Do Not Use A Fancy Template Resume 🚫

A lot of job seekers tend to overthink their resumes when they begin looking for a job search.

I don’t blame them. Posts about how to redo your resume tend to get the most amount of engagement both on X and LinkedIn.

But a lot of content out there contradicts itself.

Here’s what I can tell you. In tech, hiring managers do not want to see “fancy” resumes.

When I say fancy, I mean:

• Tables, graphs, charts, pictures, etc

• Canva style formatting. Although I love Canva, most of their resume templates are not good for tech

• Focus on visuals instead of content

• Self-rated sections

Let’s use this Canva example below for a software engineer.

• First, I highly doubt this resume will parse into most ATS correctly. So there’s strike one

• He’s trying to fit everything into one page as a senior SWE. You’re allowed to go over 1 page, especially when you have over 10 years

• Because of this, he splits the skills section onto the left side. You can’t tell what tech stack he’s using for what job

• His bullet points are extremely vague. What is setting him apart from anyone else?

• You can’t tell what his direct impact was. What tech did he use, what did he build with it, and what was the impact to the org?

• Final verdict: hard pass

Example of a good resume by your’s truly:

• It’s boring, but it works. This is the exact formatting I’ve used to place almost 700 techies.

• Easy to read. The viewer can easily start from the top and read through the bottom easily, instead of looking left, right, up, down to find pertinent information

• Remember, hiring managers aren’t spending more than 10-30 seconds on your resume (at most). So they need to be able to easily scan through your experience

• The boring format emphasizes readability, so you get right into the content/meat of the resume

• Can easily tell what you did, how you did it, what you built, and the impact made

• Tech is clearly listed under each job so you know what tools they used and where

So there you have it folks, use a boring template. Here’s a free download that shows you step by step how to do it.

If you’re looking for some extra help, you can ask me here.