Transcripts
1. Intro: Hey everyone, My name is Marsha. And today we're going to learn the secrets of
great tech resume. I want to tell you a
little bit about myself. I actually work at Slack
Salesforce company. I'm a director of corporate
marketing in there and I want to teach
you four things today. First, we're going to look at the layout of a
great tech resume. What does that
actually look like? Early on in my career, before I got into tech, I hired an amazing resume coach and she taught me all
the things I'm going to teach you today and
helped me restructure my resume so that eventually I use that
to get into Microsoft. They've been tweaking along
the way and now I'm at Slack. We're also going to learn
what is important to having your resume,
why it's there. And some things might surprise
you that I leave off. We're also, I'm going to show
you examples actually from my resume that the one that I talked about that got
me into Microsoft and Slack. So you can actually see
verbatim what I use. And once you build
your new tech resume, I want to give you tips
on how to actually use it so that when
you're interviewing, you feel really comfortable
with this new type of resume and it's
exactly what you need. So let's get started.
2. Final Cut Lesson 1 [Layout]: Hey everyone, Let's talk about the layout of a
great tech resume. What does it actually look like? So what I wanna do now
is actually I want to show you my personal resume. This is the resume that
will be going through step-by-step from the resume
header to the summary, to the value provided
section to the experience. And the specific layout
that I have here with the bullet points all the
way down to where is it? My education qualifications,
several sections. We're going to go
line-by-line in my resume. So let's actually start with just a recap of what the whole
section should look like. The layout of a great
tech resume should really focused on sharing and showing impact as fast as possible. And that kinda comes
from one glands by a hiring manager or a recruiter
on what it looks like. The second thing is
your style choice. So this is the first time
a resume hits my desk, and this is the first
moment I get to know you. And it's kinda easy
for me to tell how you think based on the sentence
structure and word choices, do you use most of
your resume like small short sentences or
with good impact and punch? Or do you have long phrases
that are kind of wordy? Because it might signal to
me that when you interview might take awhile and talk through some
of your statements. The next thing is that your
resume layout is organized. It doesn't have mistakes, and you've really organized
for the best content to be at the top so that
when I'm reading it, I'm just being wowed by everything that you've
been working on. Mistakes are a big
deal in tech resumes, maybe not so much in
other industries. But it really signals
and attention to detail. Even if you alternate
punctuation, that could tell me that you're not attentive to detail something as
little as that counts. Then lastly, not really. Don't add any fruit
and Phyllis additions. Don't put a picture of
your face on there. Don't change your font. As a hiring manager when
you look at resumes one after another and all of a
sudden one has a fancy font. It's just kinda like disorienting
and don't put color. I know some coaches resume. Coaches say like it kinda
stops people in their tracks. That might be true, but in general, it's like, feels like a frivolous edition. And the reason why
I say these are fruitless is because
it signals to me as a hiring manager that you
could be hiding something. You might on your resume or you don't have
enough experience, or maybe you're not really
a top performer and all of this stuff doesn't,
maybe isn't true. But top performers are
known to use every inch of their resume very
intentionally and you can see it and I'm going to
show you how to do that. Okay, so let's get started.
3. Lesson 2 [Heading]: Hey guys, So let's talk
about the resume heading. It's the first thing you are
going to see on the resume. Let me actually go ahead and show you what that looks like. On my resume. It's
right up here. It's super tight and it's small. So let's review what is actually on there and let me tell you a little
bit more about that. So the resume heading, it's going to have your email, it's going to have
your phone number. This is my real phone number
anymore, so don't call it. It's gonna be the area
where you live and then your linked in URL. So it's short to the point at the very
top of your resume. Just the four things I said you don't need anything
else on there. And the reason you don't
add your full address is folks aren't companies aren't looking to
mail you anything. They really just want
to see the largest city that you're near. And so it is important
for some companies, they hire in a
specific location, But for other companies is
just more regionally knowing where you are, where
they're sourcing. Maybe there's a
headquarters near you that you could go to
and work as well. Get your LinkedIn handles
so that you're easy to find when you join LinkedIn, they give you a
really generic one. It's like Marsha 14798. And it's hard to find
you on LinkedIn if you don't have a custom one. And it's also hard to
add that to your resume. It looks a little funny that you don't have the custom one. You want to use everything
your advantage to stand out. And the last thing is make sure that when you hyperlink
your custom LinkedIn URL, which I'm going to show you
how to find really quick. When you convert your
resume into a PDF, you should always be sending a hiring manager or a recruiter
or a PDF of your resume, not Word doc, double-check. Okay. I can't tell you how many
times that I've gotten a resume on my desk or on my sent to me through my email and I click on it and click on something on there
and it's broken. So let me show you really quick how you can actually
find your custom. I'm going to click out of
this, how you can find it. I'm going to go to my LinkedIn feed and then
I'm going right to my name. And then you see
it's right here at UT public profile and URL. I'm going to click on it. Then I really have
my personalized one. And then you can just
click on update yours, so that's where you find that. But then also for
double-checking, see I have it hyperlinked here. Let's double-check
that line works. Okay, there it is, it works. So that's what you
should be thinking about for your resume heading.
4. Final Cut Lesson 3 [Summary]: All right, everyone,
we're going to talk about the resume summary. It's the next thing
that you are going to see on your resume. It's this section
right here is gonna be about three sentences and
it shouldn't be too long. So let's go through it a
little bit more zoomed in. It's just gonna be
a general summary of your unique expertise. It's again, that first
impression of how you write. Do you write short, action-packed, really
impactful sentences? Or do you use long
wordy sentences? I get the reader lost in your thoughts and really not sure what you're
talking about. So think about your
first impression. Think about how you
present yourself. Let me tell you exactly what
you need to put on there. You're going to need to
answer three questions. What do you specialize in? What are you known for and
what will their resume cover? In general? If you're a manager, you're going to
use language like executive in this
opening section. And really that signals
to a hiring manager that you should be looking for
roles that our director, that you'd have a
team under you. If I see that you're using language like
manager or executive, but you're applying for a
rule that's below your level. I'm going to want to know
why you're doing that. Let's go back here. So what am I doing? I'm Product mark and
what do I specialize in? This is what I specialize in. I am I have a team. I am using the word executive. I'm not saying the word
Product Marketing Manager. I'm thinking product
marketing executive. And I'm explaining
right off the bat, what do I specialize in
while I brought some of the highest profile SAS
products to market. What am I know for me?
This is my reputation. This is what people
say about me, that I build, transfer our
go-to-market strategies. What else are they going
to see in my resume? So I leave this sentence here because it's
going to signal to the hiring manager that you're
going to see that actually had expertise in core
marketing functions. I have a little bit of
sales expertise with. I've worked with sales
leadership and then I've worked in quite a
few industries. So if they see that
through my resume, it's not gonna be a
surprise for them. They're gonna be able to see exactly what I
already told them. This section should be
updated as you change roles, as you learn more skills, you want to add what
you're known for, the newest thing that
you're known for. And like I said,
the summary really helps to remove any
surprises in the rest of your resume so you
don't have to worry about if you took on a role or did tasks that
didn't really make sense for your overall resume. It's okay to signal that there's a reason
why that's there. So that is your resume summary.
5. Lesson 4 [Value Provided]: Hey everyone. So the next section we're
going to talk about is the value provided section. And it looks like this. It sits still in the
opening of your resume. And here it is, a little
bit more zoomed in. So let's talk about it. It's gonna be the topics that
you have the most expertise and the phrase value provided it's actually
kind of important. We're in tech, what
we're all about growth, we're about attracting
new customers, selling our product. When you use the word
value is shows that you're really intentional about the
service that you provide, an impact that you provide to the company that
you want to join. So how do you figure out which
topics to actually put on? There is gonna be two things. It can mean intersection of one, what are you most
passionate about? And to where you have
the greatest expertise? I'm super passionate about corporate narratives and talking about strategic messaging
and positioning, how a lot of expertise
in Enterprise Marketing, this is the majority
of my background. And also go-to-market strategy. What you don't want
to do is you don't want to put words on
here that you can't speak to because this
is going to signal to the hiring manager that they're going to
see more on this. In your experience section, you're going to actually
lean in and talk about these in
little bullet points under what you've done. Now this value section
is going to change as you get expertise in
different areas of your role. And let me Brandon
content marketing for me, That's something that I've
been actively working on in my resume and I've been spending time with those teams
and picking that up. And so that's why
I have put this in here because I want to talk
about that and display it. So that's a little bit about
the value provided section.
6. Final Cut Lesson 5 [Experience]: Hey everyone. Now we're going to talk about the experience section
in your resume. Then experienced section is
going to be living right here is under your summary and your value provided
section in your resume. It's gonna be about 70% of
the content on your resume. So I have about a three-page, two-and-a-half page resume
and it takes about, about 70% of what I write. So let's zoom in a
little bit more. You see that I have a
specific layout for it. And all of my experience, all the roles I've had, they have all of the same
layout and then tension for that is so hiring
manager like myself can, when a resume hits my
desk or I get it online, I can quickly scan through
and verify that you have the experience needed for me to even keep
looking further. That's the first
check mark that I do. You can see here that
I have my title, it's in bold, followed by
the company worked on. And then I have my date as well. Little pro tip. If you've been at a company
for a couple of months, You had to leave whatever
the situation was. Writing the date in shorthand kind of gets
folks away from kind of zooming in and doing like date math on how long
you've been somewhere. Another thing though is
sometimes we work on our resume, we leave, we come
back, we change. It, makes sure that all of
your dates are uniform. Some places you might
have written out December. Now you're not. Some places you might write just to one with an apostrophe. So go back and make sure that you've done all of
that correctly. The next thing you see under
here is you're going to see a sentence and then you
see four bullet points. Really don't want more
than five bullet points. And tech, it's pretty
common for folks to move around after a
year or two years. Um, it's okay if I see
like three bullet points. But anything longer,
it just starts to look way down and disk balanced. So let's dive in a
little bit more. So, like I told you a little bit about that
structure or the title of your role and really
is just so I can get a quick glance on
if you're a good fit, just even from the start. Now the sentence under
the title is either, this is how you write
it is you're going to be one of two things. The most impactful thing
you've done in your role, or it's gonna be a
summary of your role. So let's see what I wrote. I wrote design and launched
a corporate narrative adopted by slack
of a sales force using all marketing channels. That was definitely
the hardest and most impactful thing
that I'd done. So that's why I
have it at the top. And it's gonna be kinda
this wow moment like Whoa, this person has really pushed
and stretch themselves. I'm excited to read what
else they have under here. So like I said, don't have more than five
bullet points unless you worked the same company
or whole career. But even if you've worked
at the same company, you need a breakout it out into roles and then be
thoughtful about the top five things
that you've done. And like I said, you're going to organize this section
in order for importance because starting with
the most impactful and then putting them the
lease down to the bottom. The purpose of this is
like you're trying to be intentional about
your experience at wherever you've spent your
time as a hiring manager. When I read somebody who's experienced section
and it's out of order and I can't get a sense of
why they listed things away. They listed again, it goes
back to that first impression. I haven't even
talked to you yet, but I'm getting a sense of how you think through your
resume and what you do. Okay, so what's the
million dollar question? How do you actually
write the sentences? So there is a formula and I want to tell you
a little bit about it. So the formula is what you did. Plus the result is going to
create this power statement. And I can't tell you
how many resumes I've seen that only tell
me what people did. They don't have the result, they don't have the
business income. And so you may have created all this social media
strategy for your company. You may have written
all of the content. You may have done
this fantastic work and all of these tasks. But if I don't have that result, I don't know if it was actually a powerful value add
for your company. So did all the
content you're right, actually bring in Leeds? Did this social media
actually generate demand? So it's so important to
have that results section. So let's take a look at
a couple that I wrote. I wrote that I built from scratch the company-wide
competitive narratives. And then the result was that is the fastest and most adopted
continent in the company. Ideally, you really want
to have a number attached. And this is just a pro
tip that I teach all of my direct reports
that in your role, the way that you prioritize
what you work on is what is actually going to bring a result that
you can quantify. And so I challenge
all the people that are under me on my team. Are you working on
something that I can actually contribute
to your resume? Can we actually get a
number out of this? And before you even start
working on this project, What's gonna be the
outcome and the output? Because numbers are pretty
impressive, aren't they? Like when you see
it on a resume? So what happens if there's something on your resume that you're really
passionate about, but it doesn't have a result. And I know this is a
new way of thinking. It's because they've seen so many resumes and
I only see a lot of them only have the what?
It's the new muscle. So I want you to sit down
and I want you to write out everything you've done and see if you can add a result. Now, what if the result is
an obvious here in this last one presented monthly to the CEO on market
dynamics and strategy. Was there a money thing attached or the result is
more personal to me, like in my sphere of influence, you can't get any higher than
working with the C-suite. And so in my market like that result,
It's pretty obvious. So some of those
you can still keep. But like I said, when
you rank them in order, you're going to see which ones you should leave and which ones you should leave off. Okay, So how do you
actually use this formula? It's the best-case scenario
is that you discipline your role and a generated
money because this is Tech. And tech companies want to see
how you're driving growth, how you're driving revenue, how you're bringing
in new customers. So think about that. If you can't be
correlated to money, what's the impact
to the company? And like I said,
this is a new way to think about how
you do your role. Maybe send some time
figuring this out, ask other people, throw some things out
there, sit with it. And like I said, like, unless the statements really
important to you, leave it off because what
ends up happening is you see all these power experiences and then this random one and then
the hiring managers like, oh, why'd you leave
that on there? And if you have transitioned
into a manager role, you're going to want to talk
about how your team has scaled or work across the
organization and created value. So the company is
giving you a team. What did you do with that team
that didn't exist before? And that's what you're
going to want to show. I wanted to show you
really quickly again. So this is the director of
corporate marketing role. It's okay if you're
transitioning as a new manager. I was a Senior Product Marketing Manager
and became a director. And so some of this stuff is still in transition
and that's totally fine. Just make sure that as
you grow as a manager, you come back to your
resume and you update to show that scale of what
your team is doing. So that was the section
on experiences.
7. Final Cut Lesson 6 [Education]: Hey everyone. So the last section
on your resume is going to be your
education section. And it's all the way
at the very bottom, you can see I have a
two-and-a-half page resume and instead the very bottom, a lot of resumes that I see, it's actually near the top, but here's the thing in tech. It doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter
where you went to school, what you're doing
with your your major. So here it is a little
bit more zoomed in. Again, it has a
specific structure and you're going to want
to follow this structure. It has the educational
qualifications title, it has the degree I
got and it's bolded, then it has my university, the location, and the
year I graduated. So this is all really important. You know, not
everybody's going to know where your university was. So the location is important
and so is the date. You'd be surprised how many
people leave off the date. And that is also important just to understand relevance of this compared to the
rest of your experience. Like if you just
graduated college than it makes sense why your
experience would reflect that. You also want to put just
relevant qualifications. Don't put everything
that you've ever done, just things that are
irrelevant to the role. So I'm account-based
marketing strategist. This is very relevant
for marketing. And then I left my secret
government clearance because if I'm applying to her
role that works with the federal government
or the public sector. They're going to
know that I have experienced with this audience. I understand the way they talk, the way they think about
things, how to target them. And that's why I left this to think a little
bit about that. So let's dive in deeper
into the education section. So it's gonna be the last
thing on your resume. Like I said, it's just not
as important in tech as it is maybe in other industries. And you don't really get hired based on the university
you went to. A lot of folks are gonna
do coding, boot camps, are gonna do extension programs, and that could actually carry more weight than the
university degree. So I my university degrees,
international relations. I'm not a diplomat. And I don't really need
it and nobody cares. I don't use the degree
that I went to school for. Like I said, it's a
very specific layout. And if you've noticed,
like we've talked about layouts and a couple
areas of the resume. And it's important because it creates that tightness and that intentionality that
everything you're doing is very thoughtful
and systematic. And it's kinda hoping
that a hiring manager to better get to know you
when it's structured. So like I said, only add things that qualifications that
are relevant to your niche. And that makes sense. You don't want to add a
whole laundry list of things down there. And that's it.
8. Final Cut Lesson 7 [Tips]: Hey everyone, I
thought I'd share a couple more tech resume
tips with you that I've encountered as a hiring manager so you can succeed
in getting that job. A few more pro tips. Don't add any cutesy things
at the end of your resume, like hobbies or what
you'd like to do. It's just takes up space and I'm not going
to pull your resit. The rest of your resume doesn't have structure and it
doesn't have order. But you have these cutesy things like dots not going to
move the needle for me. Don't add the phrase
reference on request. All tech companies, they
do background checks, they do reference checks
if they don't want you to run for the hills because
that's a big red flag. So when I see that line
reference on request, it makes me think that
you're just filling up space and we definitely
don't want to do that. If you had over five
years of experience, your resume should be
at least two pages. If your resume is not
at least two pages, it's a red flag to
me on what you've been doing in your career. It's okay to have a
three-page resume as long as it's
impactful, intentional, and a structured
and organized and all the things that we
talked about length isn't, is more, isn't as important
as way too short. Don't add every role you've ever had in your career
onto your resume. There are things that I've done I've done that
aren't on my resume. I got my secret clearance by being a civilian in the Navy, but it's not relevant
to marketing. So I don't need to add it. Then at a certain point. I know I can actually like, I have the last thing I there
is when I worked at Xbox and I still have it on there even though it's
been ten years now, because it shows my work
ethic and how I think about collaboration with other
teams at a certain point. I'm going to take
that off till now. Cover letters. Cover letters are not
must-haves and tech. If you have a strong resume, a higher manager is going
to want to speak to you and I got my role at Slack. My resume is pulled
out of the pile, is like over 500
people applied for the role and didn't
have a cover letter, but my resume was strong enough. I think cover letters are risky. We've talked a lot about your resume is your first impression. I've never talked to you. I don't know what you look like. I don't know how you
articulate your thoughts. And in cover letters, a lot of times folks
come across too casual or too eager and that
might not be you at all, but it might just
come across that way. And I know that the cover
letter is that of kind of rubbed me the wrong
way or something felt off and I still
the resume was strong and I still went ahead
and have that interview. A lot of times what I
was worried about in the cover letter came
off in the interview. So personally, I say skip the cover letter and focus on your resume and
having a really strong. And lastly, your
LinkedIn profile should look exactly
like your resume, otherwise you lose credibility. So I know I cross-referenced LinkedIn for every single
person I'm going to interview. I want to see if
they maybe speak a little bit more
casually on LinkedIn. How do they show up in
a different medium? You know, what folks said
about them or left comments. I once was interviewing. I was about to
interview somebody and I had their resume
in front of me. I just cross-referenced
them on LinkedIn. And on LinkedIn, I saw
that their whole thing was structured around
being an engineer, but they're applying for a
product marketing position. And so immediately I'm like, How is this the same
person with the same skill sets when LinkedIn says they do engineering and they're applying for a
product marketing position. So I didn't move them forward. So it's very true you
need to build that trust. Anything you can do to build trust from your
first impression, do it and get that advantage. So these are a few of
the pro tips for you.
9. Final Cut Lesson 8 [How to Use]: Hey everyone. So now you have this new resume to use
when you interview. But it might feel a
little awkward, right? There are so many new
things that you've added and maybe a lot
of this structure is, and how you've been thinking
about resumes in general. So how do you
actually use it and feel comfortable when
you're interviewing it? So here are a couple of
tips for you around that. So how do you actually use it? What I want you to do
is I want you to print your resume and have
it in front of you, in front of a Zoom
call or in person. So it's totally fine. I always have like a sheet
of paper right here with me. And you can just tell your
hiring manager like, Hey, I have my resume right here, lifting them up for them to see. What you don't want is you don't want to have it on
your computer because the second that you look away
from the Zoom laser beam, it's going to look like you're no longer paying attention. And you need every single thing you can do to build trust, whether that's looking
straight out the person. But it's okay if you
are analog, right? So you can just tell him
like, Hey, how it right here. And I do this all the time when I'm interviewing or
something, I say, Hey, I have some notes here and I'm just going to look
away and that's what I'm gonna do and signaling to a person that creates
comfort, right? Same thing for taking notes. I always have a pad of paper and here I have all this paper here. And if you're going in person, take it with you with
a pen and paper. If you're on, Zoom again until I'm like, I just have
a pen and paper. That's what I'm doing down here. By it'll go away from you. But here's the thing. This isn't a college class. You don't need to take
scrupulous notes like every like everything is
hanging on this one word. And I've oftentimes
like interviewed folks who are looking away at me and just taking notes like
this is a college class. And it just looks like you're
not paying attention to me. Like it's more important for
you to get those notes down then just be engaged in present with me
during our interview. And I'll be honest,
I've interviewed and couldn't remember it. It is hard to capture
all of that information. So oftentimes I'm just
taking little notes here. But then I look back
and I'm like, oh gosh, I don't I don't really
remember what this note, men and it's okay. You're not going to be docked. You can re-ask information
in your next round. The most important thing
for you is to be present. If it's on Zoom, appear alert, excited that you're not nervous, you're comfortable in
your surroundings. You're here for a conversation. So your summary
section, remember, is that opening section
right under your heading? You've already done so much
to the legwork for you. So a very common question
is tell me about yourself. Usually if you kinda can choke
up on that, you're like, Oh my gosh, like
especially if you haven't been
interviewing for awhile. But you've already done all
the legwork for you, right? So you wrote a killer summary
and now you can use it. And so I'm a Product
Marketing Executive and I brought some
of the highest profile products to market. I'm known for this. I have broad experience in this. So those three sentences, they set you up for success immediately early
on in my career. Before I had nailed that
opening for myself, I would just memorize
that as a cold start. So I would just immediately launch into that and that'd be like my little
elevator pitch. It's a great elevator pitch. Those three sentences. And the goal is for you to be comfortable to save them, right? You don't want to sound
like a robot or you're scripted when you're like I'm a Product Marketing Executive, bowel wall, you want
it to be natural. So now I'm just going to ask you to walk
them through your resume. And what they're doing
there is they're going to listen for how you tell
the story of yourself. And I can't tell you how radical it is for me to
hear somebody talk about themselves intentionally
versus someone who has just reading
off their resume. I don't really care. Like I do care what's
on your resume, but what's more
important to me is how you talk about yourself. What did you find
important in your career? What are you most proud
of that you've done? Walk me through
that journey with you and make it a story. I want it to be
interesting here, right? Like we're to strangers. Give me a story about yourself. You can do that. I don't want you to do
is I don't want you to start reading every
role you've ever done. When I hear that, I am immediately disconnected
and I know that you don't have that
level of expertise to talk about yourself. So that's too much work to craft that story
about yourself. Just start with what your
most recent experiences and walk them through that. And the reason for
that is because it's going to be the most freshest, probably most of your
passion projects. When you get to
the later stages, remember eyes telling
you how I have some stuff on there
from ten years ago. You're just not going to
recall that as quickly. You don't sit around staring at your resume unless you've
been working on it. But so give yourself that shot to really like them up
about what you've been doing. The latest. Here's the other
thing is that makes sure you're able to speak
to every experience point. Hiring managers are known to
just pick and pluck one out. And that's why, oh,
so suddenly don't have more than four or five, because if you have to
speak to seven rolls times 5.35 experiences that
you've done. It is a lot. A lot of times in tech, also, especially an
enterprise companies, they're gonna be picking random wants to see
how much of the work you've done versus how much of the work that
was done by a team. And so they're going to
try to drill in to see how much you can talk about
that thing you wrote. If you actually did it,
because someone who did it can talk about
in great detail, somebody who hasn't
done it are going to be sounding like they
read a headline. So these are some of the little ways you can
use your route new resume. I'm super excited for you. You're gonna do a
phenomenal job and thank you for taking
this class with me. I'll see you soon. Bye.
Masha Reutovski
