Crafting Bullet Points Crafting Resume Bullets The primary purpose of your resume is to demonstrate to a recruiter that you possess specific skills. Recruiters spend only a few seconds glancing over your resume so you have to rely on keywords to tell the story. Steps to take First, you should identify a skill that you brought to bear during your education or job. Then, for each bullet point that you want to create to highlight that skill, you should Determine a compelling way to express what you want to demonstrate using powerful verbs Carefully choose the appropriate technical keywords that apply to the skill to get your resume noticed by keyword searches Mention the programming concepts that you use to demonstrate the skill Use plain English, describe the benefits or impact that your solution created Ideas about what to highlight Compile a list of the skills you want to demonstrate, then craft your bullets around them. The following Software related skills Anything you coded, even if it was brief or unfinished or unofficial Quantitative analysis / handling data Improvements to a website Recognition Published something Gave a talk Won an award Given a new responsibility or job title Interpersonal skills Were part of a team Handled heavy volume of customer... Mentored someone Made clients happy Made coworkers happy Attracted customers Negotiated something Output Made something faster or better Reduced number of errors Took initiative to do something Delivered project on time Money Made or saved money Handled lots of money (or widgets worth a lot of money) Delivered project within budget Questions to help you start When answering these questions, the key is to point out features you built that went above and beyond the basic requirements. Some of these questions are about features that you'll use in future lessons. Keep them in mind as you continue through the class so that you can note to yourself the novel things that you did. Did you find some clever way to DRY up your code? (DRY stands for "don't repeat yourself" which means refactoring your code for maintainability) Did you bootstrap some data to avoid extraneous AJAX requests? Did you make some tough choices in your database schema? Did you use cookies or local storage to store anything other than a session token? Does your Javascript use any math to resize something in the DOM? Did you use a library in a way that its author probably didn't anticipate? Do you have any data that's nested one degree deeper than usual? Do your ORM models run any custom SQL queries? Did you make any trade-offs related to performance, eg. store information that's costly to compute? Are you doing any caching? Do you make AJAX requests to any unexpected routes? Example 1 (Non technical) Skill to Demonstrate: Leadership What did I do?: Founded company softball team How does it demonstrate the key skill?: Took initiative. Organized long-term project. What was the impact or benefit?: Improved team morale and collaboration. Result: "Founded and managed company softball team, resulting in improved morale and communication." Example 2 (Technical) When writing try not to discuss a feature, but try to let the reader know about the feature and what YOU did to make it happen! Skill to Demonstrate: Scaling an application What did I do?: Stored images in the cloud How does it demonstrate the key skill?: Shows I know how to use AWS S3 What was the impact or benefit?: Reduces server load and allows for scale Result: "Stores image uploads in the cloud using AWS S3, reducing server load and allowing app to scale gracefully." Example 3 (Technical) Skill to Demonstrate: Use of a third-party API What did I do?: Determine user locations and filter searches How does it demonstrate the key skill?: Shows I know how to use the Google Maps API What was the impact or benefit?: Allows users to search for each other based on location Result: "Integrates Google Maps API with geolocation based searching to display location of other users on a map." Example bullet points: Integrated the Open Street Maps API with custom search functionality to dynamically present business locations based on user parameters. Utilized Redux architecture's unidirectional data flow with React for predictable state and reliable DOM rendering Used observer pattern to handle management of global Z-indexes for overlapping items. Lowered latency of DB read/write by factor of 7 by using Unicorn to enable virtual multi-threaded processing. Designed dynamic data-visualizations with Javascript implemented algorithms based on user input Created custom modal framework using React component architecture allowing for efficient development of new forms. Created top-level music player using HTML5 audio and React, giving the user seamless audio streaming during navigation. Leveraged custom event listeners and the Redux cycle to dynamically sync audio waveforms and play-pause toggle buttons with music player. Utilized CSS media queries to create a fully responsive, device agnostic design. Configured the Node backend with PostgreSQL, using the Sequelize ORM for validations and database queries. Incorporated MVC architecture with Polymorphic model associations, reducing the number of required tables by almost 50%. Implemented local strategy for user authentication with Passport.js, using BCrypt for password hashing. Generated intelligent, movement-based animation using asynchronous Javascript. Developed collision detection algorithm for sprite characters, and integrated with keystroke event listeners to predict future player direction and movement. Utilized HTML Image Maps to allow users to click directly on an item in a photograph. Recorded user activity using React Router to create a seamless user experience during authentication process and app navigation. Processed and displayed real-time BTC price data in the Sentiment Analysis by simultaneously leveraging Twitter Streaming API and CoinBase Digital Currency API Developed a custom responsive calendar using CSS3 to display logged infusions.