Top Resume Writing Tips to Outshine the Competition in 2024

Creating a resume that stands out is crucial in today's competitive job market. Here are my top tips, honed through personal experience and community wisdom, to help you craft a resume that gets noticed and make it available for free forever.

Below you will find a free resume template.

First of all, I would like to give credit to the amazing Reddit community, r/Resumes. They helped me a lot; there is a lot of great information, and it’s a must-visit place when you are trying to master your resume.

Most common mistakes that I did and that I saw.

• A resume that does not clearly convey your career goals or the type of job you are seeking.
  This happens often when people use a "one-size-fits-all" resume. They don’t secure any position because the resume is too broad and inconsistent, with multiple different tech skills. This makes it hard for recruiters to understand what exactly you want to do.

• Resumes that are either excessively long or too brief.

• Including personal details such as age, marital status or unrelated job experiences.

• Using a cluttered layout, inconsistent fonts, and excessive use of graphics. ← You saw a beautifully colored resume that caught your eye? Forget it. There’s a high chance that the company is using an ATS (Applicant Tracking System), and this colorful design will get squashed. HR might not even open it or try to contact you to request a different format.

• Failing to include keywords from the job description.
  Tailor your resume for each specific job description.

• Listing job duties without highlighting specific achievements. ← You know that your new approach reduced X metric by 20% ? Highlight it with numbers, instead of saying “Increased overall performance”.

• Using generic terms like "responsible for" or "assisted with."
  Be more specific and concise.

• Leaving unexplained gaps in your employment history. ← If you had an unemployment period and you were studying or on parental leave, mention it. It’s much better than leaving a gap.

• Including outdated or irrelevant jobs and skills. ← If you are applying for a Scientist position, but you worked as a fruit seller during summer in school, this information is not valuable for HR and won’t elevate your resume.

• Using an unprofessional email address. ← This helped me DRAMATICALLY. I bought a domain and used [email protected] as my email. I received multiple positive comments about it. It’s a small thing, but it can show a potential employer that you are really prepared for the job hunt. If you have an extra $10-15 a month for a business email, do it!

Let’s start with basics.

• The primary goal of a resume is to secure an interview. It should present your skills, experiences, and accomplishments in a way that convinces employers you are a strong candidate.

• Customize your resume for each job application. Highlight relevant experiences and skills that match the job description. Use keywords from the job posting.

• Ideally, a resume should be one page, especially for early-career professionals. Experienced candidates with extensive work history might extend to two pages. Avoid unnecessary details.

• Use a clean, professional format with clear headings, bullet points, and consistent fonts. Make sure it is easy to read.

• Highlight your achievements rather than just listing job duties. Use quantifiable results (e.g., "Increased sales by 20%" or "Managed a team of 10 people").

• Ensure there are no typos, grammatical errors, or inaccuracies. Consider having someone else review it as well

• Start bullet points with strong action verbs such as "developed," "managed," "implemented," "designed," etc.

• Do not lie or exaggerate your qualifications.

• Avoid overly complex designs or graphics that may not be ATS (Applicant Tracking System) friendly.

Here is link for really solid resume template.
Standard Resume Template - Google Docs
Click File → Download. Then you can modify it using Google Docs or MS Word.

Let’s go through it and review it.

Summary

The first thing I did with this template was add a “Summary” block below my personal information. I believe a Summary block provides a good, short introduction that can help grab attention.

Here's what I have in my resume. It’s not perfect yet, but it's working:

Data/Analytics Engineer with 4 years of experience specializing in SQL and Python, with strong fundamentals in the data-related field. Skilled in building scalable data solutions, query performance tuning, and data quality checks. Passionate about data engineering, continuous learning, and development, as well as mentoring and sharing my knowledge.
The most important parts are sharing my years of experience and the areas I specialize in.

Technical Skills (only if you are applying for technical roles)

If you are a Software Engineer, Data Engineer, Data Analyst, Data Scientist, QA Engineer, ML Engineer, etc., include the technical stack you work with.

Example:

• Programming Languages: Python, SQL, Java, JavaScript, Go

• RDBMS: PostgreSQL, MySQL

• Cloud: AWS, GCP, Azure

• Containers: Docker, Kubernetes (k8)

• BI Tools: Looker, Tableau, Power BI

• Developer Tools: Git

• Agile Methodologies: Scrum, Kanban

You get the idea.

Work Experience

List positions in reverse chronological order. Include the company name, job title, location, and dates of employment. Describe what you did there, your biggest accomplishments, and metrics (if you have them). Include only relevant work experience for the position you are applying for. Don’t fill it up with irrelevant stuff, as this can cause recruiters to miss important points and focus on irrelevant details. Don’t be an enemy to yourself.

Education

Showcase your latest (or most valuable) education. If you have degrees, definitely highlight them! If you had a really high GPA, be sure to include it! If you participated in any voluntary work at university, make sure to mention it!

Skills

This section is usually at the bottom of the resume, but I recommend putting it before work experience. You need to show what your strongest skills are.

Final Thoughts

I think resumes are a “try and modify” process. You need to revisit them multiple times, re-read them frequently, find weak points, and strengthen them. Never lie on resumes; I guarantee it will backfire on you. If you think your resume is good but you are not getting responses from HR, reconsider it. There is a high chance that the resume is just not appealing or it’s wrongly focused for the position. Always have a slight pinch of doubt towards it; this will help you keep it updated. The more you look into your resume, the more logical flow you will see. This will help you in the long run.

REMEMBER, JOB HUNTING IS NOT A SPRINT; IT’S AN ULTRAMARATHON UNDER HEAVY RAIN AND STORMY WIND. You just need to keep on track.