Stage 2 of 7 · 8 lessons · ~3 weeks
Your resume
Build a one-page resume that survives a few seconds of scanning and an automated keyword filter. Results with numbers, projects with links, and a clean single-column layout.
Start: How resumes are screenedLessons· one lesson for each topic, in this order
- 1How resumes are screenedLesson
- 2One page, single column, PDFLesson
- 3Bullets that show results with numbersLesson
- 4Finding numbers when you think you have noneLesson
- 5Projects with stack, scale and linksLesson
- 6Education, grouped skills and gapsLesson
- 7Mirroring keywords and tailoringLesson
- 8Feedback and edit roundsLesson
Do this
- Start from a single-column template such as Jake's resume, keep it to one page even with years of experience, and export it as PDF.
- Rewrite every bullet as action verb, what you did and the result, for example "Cut p99 latency from 800ms to 200ms for 2M daily requests".
- Add 2 or 3 projects with the stack, the scale, your role and a live demo or GitHub link.
- Keep education short unless you are a new graduate, and group skills by type: languages, frameworks, tools.
- Remove objective statements, photos, skill bars, fancy templates and soft skills you cannot prove.
- For each application, mirror the job description's exact keywords wherever they are true for you.
- Ask 2 or 3 people for feedback on your resume, at least one engineer and one non-engineer, and do three rounds of edits.
- Finish with a spelling and grammar pass, and check that your GitHub and LinkedIn tell the same story.
Start with· follow one of these
- CoursePaidGrokking Prompt Engineering for Professional Portfolio and Job Search
Design Gurus · Beginner · Subscription
Using AI to tailor a resume to a posting without generic filler or invented claims
- GuideFreeTech Interview Handbook: Resume Guide
Yangshun Tay
Free guide to engineering resumes: what to cut, how to phrase results, how screening works
Practise
Also worth your time
Six common resume mistakes, each with a weak and a stronger version
Before moving on: A one-page PDF resume where every bullet starts with an action verb and at least half include a number, with feedback from 2 people applied, plus one copy tailored to a real posting.
A recruiter gives your resume a few seconds on the first pass, so the top third and the first words of every bullet do most of the work. Treat a Jobscan score as a hint about missing keywords, never the goal: a resume stuffed for a bot reads badly to the human who opens it next.