Calm Code

The Resume Review Experiment

I was looking for a way to help Sri Lankans in this time of crisis. On Thursday I tweeted that I would like to help review resumes (CVs - curriculum vitaes) for IT professionals.

Happy to review > #SriLankan> IT CVs and resumes over the weekend. Please DM me links. Tell your friends.

— Dilantha Nanayakkara 🇱🇰✊🏼 (@dilantha) > April 28, 2022That tweet got a bit of traction and I got a handful of resumes and LinkedIn profiles to go through. It was great to connect with a new generation of professionals and see how they were doing.

Overall I would say their profiles were pretty good. The fact that they reached out meant that they were putting themselves out there, which I would say is the first step if you want to find work.

Here is a summary of feedback I gave them. I hope it will help others as well.

  1. Trim the LinkedIn about section and add your key skills and tools. The search results shows this with the search terms highlighted.
  2. Have a summary of skills and tools up top so that it's easy to scan your resume.
  3. Make your resume easy to read. Use white space and dark grey fonts. Some looked like a photocopy with crammed text that I couldn't read easily.
  4. Talk about problems you solved and what you achieved in the work experience.
  5. Remove references and only send them if the company asks for them.
  6. Remove home address. Only include the town and country if you think it's relevant.
  7. If you are a developer link to your GitHub profile which should have some code that you have written yourself.
  8. Skills, tools, work experience first and education last.