Google was on site to have their recruiters give their best advice to job seekers during our first Women in Tech Symposium. Women and men from metro Detroit gathered to hear different speakers and workshops on a wide range of topics. In my final year at U of M, I cannot help but think about all that I need to do to make my job search as successful as possible. In this blog, I am going to take you through some of the highlights and most important tips from “the Googlers.”
Job-Seeking Tips from Google Recruiters
Your Resume Should be Evolving
Our resumes should be reflect professional growth and experiences. If you wait until you are applying to a new job and begin to try to think of what you have done in the past five years all at once, you might not be able to best recall all of these accomplishments. It is best to keep it updated as you go to reduce stress later.
Continuing Education
Don’t sell yourself short! Have you taught yourself a new program? Taken a bootcamp? A new online class? These also should be reflected in either your Education or Skills sections of your resume. If you have these significant experiences, you might even include a “Continuing Education” Section under your original background.
Customization
Catering your resume to a specific audience often gets lost within the stress of other elements of a job search. What’s important to remember is that each company you apply to doesn’t need to know everything and anything you have ever done, only what is relevant to them. If you can cater your resume to interest them, you will have time in the interview process to talk about other parts of your background that might not appear on your one-page resume. Many suggest to have a typical resume and then different sections you swap in and out on a separate document, depending on the job you are applying for.
Showcase your Impact, not your Responsibilities
It’s easy to list your day-to-day activities on your resume, but that’s not necessarily the most effective way to land the interview. Making sure you can show a potential employer the impact you make is far more important then telling them step-by-step of your responsibilities A good format that will help train you to write powerful, impactful sentences follows,
“Accomplished_______ as measured by ________ by doing _________”
Objective Statements
An objective statement at the top of your resume is not 100% necessary. However, if you can convey an impactful message that can capture the potential employers’ attention, it could be a powerful tool. Some pointers the Googlers gave about writing this statement follow,
- DON’T write a statement that resembles: “Seeking_____job in_____industry,” this statement shouldn’t be about what you’re looking for
- DO write a statement that tells them why you are valuable to them, that can sell you, that tells them what’s in it for them by hiring you and what they are going to get by hiring you
Ultimately, if you do put an objective statement on your resume, make sure it highlights the impact you can have on the potential place of work and why this company needs you on their team.
LinkedIn: Tips and its Importance
LinkedIn is becoming more and more important in the hiring process. In some cases, LinkedIn can be just as important as your resume. Just listing your experience on your LinkedIn page isn’t enough. A potential employer should be able to get the same amount of information from your LinkedIn page as your resume. The good news is, you can use essentially the same bullet points under your LinkedIn experiences as you do on the resume, it’s an easy copy and paste that could be very beneficial.
Activity
Be active on LinkedIn, follow brands, companies, causes, and people that you’re interested. Be liking, sharing, and posting about your career or interests every once and awhile. Moral of the story: don’t let your last activity be from 2009.
Side Notes
- Use the “Willing to Relocate” Tag on your profile if you are in fact, willing to move (there is a separate filter that recruiters can use to find you this way). This feature is something I have never heard of and I found it to be super useful, and is worth learning more about if you actually want to move.
- Have a professional headshot, here you can find tips to look your best online
Being Human, Making your Resume YOU
Adding small elements like interests and other skills can add a more personal element to your resume. This personal element could give you a leg up over someone recruiters don’t feel like they know as well. Including your outside of work activities, awards, or skills that somehow relate to the position could be a nice addition. Truly what makes you stand out from the rest of the stack of resumes are the diverse experiences you have. Finding a way to include these if you can, is something that the Googlers recommend (especially if you’re applying at Google).
Formatting
Lastly, I’m going to leave you with a few formatting tips that can continue to guide you in your resume work.
- Proofread, look for typos and keep the same tense
- Export as a .pdf to ensure it will look how you want it to look when they receive it
- One-page, one-sided
- Again, one-page, pick and choose for each job what you what them to know
- No smaller than 10 pt. Font, 0.5 inch margins
- More on fonts, don’t use anything that looks like a typewriter, and use web-based fonts like Arial, Helvetica, and Open Sans