Resume's and Narratives

Before you can event start thinking about jobs and interviewing. We need to work on some you content.

Create a Resume

Obviously this is one of the more important things. Considering that it is another section in this book. However nothing can really happen without having one.

Also theoretically there's a lot to say about resume's. But I'll try and cover the non cliche bits.

Here is the high level summary of sections.

  • Personal Information
    • Name
    • Email
    • Phone Number
    • Maybe linkedin or personal website
  • Profile / Objective (optional)
  • Education
  • Skills (optional)
  • Experience
  • Activities

Now . A lot of these sections are fairly self explanatory.

I'm linking a copy of my resume here.

Just looking at that you can get a brief summary of each section.

Now here's the non cliche stuff. How do you go about writing a resume?

First summarize everything you've done. Like ever. Bullet points, journal, whatever format you want. Then you have to make everything fit into one line bullet points. The key is to make each of these sound interesting while still being concise.

Now say this: I am the coolest person alive

The biggest problem I've seen in people's resume's is that I can tell the person who wrote it doesn't think their work is cool. Surprise, most things are cool to someone who doesn't know what you do!

You just have to find an exciting way to word it. If you don't feel comfortable with this off the bat, tell a friend about what you do. And ask them how you could word it. Other people won't take what you do for granted as easily as you do.

Some of you are too cool and use thesaurus. Don't do that, focus on the important points, keep things concise, because humans are reading resume's and can see through bullshit.

The format of most of the things you would list out on a resume is a bullet point format which constrains you a good amount. But always focus on highlighting these things:

  • Impact !

    Showing that you're valuable can be showing what results your work has had. Like reducing costs for a company by $10k, or helping acquire more customers.

  • Technical skills

    Rather than a boring list of your technical skills, which isn't always believable, make sure you mention these things with the activities and experiences you've had.

  • Action

    All of your resume should be about things you've done. Don't describe yourself. Show who you are via your actions and achievements. It's the common trope in narration as well, "show not tell". And don't ever say I am a leader, it's so much more effective to point out how and when you've lead people.

Crafting a Narrative

Now remember everything I said about being cool. Well stay that way cause there's more work for you. You're going to need two more mini speech esque items.

Remember, the most important part of securing careers is obviously being able to discuss who you are and be able to show others how you're valuable to them. For most people, myself included, this isn't entirely natural. This is something you're going to have to work at, because it's not just talking. It's about crafting a narrative around yourself.

The first is the 1 minute intro. You'll use this when pitching yourself at the beginning of the interview. And if anyone wants to ask who you are, this is an easy way to go about doing this. It doesn't have too much detail, just enough to tease.

Here's how mine goes.

Hi. My name is Krithik Rao. I'm a student at Purdue University studying Computer Science. Currently I'm pursuing a concentration in Machine Learning and will be graduating this December. This past semester I interned at Microsoft over the summer working on systems programming for the Windows Kernel team . I'm also president of the AI club at Purdue and have been helping lead that, presenting workshops, and actually got to deploy a production neural network for detecting defects in assembly lines. I'm currently looking for a role this summer as an intern working on machine learning and I'd love to hear about some of the opportunities available at company X.

As you can see, we break it down with the first sentence talking about my education, and then I give a brief overview of some of my latest relevant experiences and activites. Here's the deal, you may not have some of those things yet. There's plenty of other things to talk about. Obviously you can throw in your involvement in other things, or talk a little bit about your passion for your major so you can show that you're a candidate who's likely to excel at any role.

You're also going to need a 3-5 minute intro. This is for when you're actually talking to a recruiter at a career fair. In this one, sell yourself hard. This is about making an impact. The high level summary isn't enough. Say how you made an impact for people, talk about the skills you have, basically expand more into the parts of your life story you worked really hard at, and can passionately talk about.

Remember, the key is making this a story. You're just getting to meet someone. Show some character, show your passion, you're writing the story that defines who you are in the recruiters eyes.