hi youtube friend thanks for tuning in
to episode 2 of Road to Tech
my name is Meziah, i'm a software engineer
and i make videos about my career in tech,
personal development, and everything in between
today, let's talk about what you can put on
your resume when you have no job
experience
first let's talk about why resumes are
super important
the hiring process can be very resource
intensive for a company
between posting online and paying
for those advertisements, to hiring
recruiters and coordinators,
and even asking their employees to stop
their usual work and
interview their potential teammates,
it can add up pretty fast
for the typical US employer,
it takes about four thousand dollars and
24 days just to make a single hire
it's therefore in the company's best
interest to not only make a good hire
but be choosy about who they interview with
DISCLAMIER: this video isn't meant to be a holistic resume writing workshop
i'm not an expert and there's just too
many things to cover so instead i'll
link a few resources down below that i
like and have personally used
for this video i really want to focus on
this problem that many college students
experience which is
applying for internships but not being
able to write a good resume because you
feel like you have nothing to write about
i've definitely been here before and
these are the four things that i wrote
in my resume that helped me nail my
first internship
Number one: Homework
I know it feels weird to write homework
on your resume but i actually created a
project section on my resume where i
listed
notable homework that i feel like would
be great indicators
of me being able to use C++ and Java.
for example: for my operating systems class
a partner and i had to create an
operating system, over the course of a
quarter, using C++
For a different class, a different
partner and i made Connect 4 solvers
gender facial recognition systems and
even Mount Vesuvius escape route [finders]
using Java. so these are really good
indicators that i know how to program
with C++ and Java,
and those are really good experiences to
highlight on a resume
especially if you're a student because
they know that
pretty much the only thing you have time
for as a computer science student
is homework.
you may be a broke college student
but you sure as heck ain't
a no homework computer science student
Number 2: Side Projects
Side projects can include anything from
short day builds from a hackathon or a
long-time passion project that you have
on the side
i really just want to emphasize that
just because you're not paid for it
does not cancel the fact that you have
experience in building with that thing
the really great thing about computer
science and software engineering
is that most if not all languages and
frameworks are free to use and download
for folks
as long as you have a computer and wi-fi you're more than able to
create stackblitz projects or codepen.io
projects that showcase your skill
without needing to wait for a company to
tell you what to do
i've personally included hackathon
projects in my resume
even if i didn't win because i felt like
it showed
my product centric kind of mind and also
emphasized that i like to code and i
like to build things
with Java and JavaScript
Number 3: Transferrable Skills
you might not have had a job before
but chances are you've joined an
organization and have become an
officer or an active community member
be sure to add that involvement
i personally created a leadership
section where i was able to talk about
my involvement
in a community service fraternity and a
human-centered design based organization
and my other volunteering activities and
this all
highlighted my ability to communicate
with others
to prioritize deadlines and to
just be a punctual person. all of these
are really key in working in a
professional environment,
especially if you're a software engineer
i feel like often we
get the stereotype that software
engineers are not good team players
and that they work in silos in a dungeon
but the exact opposite
is what happens in industry. you're often
building off of the same code base with
lots of other people and being able to
communicate your thought process with
them is a key
thing to have especially when you're
young and you're learning
being able to show your senior engineers
that you have thought through the
problem
will help you help them understand where
you're coming from
and steer you towards the better coding practice.
Number 4: List key classes and programming
languages you're familiar with
in my resume i added a section called
relevant coursework
where i listed classes that i felt
showcased
my knowledge of computer science
fundamentals. some of those classes were
Object-Oriented Programming in C++
Data Structures and Algorithms,
Intro to Machine Learning, etc.
Listing key classes and
programming languages on your resume
not only helps the recruiter
understand where you are in your cs
college journey
it also helps you be able to hit some
keywords
on an ATS and maybe help you rank higher
as a better match for a job posting
it's honestly a great way to buff up
your resume because you don't have to
think too much about it and you can just
leave it as bullet points
but it's really important for you to not lie
in this section (or any other section)
so don't lie about your
proficiency level in a programming
language
just be honest.
i like to list my programming languages based on my
proficiency level with it
from beginner to familiar to expert
feel free to use whatever strategy works
the best for you as long as you list them
and if you are listing them, make sure
you include it somewhere in the top of
your resume so that's easy for folks to see
to end this episode, i just want to tell
you that
i understand how tough it is to be in a
situation where you feel like
you're not going to be able to get a job
because you don't have the right resume
and you're never going to have the right
resume because you just can't get that
first job
i know that it sucks but it's really
important for you to understand
that especially as an incoming intern
your main job
in your resume and your interviews
is to show the employer that you are
capable and worth investing into
you've already done a lot of the hard work of
being a student and completing those homework
so be sure to add that in your resume
showcase the kind of engineer that you
can be
or the kind of person that you want to
be in that company and
trust that it will work out.
thanks again for tuning in.
i'll see you next time. bye!
