How to Pass Resume Screening for Software Engineering

THIS is the most popular resume in the software engineering industry that many engineers have used to pass resume screening from Google, Apple, Meta, and many other tech companies. We’re going to be going over what companies look for in each section, and how to create a resume that gets past resume screening software, to a recruiter who will be stunned by how talented you are. And at the end of this video, I’ll give you one strategy that can almost guarantee your resume gets through the screening process.

Let’s get started. Have you ever submitted your resume for a job, and gotten a rejection just days, or even hours later? If this has happened to you, I’m sorry to say that your resume was just one of the many victims that ATS’s have claimed.

But wait. What’s an ATS you ask? If you don’t know what that is, an ATS, or, applicant tracking system, is a software application that helps large companies handle the huge volume of job applicants they receive.

Unfortunately, these computer systems sometimes do too good of a job, and cut out many talented applicants just because their resume isn’t made for a computer program. In fact, over 75% of resumes never get seen by human eyes, due to the ATS rejecting them. This means that even if you are the best fit for the job, you might not even get a chance.

That’s the bad news. The good news is, we can design a resume that beats these systems, and makes THIS (show on screen) is the resume template we’re going to be following. Tons of people in the software engineering industry have used this exact template, which is called “Jake’s Resume”, namely because it was created by a guy named Jake.

Creative, right? . Anyways like I said earlier, people have used this resume to get hired at companies like Google, Netflix, Amazon, and others, so there’s proof it works, as long as you have the right qualifications.

But you might be thinking, “it’s just a plain resume, why do so many software engineers use this? ” Well, there’s a few reasons, but the main one is that it’s optimal for passing the ATS screen. This resume isn’t designed in Microsoft Word, or Google Docs, or anything like that.

Instead, it’s built on a platform called Overleaf, which makes it easy to use a software system called LaTeX. The benefit of using LaTeX is that the resume is built using custom code that is optimized for being scanned by applicant tracking systems, which is not the same for plain text editors. Now, you may be sitting there thinking, “ok great, it passes ATS, but when the recruiter reads it, won’t they think it’s super plain and simple?

” And you’re 100% correct! But think from the perspective of a recruiter. After getting through the ATS, there are still hundreds if not thousands of resumes for them to review.

They want to pick up each resume, quickly scan it and find the qualifications, and make a decision. The more plain and simple the layout is, the easier this is for them. Now, let’s get onto the resume.

This resume has four sections, which are education, experience, projects, and technical skills. We’ll get into what you should write in each one, but just before we do, I recommend you pause the video here and make your own copy of the resume using the link in the description. That way you can build your own resume as we’re explaining what to put in each section.

Let’s get started with the education section. This is probably the easiest section to fill out, as the truth is it matters the least of the 4 sections. If you don’t have a college degree, you’ll put your most recently completed education.

If you do have a college degree, or are working towards one, you’ll put in the name of your university and the major you studied. After that, you shouldn’t add too much else. The only other things you might add are GPA and scholarships.

It’s simple; add your GPA if it’s impressive and makes you a stand out candidate, keep your GPA off if it won’t help make your case. Same thing with scholarships. The truth is, nowadays most tech companies weigh experience significantly more than formal education.

Decades ago, when university degrees were far less common, they were a way to stand out, but today there are just so many people with university degrees that it’s not a huge way to differentiate anymore. Don’t get me wrong, if you have a degree, it definitely helps a ton. But if you don’t, don’t stress.

There are still people hired by large tech companies that don’t have a completed college degree, so just make sure the rest of your resume is outstanding. If you’re not a 1st or 2nd year student, you can skip this part and head right to the experience section by clicking the timestamp in the description, or by going to the next YouTube chapter. Before moving on to the experience section, I have to wrap up the education section by giving a bit of a heads up for students looking for internships.

If you’re a 1st or 2nd year student looking for internships, you’re going to notice a lot of rejections. For internships specifically, companies really prioritize hiring 3rd year and above students because they want them to return after they graduate the following year. I know students who got rejected by 50/50 companies when applying for summer year 2 internships, who then got 10-20 interviews the following year, with little to no changes to their resume.

Definitely following this video and creating a great resume will improve your chances, but if you’re in either your first or second year, it’s going to be a struggle. My personal advice is to focus less on applying for jobs, and really focus on making connections, building projects, and honing your skills, especially practicing LeetCode. I know it sucks to hear if you’re looking forward to getting an internship, but I really wish someone had told me this.

Trust me, you’ll be really glad you spent those extra few months sharpening your skills. I had to learn all about data structures and algorithms a few months before interviews, and it was one of the busiest summers I’ve ever had. Start now, and you’ll have offers coming left, right, and center when you hit third year.

We’re now looking at experience, which is definitely the most important section. For starters, if you have work or internship experience, include it. While every ATS works differently, the words “software engineer”, “developer”, and other similar words are usually things that the program looks for.

Legitimately, having the words “Software Engineer” under this section pretty much guarantees you’ll pass ATS screening, and a recruiter will read your resume. While the other resume sections like education and projects show that you have initiative and a strong work-ethic, experience directly shows employers that you’re qualified for the job, which is why it’s the most important. Even if you don’t have any formal software engineering experience, include other work.

If you originally worked in a different role like accounting, or you have a part-time job like being a barista, include it. It still shows work-ethic among many other skills, all of which are valuable to employers. Where most people go wrong is what they write under each experience.

Under each experience, you should aim to have 2-4 bullet points, and they should be results-driven. This means, for each bullet point, start with what you accomplished, and then explain how you accomplished it. Try to make it as quantitative as possible.

For example, let’s say you worked on a user messaging platform, and one of the things you did was to allow messages to send faster between users. Here are two ways of phrasing that experience: Here’s option 1: And now here’s option 2: As I’m hoping you can see, the second bullet point is much better. Companies are looking for people that will help them achieve success, so showing off your successes in a measurable way is something that is incredibly appealing to them.

Just before ending this section, I’m gonna address a pretty common question with a hot take here. People sometimes ask, “should I do unpaid work as a software engineer intern to get experience? ” I know a lot of people say no, and while I do sometimes agree, I wouldn’t be so quick to write it off completely.

If you’re an unexperienced person trying to get a job, it might be worth doing unpaid, part-time work for a start-up to get some professional experience. After a few months, if you felt you’ve learned a lot, then you can apply for full-time paid roles, except now you’ll have “software engineer intern” on your resume, along with plenty of talking points of experience. So while you might be giving up a few months of pay, it could be worth it in the long-run.

Just my two cents on this. So, to summarize this section: experience trumps all. Work as a software engineer or anything similar is the best thing for your resume.

If you don’t have experience as a software engineer, any other technical experience is a close second, especially if it’s related to technology, math, or statistics. Even if you don’t have any experience related to technology or software, still list it – any experience at all makes a huge difference! But if you don’t have experience, don’t worry.

Everyone starts somewhere. But without experience, you’re going to really have to shine in the next section we’re about to talk about, which is projects. If you have professional experience as a software engineer or developer, I’ll be completely honest; this section really doesn’t matter a lot.

But like we just covered, if you don’t have experience as a software engineer or developer, this section is the most important. If you haven’t actually worked as a software engineer, what’s the next best way to show companies you’re qualified? Have projects that show off your skills!

Many of you already know projects matter though, so let’s get down to the really important question: What makes a good project? Well, let’s start off with what NOT to do, and I see this a lot. Definitely DON’T watch a project tutorial online and just copy the code, or make slight changes to the code.

I guarantee companies get hundreds of applications with the same 4-5 projects on them just because they were all copied online. Don’t do this. As a software engineer, you’re going to have to build things that don’t have tutorials online, so don’t build bad habits now.

Just to clarify, that doesn’t mean when you’re starting out that you shouldn’t watch tutorials to build projects. I just mean you shouldn’t have any tutorial projects on your resume; if you’re not at the stage where you can build your own projects, even little ones, you probably aren’t ready to apply for software engineering roles. Now, back to the “what makes a good project?

” question. A good project has two key components: It’s something you’re passionate about, and it has created value. You need to be passionate about your project, because you’re going to put a lot of hours into it, and you’re going to get asked questions about it.

A lot. Without any professional software engineering experience, this is the only real coding experience you can show off, so interviewers will really drill you on it. Now you might be wondering what I meant by “created value”.

By this, I mean your project has brought in users, generated revenue, etc. It has done something that has had some success. While you can pass resume screening without this, I guarantee your pass rates will skyrocket if you have even a few users for your project.

Great. You’ve got your projects. Now, what do you write under each?

This is very similar to the experience section. You want a few bullet points that really focus on what your projects accomplished, and what technology you used to accomplish this. Something like this: Should instead be written like this: Making this change on my resume under the projects section made such a huge difference, and I noticed it immediately the next recruiting season when I started getting way more callbacks.

Ultimately, once you get your first professional software engineering experience, your projects won’t matter a whole lot, and you can start to remove them from your resume in exchange for more detailed work experience. I’ll be honest. When I made my first resume, I thought this was the most important section.

Truth is, it’s basically just a keyword filter. Resume scanners will look through skills and see if you have the required skills. For software engineering positions specifically, which is what this video is about, here’s the format I recommend.

Don’t include interpersonal skills like leadership, communication, problem solving, etc. Every single student will say they have these skills, so recruiters don’t even look for this. Instead, I’d choose these three sections: Languages, Developer Tools, and Concepts.

Languages should include all the languages YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE CODING IN. This is an important point. Don’t include a language you’ve only written 50 lines of code in.

Any language on your resume is fair game to be questioned on, so don’t over exaggerate your abilities. Developer Tools should include all of the technologies and software you’ve used as a developer. By default, you should have Git on there.

The rest should be tailored to the specific job you’re applying for. Lastly, concepts. This is something I actually don’t commonly see on resumes, but everyone I’ve told to add it to has had success.

As long as you’re actually comfortable with them, include things like Object-Oriented Programming, and Data Structures and Algorithms. Tons of resume scanners look for these keywords, and having them on your resume can help. There we go.

That’s a general outline of how you want to build your resume. Before this video ends though, I want to give you one more tip on what I think is the absolute BEST way to increase your odds of passing resume screening. While following these tips will maximize your chances at passing the resume screen, at the end of the day, if it’s an ATS, there’s always a chance it could reject you without a person ever seeing your resume.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could guarantee someone would read your resume? That’s where referrals come in, and that’s our golden strategy here. If a current employee of a company that you’re applying to refers you, there’s a good chance that your resume gets put directly in the pile of resumes that an actual human will read.

This makes it immensely easier to get through the screening process, and on to the technical interview. As for how to get referrals, I’ll be mostly saving that for a future video. The one piece of advice I’ll leave you with on this topic is to utilize your network.

If you have friends, family, or school alumni in companies you’re applying to, reach out and ask if they’d be willing to refer you. People are usually really generous, although it helps that their refer-ee gets hired they often get paid a little bit. So yeah, definitely try and ask for referrals from people you’re comfortable with.

Like I said, we’ll cover other methods of getting referrals in a separate video. Thanks so much for watching! Please like, subscribe, and share this video with friends if you enjoyed it.

I have tons of content coming up for you guys that I can’t wait to share. ALSO, we just started a Discord server yesterday and we’re looking to build an awesome community of coders and software engineers. Whether you’re a student looking to ask questions, or a current software engineer just looking to chat and meet friends, this is the place to be.

It’s also where I’ll be interacting with subscribers and taking video suggestions, and hosting contests and giveaways in the future. Link to join will be in the description. See you all in the next video!