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CV and online profiles
One page, only relevant content
When I was at GetSocial, I interviewed over 180 candidates and looked through hundreds of CVs to find those few perfect candidates. I saw good CVs, I saw really bad CVs, and a few excellent ones that clearly showed candidate skills in an easily digestible way. Later, when we were looking for a new challenge with Yuliana, we've taken all that experience to distill how the perfect CV should look like.

In this chapter, we'll go over DOs and DON'Ts for the CV, share the structure we used for our CVs, and what else you have to do beyond writing a compelling CV.
The goal of a CV is to highlight the existing experience that will make you successful in the new role. Not to lie about what you can do.
Structure
Recruiters spend on average 5 seconds reviewing each candidate. If your CV or online profile doesn't show why you match the role - you're done. A clear structure that makes digesting your experience easy is absolutely necessary.

Below is the structure we've used for our CVs.

Contact details

Include only: name, surname, email, and phone number (yup, recruiters like to call on the phone). Optionally you can include your LinkedIn or personal website; just make sure the content on a website is aligned with your CV.

Pro tip: get a local phone number. Some companies rank local candidates higher as, usually, they have shorter notice periods. You can get a local number in most countries for a few bucks from Skype. It may (or may not) give you an extra edge on the initial stages of the interview.

Summary

One or two concise paragraphs that clearly show why you match the role. Put the most of your effort here, as a summary has a higher chance to be read by recruiters. Use facts, not opinions, not self-evaluations. Use keywords from the role description. And finally, more verbs, fewer adjectives.

Work experience

List only relevant work experience. There is no need to add everything you've ever done; it doesn't help to evaluate if you're a good match for the role. If you want to show that you're working in the industry for a long time, add to your summary a sentence "Ten years of experience in ...".

List relevant achievements in "action-result" format. It should be factual, ideally quantifiable. Do not add your responsibilities. The fact you were responsible for something doesn't say if you were good at it. Check the action-result section of STAR format for details.

There is a handy list of "powerful action verbs" to use in your resume.

Side projects

Optional. If you have any side projects that are relevant for the role - add them. Use the same action-result format as for work experience.

Side projects are a good area to add a "cherry-top" to your CV, making it memorable and distinguishable from other candidates.

Education

Optional. Add this section only if (1) role explicitly requires a specific degree of field of study or (2) you have recent relevant training. You need just one line to describe each of Edu's experiences to save space.

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How to write a CV
1. Build a list of qualities your CV has to highlight. Review the list of open positions in your interviewing pipeline, write down the qualities and experiences they require.

For Solution Engineering, the list would look like this:
  • engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset
  • identifying new features, products, and business opportunities
  • enable partner businesses to realize the full potential
  • write scalable production-grade code
  • experience communicating technical concepts to non-technical audiences
  • experience with contributing to the development community

2. Write down relevant work experience, education, and side projects in action-result format. Be concise and to the point. Make sure to have examples of as many qualities from step 1 as possible.

At this point, CV length may be a bit longer than one page. We'll cut it to one page in the customization phase.

3. Write down a generic version of the summary.

4. Have your CV proofread by a professional or, at least, a native-speaking friend. No jokes. Mistakes send a clear signal that you didn't put effort into the CV. There are a bunch of services that can proofread CV for 10-30$.

5. Customize your CV for the specific position you apply to. After proofreading, you should have a CV without mistakes that is ~1.5 pages long - that's your base version. Now you have to cut it to 1 page. Drop from generic version everything that is less relevant to the role you apply.

I also customized a summary for each role.
Congrats, your CV is ready! One last thing...
Align online profiles with the CV
After finishing your CV, make sure your online profiles reflect the same information. Start with LinkedIn, then clean up everything googlable about you, including social profiles if they are public.

When we were hiring at GetSocial, we always looked up a candidate online before sending an offer. It takes just 5 minutes but can greatly reduce the chance of hiring "toxic" co-workers.
Summary

1. One page long. Maybe 1.5 if you have more than 10y of relevant experience.

2. Include only relevant and only the most recent experience that shows you're competent for your ideal role. Nobody cares what you did 5 years ago if it's not relevant to the role you're applying for.

3. Show achievements in the action-result format, not your responsibilities. I could be responsible for launching rockets, but who cares if I didn't deliver.

4. Use numbers and facts, not opinions. Conclusions made by CV readers from factual information are much stronger than reading someone's opinions.

5. Don't add a photo, age, address, visa status - CV has to show only relevant experience, nothing else.

6. Consider dropping skills, education, hobbies unless they clearly show why you should get this job.
Action items

1. Create a generic version of your CV.

2. Proofread it.

3. Create customized CVs for each role.

4. Align your online profiles with your CV.
In the next chapter, we detail the application process and how to get the first replies from recruiters