Resume tips that got me my job at Google

The tech job hunt, especially for entry-level roles, is an experience. I call it my “resume iteration era” because I spent countless hours tweaking, rewriting, and sending my resume into the void, hoping for a sign of life.

The good news? The process works. After many, many versions, I landed on a resume that finally started getting results: interviews with Google and Amazon, an Online Assessment (OA) from Meta, and significant traction with small and mid-sized companies.

The exact resume that opened these doors for me can be found here: Sarthak Dalal’s Resume.

The purpose of this blog is to share the tips that worked for me, specifically for new engineers looking for their first or second job. I need to be clear: these aren’t cheat codes. Resume building is a personal skill, and iteration is key. I received plenty of conflicting advice from different people and ultimately had to choose what felt right.

This blog is my collection of what survived those iterations. Take what works for you, and leave what doesn’t.

“Put yourself in the recruiter’s shoes” - The Golden Rule

Before you change a single word, internalize this: a recruiter spends, on average, 6-9 seconds on their first pass of your resume.

Your first goal is not to get the job. Your first goal is to not get discarded in those 9 seconds.

Recruiters review hundreds of resumes for a single position. They aren’t looking for the “perfect” candidate. They’re looking for someone who is “good enough” to pass to the next stage. It’s a game of pattern-matching, and it’s incredibly fast.

Everything we discuss from here on is based on this one golden rule: Make the recruiter’s job easier.

Why one pager?

Reflect on the golden rule. You’re a recruiter hiring for an entry-level role (less than 2 years of experience). You have a stack of 200 resumes on your screen. You open one, and it’s two full pages. What do you do?

You close it. Immediately.

You know there are plenty of other qualified, one-page resumes in that stack that will be easier to review. For a cold online application, a two-page resume for an entry-level role signals you don’t understand the rules of the game.

Does this mean two-pagers are useless? Absolutely not! They are incredibly valuable—in the right context. Keep a detailed two-pager handy for when you’re networking. When you’re speaking to someone 1-on-1, they are already invested in you. Sending them a more detailed document at that stage is smart. But for the initial application portal? Stick to one page.

Keep a separate resume for each role

My job search was a great example of this. I was initially applying to Machine Learning and Data Science roles, and later transitioned to focusing on Software Development Engineer (SDE) roles.

For a long time, I used a “hybrid” resume with my ML projects and SDE skills all mixed together. The result? Radio silence. Only rejections.

Think about the golden rule. A recruiter hiring for an SDE role sees a project titled “Sign Language Recognition.” It’s a cool project, but it’s not relevant to building a scalable web service. They’ve already mentally moved on. Those projects were taking up valuable space on my one-page resume.

Create a dedicated resume for each type of role you apply for (e.g., SDE, Data Science, ML). My SDE resume heavily features my SDE internship and SDE-focused projects like “MovieShop” and “BidBazaar.”

Should you tailor your resume for each role?

This builds on the last point. If a separate resume for each type of role is good, is tailoring for every single job better?

Yes, it will always be more beneficial. But you have to decide if the time investment is worth the return. In a brutal job market, you often need to apply to a high volume of jobs. Spending 30 minutes tailoring your resume for every single application isn’t feasible.

I used a mixed approach:

• Volume Applications: I had my one-page, standardized “SDE Resume” that I sent to most jobs.
• High-Target Applications: If I found a job I really wanted, or if my skills were a near-perfect match for the description, I would absolutely spend the 20-30 minutes required to tailor it. This meant re-ordering bullet points, and swapping out a project or skill to better match the keywords in their job description.

Resume format

Here is the simple, top-to-bottom format that worked for me:

1. Header: Name, contact info, and links. Critically, include your LinkedIn, GitHub, and Personal Website.
2. Education: As an entry-level engineer, your education is your most significant credential. Put it first. I included my Master’s and Undergrad, along with my GPA. (Definitely include it if it’s 3.6+). Pro Tip: I added my Teaching Assistant role as a one-liner here. This highlights responsibility without taking up precious space in the Experience section.
3. Skills: Put this right below education. Why? The Golden Rule. The recruiter can immediately scan this section in the top half of the page and check off the skills they’re looking for (e.g., “Python,” “C#,” “AWS”).
4. Work Experience: Keep this to one, or at most, two experiences. You want to make the recruiter’s life easy. If you must use two, make one significantly larger (4-5 bullet points) and the other concise (1-2 points) to guide their eye. Most importantly, show impact with numbers. Don’t just say what you did; say what it resulted in (e.g., “leading to a 35% increase in actionable insights,” “improving lead conversion rates by 40%,” “reducing deployment time by 50%”).
5. Projects: Same logic. Stick to your best 1-2 projects that are relevant to the role.
6. Extras: If you still have space, you can add Publications, Certifications, or Leadership experience.

Word or Overleaf? What sort of template

Both are fine, but I’m a fan of Overleaf (LaTeX). The key is to choose a simple, clean, single-column, black-and-white template.

Avoid templates with multiple columns, fancy colors, or graphics. They may look cool, but they can confuse the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that parse your resume before a human ever sees it. A resume that is “trying too hard” is a turn-off.

The template I used is Jake’s Resume on Overleaf.

Highlighting keywords

Absolutely highlight keywords. Again, this serves the Golden Rule. On my resume, I bolded the tech stack for each project and my internship (e.g., “C#, .NET Core, MVC, Azure DevOps…”). When a recruiter is scanning for “C#,” their eye immediately catches it and connects it to a concrete project. This small detail makes their pattern-matching job effortless.

The Personal Website: Your Secret Weapon

You’re reading this blog on my personal website. Remember how I told you to ruthlessly cut your resume down to one page, with only 1-2 experiences and 1-2 projects? It’s painful. What about all your other work?

Your personal website is the answer. It’s the place where you can dump everything you’ve ever accomplished.

Here’s the trick:

1. Put the link to your website in your resume header.
2. Next to your “EXPERIENCE” and “PROJECTS” headings, add a simple hyperlink that says “FULL LIST”.

This satisfies both worlds. You pass the 6-second test with a clean, concise one-pager. Then, if the recruiter is interested, they have an easy, one-click way to see the full breadth of your work. They chose to invest more time in you, and now it doesn’t matter how many projects you show them.

This strategy—a lean one-page “advertisement” that links to a comprehensive “full catalog”—was, in my opinion, the most effective change I made.

Good luck.