I need some Resume help please

Hi, my name is Myles.
I need help with my resume personally I think it looks ok. But I know when recruiters use the ATS software to scan it, it doesn’t get that great of a score. Also, I’m not that experienced with making a resume and I don’t have much relevant experience so that might be why also.

So what I’m trying to ask is if there’s anyone whos had success with a resume or is a recruiter, or has some experience that would make them good for reviewing resumes I really could use your help.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Why not post it here and let everyone see it? You can hide the contact details if you want.

Thank you for replying sure i’ll try that.

Hey @Myles2,

One quick thought is to change the heading of your projects just a bit:

For example:

Mumble Jumble - A Python/Flask Frontend Web App

P&P Photography - Photography portfolio app

Quote Generator - Html, SASS, jQuery Frontend app

And so on.

Good luck!

Thank you I will consider doing that! I appreciate it!

A few quick observations:

There is some oddness in the header, white boxes - but that might be you cutting and pasting to hide your details. Also, I don’t understand why your last name is bolded and not your first name. I might recommend putting your name in one line and the title you want underneath, like “Software Developer (JavaScript, React, Python)”. They can easily see what this resume is about.

The indenting on the projects and their uls is inconsistent.

The way you list dates is inconsistent.

I might reconsider labeling your education entry as “Harvard” - they might think you’re trying to pull a fast one. The dev manager will probably know what you mean, but the HR person may think you’re full of BS.

I’m confused of the hierarchy of information here. OK, Software Projects, Education, and Skill are siblings - Why does Skills have a separator? I might give them all separators to make them stand out, or give those lines a subtle background.

This links - unless this is an online version, those links should not be hyperlinks. I usually have two versions - online and printed. You might consider making those tinyurls.

Rather than bury your portfolio site in the text, I’d have that in header. Maybe both.

I might get rid of the links to the certificates - I don’t know how much they matter and you can link to them on the personal site. I’d rather briefly list what you learned.

I think you can get rid of some extraneous working like “This is a fully functional website with 3+ pages”. Does that mean that the other sites listed don’t work? I like to keep things on the resume as simple as possible. Some of these people are scanning hundreds of emails a day - less unimportant information means it’s easier to find the important information. You want to make it as easy as possible for them.

I might consider bolding any language or library you list - make it pop out.

“Developed a functional …” This is the only li that isn’t a complete sentence. Personally I think those two lis should be combined into “A random quote generator using HTML, Sass, jQuery and an external API” Less unnecessary info makes the necessary info stand out more. I would do this all the entries.

Another example, “…is created using the React framework…” - Why not just “…uses React…”? Extra words don’t mean more information, it means less information density.

“+1000-hours” should be “1000+ hours”. This sentence also doesn’t make grammatical sense. I’d redo it anyway.

I think if you condensed some of the other text, you could expand the skills section a bit - this is one of the most important sections. Don’t bother with proficient/familiar. If you’re comfortable working in it, list it, if not, don’t. And list the libraries you’ve learned. This should be a list that pops out to the reader. I’d consider a multi-column ul.

So, that’s my suggestions. Don’t let it discourage you - I’m very nitpicky. But so are a lot of hiring managers. And of course, I’m no expert, these are just my opinions.

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There is some oddness in the header, white boxes

Fixed

Also, I don’t understand why your last name is bolded and not your first name.

That was mostly an aesthetic choice I liked it but I can see how the way you suggested could look better.

The indenting on the projects and their URLs is inconsistent.
The way you list dates is inconsistent.

Fixed

I might reconsider labeling your education entry as “Harvard” - they might think you’re trying to pull a fast one. The dev manager will probably know what you mean, but the HR person may think you’re full of BS.

Yeah I thought about that but at the time it made sense to label it where it’s from but better to clarify.

I’m confused of the hierarchy of information here. OK, Software Projects, Education, and Skill are siblings - Why does Skills have a separator? I might give them all separators to make them stand out, or give those lines a subtle background.

Fixed
Not much behind why.

This links - unless this is an online version, those links should not be hyperlinks. I usually have two versions - online and printed. You might consider making those tinyurls.

Made tinyurls

Rather than bury your portfolio site in the text, I’d have that in header. Maybe both.

I did put it in both wasn’t sure what you meant.

I might get rid of the links to the certificates - I don’t know how much they matter and you can link to them on the personal site. I’d rather briefly list what you learned.

I put them there just in case I made them smaller URLs so it’s less intrusive but I think they are fitting since I don’t have a formal education to list. I also don’t think everyone who looks at my resume will go to my portfolio site this has happened to me. While they might “not matter” in a sense they’re relevant so I’ll leave them.

I think you can get rid of some extraneous working like “This is a fully functional website with 3+ pages”. Does that mean that the other sites listed don’t work?

I considered that and reformatted them

I might consider bolding any language or library you list - make it pop out.

Done

“Developed a functional …” This is the only li that isn’t a complete sentence. Personally I think those two lis should be combined into “A random quote generator using HTML, Sass, jQuery and an external API” Less unnecessary info makes the necessary info stand out more. I would do this all the entries.

Done

“+1000-hours” should be “1000+ hours”. This sentence also doesn’t make grammatical sense. I’d redo it anyway.

That was a good find, didn’t think about that

I think if you condensed some of the other text, you could expand the skills section a bit - this is one of the most important sections. Don’t bother with proficient/familiar. If you’re comfortable working in it, list it, if not, don’t. And list the libraries you’ve learned. This should be a list that pops out to the reader. I’d consider a multi-column ul.

I hope this looks fine

Don’t let it discourage you - I’m very nitpicky. But so are a lot of hiring managers. And of course, I’m no expert, these are just my opinions.

Absolutely not! I am very appreciative that you reached out to help me, and it turned out for the better. I know the hiring managers are picky since there’s so much out there plus those ATS software literally shred my resume on arrival so I could use all the help I can get.

Sorry I guess I missed that. Longterm I might consider hosting your own personal site rather than on github pages. I think it looks better if you’ve set up and manage your own site. I’d at least get your own url and point it to the site.

Yeah, it’s just visual clutter to me. Again, I don’t think they’ll care much about them.

But it looks a lot better. I would still shorten the bullet points up to one line and the website. I think the bullet points don’t need to be complete sentences. For example, for the crossword puzzle one, I would just have “built with Python, Flask, Flask-User and MySQL”. They can figure out what it does from the title.

Also, I don’t think you need to explain CS50x so much. The HR guy doesn’t need that much detail and any dev knows what it is. I think “This is an 3-month online Harvard class in Computer Science.”

I might remove VSCode - they don’t care what editor you like. By shortening up the lines above you could add an entry there for things like APIs, etc. I don’t think you need the label “Software” there.

I don’t understand why “Personal Website” is different styling than the projects below. I would do it with the same styling and put the url in a bullet point, like the others.

My philosophy is that the resume’s job is to grab their attention. My theory is that the average recruiter spends 5-10 seconds scanning a resume and decides to dig deeper based on that. In your site you can go into more detail, etc. Your cover letter can expand on things targeting that job. The less redundant/unnecessary text you have, the easier it is for them to find what they want. For example, for your React Calculator, do you need to tell them what a calculator does, “calculate various math operations”? I’d rather just call it a Calculator and then have a bullet point that says “uses React”. Maybe a url for a live version. Do you need to explain that your random quote generator is “A Random Quote Generator”?

But that’s just my thoughts - others may disagree.

Also, I see in the docs that “BeautifulCode” is written as two words. Take a second to make sure all those labels are correct. Someone may notice something like that.

But again, I think it looks a lot better.

I looked at your site a little. I like the look of it for the most part. For the skills section, I would just want a simple list - they don’t want to sit there and wait for it to go through the list. Or at least have a full list underneath this if you want to show off your carousel.

Make sure all the links work - the photo site one didn’t work. I’d also want two links on every project - the site and the code. They want to see your code. I might suggest when you press the card a model pops up with an explanation of what you did on that project, what you used, and then the two buttons. If they’ve gotten that far, they are begging for you to sell yourself.

And I would suggest getting those projects off codepen. Codepen is a cool learning tool or to try things out, but you want to show them that you can build a site.

Again, just my thoughts. And none of that has to be done immediately - just think about it - incremental improvements.

I might check some of the grammar on the site too, nitpicky stuff:

I am a Web developer/software engineer and I am passionate about learning, and using technology.

I’m not sure what that comma is doing there.

All my life I have been fascinated with electronics using them, and even taking them apart to see how they work.

This one needs a comma after “electronics”.

“Iv’e” is mispelled.

“skillset” is usually two words.

I don’t know what “Photography”, etc. are capitalized.

I don’t know why you need to end with “with others” Can you share your skills with yourself?

I think “Virginia based” should be hyphenated.

With “My name is Myles, I am a Virginia based Web developer” and the next line, I’m expecting periods because they are complete sentences.

Proofreading yourself is hard - I know. But they will notice these things.

For the resume, I’d have them link to a pdf version. It’s good to have a word version handy (some companies ask for it) but I think your default should be pdf.

I’ll consider that after I get a job so it’ll support itself

I would still shorten the bullet points up to one line and the website.

Fixed

Also, I don’t think you need to explain CS50x so much.

Fixed

I might remove VSCode - they don’t care what editor you like.

Done

By shortening up the lines above you could add an entry there for things like APIs, etc. I don’t think you need the label “Software” there.

I would but I don’t think I’ve done enough projects with APIs to include them so that’s something to think about for the future

I don’t understand why “Personal Website” is different styling than the projects below.

Easy mistake but fixed

My philosophy is that the resume’s job is to grab their attention. My theory is that the average recruiter spends 5-10 seconds scanning a resume and decides to dig deeper based on that.

While I completely understand your point I always felt if I was too vague they wouldn’t understand what my skillsets are and would overlook me. Also, they might think I don’t have much experience (which I don’t, but shh don’t tell them that. :wink:) or I just was lazy making my resume. Sometimes when I look at fresh CS grads post their resume on articles I always look at the various descriptions they use to describe their internships, or, projects. It would seem they go into some detail but then again I don’t know how successful they were. So sometimes less is more, but maybe not too much less? I don’t know but I definitely agree it looks better so that’s good.

For example, for your React Calculator, do you need to tell them what a calculator does, “calculate various math operations”? Do you need to explain that your random quote generator is “A Random Quote Generator”?

OK… so I knew it was kinda silly when I wrote it, but I couldn’t think of much else to put to describe it so I stated the obvious. But out of all the advice, I must say that was the most brutal lol

Also, I see in the docs that “BeautifulCode” is written as two words. Take a second to make sure all those labels are correct. Someone may notice something like that.

That was a good catch it is Beautiful Soup. Duly noted.

Thanks again for your help it is greatly appreciated!

These are good points! I will work on these this week and post when I’m done. Thanks!

Also I fixed the problem with the photography site because I’m hosting myself on GoDaddy I had to get the domain and hosting but I opted out on the SSL Cert so for some reason it always makes it look impossible to get to it as if it’s dangerous but if you click advance you can click “proceed anyway”

I know that’s not feasible so that’s why I use a free SSL cert but it has to be updated every 3 months so not that fun but easy enough and free :money_mouth_face:

I’d recommend deleting the “Web Developer” subtitle below your name. It implies that you have experience, which you don’t.

Keep in mind that your resume will most often be reviewed by recruiters and HR staff, so leave out the tech speak. If you’re going to write project descriptions, they should be understandable to the average person and shouldn’t need to be read by another developer to be understood. Make them brief and concise.

To the above point, you don’t need to list all your projects. Just list the most impressive ones.

Using URL shorteners is fine, but on your resume, those can make it look like you’re trying to hide something. I thought it was a bit odd myself, so I went ahead and checked them all out, to see that you’re hosting your projects on CodePen. CodePen is fine while you’re first starting out, but you should be hosting front-end web projects, especially ones done for freeCodeCamp, on another site like Netlify, AWS S3, Vercel (formerly Zeit), or surge.sh, which all have free tiers. Your projects don’t line up with what’s typically posted on CodePen (have you checked out its homepage to see what most people post on there?), so you should host them where it makes sense to.

Unfortunately freeCodeCamp, edX, and Codecademy don’t belong under Education. You should only list accredited institutions in an Education section on a resume, and none of them are. Completing the CS50X course by Harvard is certainly an achievement, but it’s only one course and the online version of a Harvard course, and is on material that most CS students will take in their first semester as a freshman, so it’s not exactly that brag-worthy anyway. The best place to mention CS50X, freeCodeCamp, and Codecademy is on your LinkedIn profile.

Your Skills should probably be your first section instead of your last. Only list skills that you’re comfortable with and could answer a question about in an interview. Also “Command Line” is not a tool and is very generic wording. Either list something more specific like BASH if you know it well, or leave that out. Your skills could also stand to use version numbers for JavaScript (ES5? ES6? ES7? etc), Python (2 or 3?), and Bootstrap (3 or 4?). You also have projects that mention MySQL, Sass, and React which are missing from the Skills section?

I also reviewed the code for your React Calculator on CodePen and it’s written sloppily. In your CSS there’s inconsistent spacing and indentation, along with extra braces. In your JavaScript, you have a poorly-named “BandB” function (function names should be in camelCase, and you should use underscores to separate words or letters where appropriate), CSS properties that are set manually instead of via classes, and very inconsistent usage of semicolons. Also, I’m not super-familiar with React, but I’m not sure if it’s good practice to define variables outside of the App class. Seems like if you need to do that, you should define an external module and import that, as your code looks disorganized right now.

Your personal website has a lot of writing mistakes that should be corrected - typos, incorrect capitalization, etc. If you’re fluent in another language (whether speaking or writing), you can and should add that to your resume.

If you’re applying for jobs right now, I’d recommend moving your projects off CodePen asap, along with improving the code quality on your projects.

Also it’s not clear from your posted images, but your resume should be a PDF, and all links in it should be clickable.

That’s why you have a “skills” section below.

I’d recommend deleting the “Web Developer” subtitle below your name. It implies that you have experience, which you don’t.

I disagree. Most recruiters only scan the resume for a few seconds. Many of them aren’t even tech people. You want them to instantly know what category of position you are applying for. If they can’t figure that out in 1 second, they’ll just move onto the other 350 resumes on their stack.

He’s not calling himself a web dev ninja. He has the skills to build a basic web page and he has done it. That is the position he wants. That makes him a web developer, just unemployed. They can easily asses his skill level by looking at the rest of the resume, but at least they’ll know what pile to put him in without having to read the whole resume.

I guess the alternative is to have an “Objective” section at the top.

Hi guys I’ve been pretty busy these months especially with the world being awry as it has been lately. Sorry I wasn’t able to respond to your messages I will try to soon.

I will be trying to work on my website sometime this month and work on the things that were pointed out above. Thank you for all your feedback!

@kevinSmith @astv99 @jefejeff

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