3

How to create my resume with tricky-to-describe projects?

Profile picture
Entry-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed10 months ago

Hello, I'm doing a rewrite of my resume. I'm having trouble describing some parts I did for my job. Specifically, I was given a sink or swim I had described earlier which got me terminated. I had to develop a microservice and node API with unit tests without any guidance from senior developers. What is the best way to describe this experience in the best light?

260
2

Discussion

(2 comments)
  • 6
    Profile picture
    Tech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
    10 months ago

    The trick here is to focus on (1) the complexity of the work and (2) the strides you were able to make. Talk about the impact that the microservice architecture would have enabled, and share how it would have interacted with the broader system.

    Don't focus on the lack of support you received (certainly not in the resume). You don't want anything in the resume to read as victimization or blaming others. It should focus only on what you achieved.

    I highly recommend going through these:

  • 2
    Profile picture
    Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
    10 months ago

    From my understanding, you weren't able to complete the project, so focus on farming the keywords as the impact is 0. The good news is that you have a lot of solid keywords in there (Node.js, Microservice, Unit Tests) - Make sure that they're all in the resume as well (it will help with the ATS). For the unit tests, name drop the framework you used to write them as well. If you had high unit-test coverage (i.e. 70%+) on your module, you can throw that in to make things even crispier.

    As Rahul mentioned, don't throw anybody under the bus in your description. To clarify, here's the delta between what you have in your post vs. what I think would be optimal:

    • Bad: Built a Node.js API and microservice with high unit test coverage despite having 0 guidance from senior engineers
    • Good: Built a Node.js API and microservice from scratch with 70%+ unit test coverage to serve 100,000+ users

    The good part focuses entirely on you (i.e. replaces the "no senior support" part with "from scratch") and throws in some numbers to solidify the achievement.

    I recommend this other resume discussion as well (there's even more helpful resources linked there): "Entrepeneur for over 11 years getting back into corporate - How to optimize my resume?"

For those who were laid off, taking a career break, or any another reason why they're not working right now. It's good to be unemployed every once in a while!
Unemployed38 questions