- Hey there, I'm DJ, and I'm a senior recruiter with Amazon.
I'm here today to really help you think about your resume,
give you some tips, and give you some good advice
on what might get your resume noticed here at Amazon,
but also, what might get your resume noticed
anywhere else you might want to apply.
(upbeat music)
(DJ laughing)
- [Crew] It's so good.
- So here at Amazon,
we get thousands of resumes on a monthly basis.
A question I always get is,
"How long should my resume be?"
My advice, no more than two pages.
More than two pages, it just gets a little wordy.
Now, if you're a tenured individual
and you've got a lot of experience,
feel free to do a little more than two pages,
but also keep in mind more than two pages
may be something that turns your reader off.
Pictures on your resume? I don't think so.
When it comes to resume layout, my recommendation,
keep your resume simple.
You may deal with an applicant tracking system.
That's the place that your resume goes
when you do apply to a job.
You may be dealing with a system
that doesn't actually read
all of these different formats that are being created.
My best piece of advice: keep it as a Word doc or as a PDF,
but don't add too many pictures.
Don't add too many colors.
I really recommend bullets.
I recommend about 11 or 12 point font.
I'm really looking for Calibri, Times New Roman,
something that's really easy to read.
I don't need Papyrus.
Your resume should really reflect
all of those amazing things
that you've been able to accomplish.
Most people, they just put their day-to-day work.
I really want to see
what kind of processes have you created?
How many efficiencies have you created in your role?
What kind of money have you saved for yourself,
your team, or your company?
When it comes down to it,
we're not really great self-marketers.
That might be why writing your resume is really difficult.
So move that aside for just a moment.
Think about the things
that you would really want to say to somebody,
but do it in a way that's more of a humble brag.
What I'd tell you is the best way to stand out
is to really just be your authentic self,
put you into your resume.
One thing that I would tell you
is really make sure you get a lot of eyes on your resume
before you actually submit it to a job.
A surefire way to make me stop reading your resume
and move on to the next one
is if you have misspelled words.
Use spell check, have your friends review it,
have your family review it.
If you know a recruiter, ask them to review it.
Now, you could actually go and find and hire
a resume writer for you.
That's an option.
Just be sure it's somebody that has good experience,
somebody that you've maybe checked their references.
You can also sign up for classes potentially.
There's also YouTube videos that you can watch.
One other thing I'd tell you is to lose the skills section.
You lose a lot of resume real estate
by creating those columns of skills at the top,
when what you could really do
is just incorporate those skills
into the body of each of your jobs.
A summary, sometimes if it's done really well,
it can be extremely impactful.
What I'd recommend is keeping it short, sweet, and concise.
That way, your reader can read it
and actually see what they want to see.
But then they're drawn into the rest of your experience
so that they can learn more about you.
Another thing, add lots of links.
Your LinkedIn page,
a link to the company that you worked for
or you do work for.
That's extremely helpful for those readers.
They want to be able to access information
extremely easily and quickly
to make a determination on whether or not
you might be a great candidate for the job.
Another tip I'd give you,
put a couple of sentences underneath each of your jobs
about what the company is.
What do they do? Where are they located?
What kind of presence do they have in their market
or in their industry?
That's really helpful information
for your resume reader to know.
One thing you may want to think about is your LinkedIn page.
You've got so much more room there
to actually put tons of great information and content.
Oh yeah, recruiters look at LinkedIn profiles all the time.
That's very important.
Another great tip, make sure you link your LinkedIn profile
to your actual resume.
It's going to be nice to put it up
right there at the very top.
That way, someone can click on it
and go to your LinkedIn page very quickly.
But at the same time, I wouldn't necessarily link
all of your social media profiles to your resume.
To me, it's not really necessarily
something that's relevant,
so I'd make sure that you just want to put the content
and information there that is really important
for the job that you're actually applying to.
Actionable words can be important.
Build, create, develop.
Those are things that definitely get someone's attention.
However, be sure you back that up
with something that you actually built,
with something that you actually created or developed.
Along with that, make sure you put the data in there.
Percentages, numbers of dollars earned,
money saved, efficiencies created.
All kinds of things like that are gold
when it comes to a resume.
There's some questions that I get as well
around things like,
"What kind of information is super relevant at this point
that I need to be sharing?"
Some things that I would tell you is,
if you've been in your career for 20 years,
nobody needs to know about your internship.
Likewise, I don't need to know your dog's name.
- [Crew] I have my dog's name on my resume.
- You do not.
- [Crew] Yes, I do!
- Do you? - [Crew] Yeah! (laughs)
- Always include date ranges on your positions.
It really helps create a nice timeline of your experience
so that your reader can understand more
about what job you were in, when,
and what that job was about.
What if you took a year off?
What if you have some gaps in your resume?
Those are important questions as well.
What I'd say is,
don't be afraid to actually highlight that too.
You want to show
exactly what you've been doing in that time off.
If you took time off to be a mom, say that.
If you took time off to go travel the world, say that too.
Say something that you learned.
Talk about some of the experiences that you had
and how those changed and shaped you as an individual
and an applicant for this job.
One other thing I'd say is that outside interests,
swimming, hiking, biking, whatever it may be,
I think that's actually pretty cool.
I like getting to know you as an applicant
and what you are going to bring to the table
in a lot of different ways.
What do you save your resume as?
Like, what do you actually name it on your computer?
Is that goning to be weird
when it shows up in the applicant tracking system?
You definitely want to think about that.
Princess Mara is not going to work out.
(crew laughing)
I don't know where Mara came from.
It literally...
I don't know. - [Crew] Very funny.
- My suggestion would be YourName_Resume and the year.
Now, cover letters. How many of you like them?
(buzzer rings) Not me.
One other thing that I'd recommend doing is to network,
create opportunities for yourself.
Reach out to that hiring manager,
reach out to that recruiter on LinkedIn.
Not off of YouTube. Hi. (laughs)
Now, there's appropriate ways
to reach out to the hiring manager or a recruiter,
and there's also some inappropriate ways to do it.
Do your homework, do your research.
Make sure that individual is someone
you really want to touch base with.
You've got one shot at getting it right.
As far as references go, I'd leave them off your resume.
Provide them when they're asked for.
You may just be getting started in your career.
You just graduated from college.
You don't have a ton of experience.
What do you put on your resume?
Because you don't have tons
of work experience at this point,
think about putting your educational experience
at the very top of your resume.
Don't be afraid to put your internships.
Show all the things that you've done
during the summers that you've been in school,
information about the retail store you worked in,
the coffee shop you had an opportunity
to work in over the summer, or summer camp.
It really goes to show that you're taking initiative
while you're in school to get some experience
and to actually get into the workforce.
Your GPA on your resume, eh, give or take.
It could be really important for a hiring manager.
It might not be as important for a recruiter.
I'll leave that up to you.
You do want to tailor your resume for the job that you want.
When I say that, what I mean
is not a specific job necessarily at one company
that you're looking to apply for like Amazon,
but make sure that you are actually creating your resume
where it's broadly usable
for lots of different opportunities.
These tips are not just applicable for Amazon.
There's a lot of great information here
that you can take to lots of other opportunities
and lots of other companies.
Thank you so much for watching.
Here's a link to all of our open jobs.
I look forward to reading your resume hopefully very soon.
You got this.
(upbeat music)