Go through these 3 stages to re-think your resume as a software engineer, so you create a remarkable piece that stands out and gets you that job

A high competition mixed with a boring CV is the perfect combination to be ignored in any job opportunity.

We were educated to create a CV as a mere formality. Without creativity (other than exaggerating or lying about your skills), your CV is not different from the other 100 candidates'. The result is predictable: The recruiter or hiring manager will never know how you could contribute to the company, so they won't call or hire you.

You must make your CV stand out and clearly deliver your message.

The first step for creating a great resume is to understand the resume's objective.

Many people think their CV is a document to talk about themselves, which is false. The CV is a document that shows the company that you can create value for them.

With that objective in mind, knowing what to include and how to do it gets easier.

Let's divide the CV creation process into 3 stages so you can do it on your own:

Stage 1 - Content. What to include?

The content is where we arguably focus the most (and it's great to do so).

We are used to reviewing our careers and putting every piece of information, tool we've used, and project we've participated in. No matter whether we have tons of experience or are just starting, we will always have a lot to say here. For that reason, most of us think that 2 pages (and let alone 1) isn't enough to add our experience and skills.

So, we end up with a lot of boring pages of irrelevant information.

One of the most common content-related problems is that we want to spit everything.

I see it as throwing the fishing line into the water to catch some fish. In this case, we collect many fishing lines and throw them all together, hoping we have more chances to catch a fish that is interested in any of our skills. This is one of those cases where volume doesn't mean results because even if we put something interesting for the recruiter, they won't read it at all.

In this case, I recommend being intentional in the content we choose to include, by following these 3 steps:

1. Assess your skills. Include technical skills, studies, experiences, character, interests, etc.
2. Assess the company's needs. Put yourself in the hiring manager's shoes. What's the position about, and what would be useful for them to know? What would they want to hear?
3. Match 1. and 2.

As a result, you will have a list of experience and skills that may be interesting for the company, increasing your chances of success.

Stage 2 - Format. How to express the content?

Format is the key to presenting the content in terms of value to the reader.

Keeping in mind that the objective of the CV is to show the target company how we can contribute to them, we should explain how our skills and experiences created value for our former companies and will do the same for them. For example, if we are fast developers, we could say that our speed improved the team's performance by 20%, which allowed our boss to increase the team's capacity. If we worked on a procurement project, we should say that we created KPIs to measure the performance of the sub-stages, creating space for attacking the process's bottlenecks.

It's fundamental to write our content as if we were explaining to a customer what we can do for them (and it's actually what we are doing).

Some guidelines for great formatting:

• Be brief. No one likes to read lots of information.
• Avoid internal names. Most people won't know about the "Project XYZ for the company ABC" you are listing. Instead, use the project's purpose and your functions.
• Focus on achievements and actions more than role names.

The format you choose will also help you to detail more or less any skills, depending on the company's needs.

Stage 3 - Layout. What does fit better?

We were taught to list our experiences chronologically, followed by our studies.

This standard format is well structured, meaning it's boring and won't make you stand out. You can still get away with it if you excel in the format and content, pinpointing the deepest needs of the company. However, it won't fill the recruiter's eyes.

By keeping the standard layout, you miss your chance to show something more about your creativity and unique way of facing challenges.

Another reason why I don't like that layout is because if you don't have enough experience, it's empty, but if you have too much, it's tedious.

I'd recommend a layout that better suits what you are trying to say. Highlight the skills that are more valuable for that position. Use it in your favor to show your attractive character.

Infographic CVs are my favorite. You can express information your way, and they're easy to "read."

Conclusion

Don't be afraid of being different.

We often try to be neutral because we think, "This is how it is." For some people, that's the best way to avoid delivering a wrong impression, but the downside is that we are not delivering any impression at all. However, our objective is not to be liked by many recruiters (we can only work in one company at a time), but to be loved by 1 of them.

Creating an outstanding resume is our first step.