After viewing thousands of tech resumes, we list a few common mistakes that stand out.
Here we discuss the most common mistakes on tech resumes. Whether you’re writing a brand new resume or you’re revamping your most current, we cover the most common mistakes we’ve seen… and what do to instead.
Bloating your resume with technologies you don’t have experience with.
An overload of technical languages listed on a resume isn’t usually a good thing, and is probably one of the most common mistakes on tech resumes. This could come off to the reader as disorganized and actually have them question which skills the candidate actually has. Instead, focus on listing the technologies you do know very well; the list will be much shorter, and focused. This is much less confusing to the reader,who will get a much better idea of what skills you actually have. You won’t want to be caught like a deer in headlights during an interview being asked about a technology that’s listed on your resume that you don’t know much about it. If you are a beginner, add technologies you have used hands-on in some capacity, and include that you have beginner experience. Keep in mind to have this be a focused list.
Listing technologies with no further reference.
Adding a list of technologies is helpful, but not without specifics. If there is a section list of technologies with no further context, it makes it hard for the reader to connect the dots on what you’re most recent with. Instead, remember that tech recruiters and hiring managers want to know which technologies you used, where you used them, and what you did with them. Make sure you keep this in mind as you list your experience.
Claiming you are an expert.
This is commonly seen on resumes of more junior candidates. The interviewers will be excited to challenge your claim in a technical grilling. It’s important to point out that those who actually are experts usually never claim they are experts. Instead, be honest with yourself about your level of expertise. If you are an expert, you can claim it as long as you can pass a brutal technical grilling by another expert.
Adding a GitHub link that’s broken/ has no code/ has bad code.
A recruiter will pass your GitHub link along to developers if there is an initial interest in your resume; they’ll probably check this out before they reach out. Lack of attention to detail, self-awareness, or lack of caring could be perceived if one of the above are true on your attempt to share code. Instead, make sure the links you add to your resume are good, and if your intent is to showcase your code, make sure they have some good, clean code to look at. The quality in this case is much more important than quantity.
Keep these common mistakes on tech resumes in mind as you get ready to update your own resume.
Click here to learn how to make your tech resume stand out to recruiters and hiring managers.
