I get almost any interview I want

Oracle
gregerion

Go to company page Oracle

gregerion
Jun 17, 2021 82 Comments

Some of this is going to be bragging, but it's because I want to offer up free resume help to anyone who is in a similar situation and needs a job. I feel like I cracked some sort of resume-code or something. PM me if you need help getting phone screens.

In the last few months, I've cold applied and gotten phone screens at Google, Facebook, Apple, Uber, Snap, Zoom, Instacart, CarGurus, Stripe, Squarespace, NBC Universal, Tesla, Dropbox, Peloton, Twitter, Vimeo, and other smaller companies. I have never used a referral. My cold-apply recruiter response rate is about 80%.

Recently accepted an offer for Frontend Software Engineer with TC 240k at one of the above companies. I have 2 years experience.

Disclaimer: These are all companies that I have cold applied and gotten a recruiter response from. 2 companies I didn't get past the recruiter, 2 companies I got offers, and the rest I failed somewhere in the middle or withdrew my application. So my advice here only really applies to getting through to a recruiter.

Here is my resume (with some names changed):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tyy6CtQYzn3mD4ktAvoJj0CK5QRiKZ8r/view?usp=sharing

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TOP 82 Comments
  • Facebook
    get zucked

    Go to company page Facebook

    get zucked
    Thanks for sharing your resume.
    Two questions:
    1. Why does your Blind account have the Oracle tag if you’ve never worked there?
    2. Why do you have a 1 year gap from October 2019 and how do you explain it to recruiters?
    Jun 18, 2021 13
  • Oracle
    gregerion

    Go to company page Oracle

    gregerion
    OP
    I'm posting my general advice here. PM me for my resume or personalized advice.

    1. Applying to a specific position. I'm lucky that I know 'back end of the front end' is what I like to do. And there are a lot of job postings asking for the same skills. But it's very specific. I won't apply to any front-end role. If the job post is emphasizing really strong CSS skills, I will not apply. Strong JS skills yes.
    2. Write as if recruiters are a general, non-technical audience. Do not describe your deep technical jargon. Confusing language is not impressive. If you're going to embellish, don't embellish on technical jargon. Which leads me to my next point.
    3. Google's advice on bullet points "accomplished X as measured by Y by doing Z" is the best advice for describing experience. "Improved news feed engagement by 2% by improving AI efficiency using Python" or whatever is a hell of a lot more powerful than the technical details of this. Save that stuff for later. Estimate impact numbers if necessary.
    4. Ditch your company-specific job titles. Stop with the “full stack cloud platforms & systems engineer” just say software engineer for god’s sake
    5. Use bullet points to answer common questions if you have a non-traditional background. I got tired of recruiters asking how I got into SWE from a physics major so I wrote it as a bullet point under my school
    Jun 18, 2021 3
    • Oracle
      gregerion

      Go to company page Oracle

      gregerion
      OP
      Great point on number 4. Absolutely do not do anything to misrepresent yourself. Do not make egregious changes to your job title. Use your conscience and common sense. We aren’t going for embellishment here, we are going for clarity for a general audience. Simplify, don’t embellish.

      But no, I have never had a problem with that. Companies themselves are often inconsistent with job titles. Could be “Frontend Engineer” on workday and “Software Engineer- Frontend Apps” on slack for example

      I could guess that background checks more likely become a problem if you represent yourself as a senior engineer when you’re junior. But not sure.
      Jun 18, 2021
    • Samsung
      dating

      Go to company page Samsung

      dating
      Good advice. I've followed some of this in the past and it helps!

      I like your resume format btw. Could I suggest a couple of cosmetic improvements - lesser text (some points could be reduced by a line) and a point summary at the beginning (eg App scaling). These improvements helped me!
      Jul 21, 2021
  • Amazon / Consultant
    dhkc79

    Go to company page Amazon Consultant

    dhkc79
    I'm not sure why this is a big thing.

    The list of companies where I have cold applied and had interviews scheduled:

    1. Google
    2. Facebook
    3. Uber
    4. Twitter
    5. LinkedIn
    6. Microsoft
    7. Stripe
    8. Amazon

    And more. This was before I was at Amazon.

    I became better at this by A/B testing my resume. There is no trick, you will have to put in the hard work.

    Yeah, I know Apple is not in this list. It's the only big company that has resisted my charms :(
    Jun 18, 2021 4
  • Oracle
    gregerion

    Go to company page Oracle

    gregerion
    OP
    Will absolutely PM my anonymous-ish resume to anyone who asks
    Jun 17, 2021 7
  • Amazon / Eng
    nonecares!

    Go to company page Amazon Eng

    nonecares!
    Can you please DM me your resume ?
    Jun 17, 2021 6