, my username is @kyledeguzmanx. By the time I applied, I had around 30 projects on there. Looking back, I definitely think quality is superior to quantity.

If you have like four projects that are incredibly complex — like a Tik Tok clone, a recipe app, or some other cool project — I think you would also be fine.

Anyway, hope you found some value in this. Follow me to keep along with my journey. Hope you all succeed in life.