This article is the reading notes of chapter2 of “cracking the PM interview”.

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This chapter is about resume.

This chapter can be read with next chapter.

本章讲了resume改如何写,写什么,并且专门说明了pm的resume该怎么写,还有每个东西可以在简历上停留多久(in “what to include”)。

The 15 Second Rule

• Rule #1: Shorter is Better

  You might have to be more concise, but that’s a good thing. This means that you’re sticking to the highlights.

• Rule #2: Bullets, Not Blobs

  Blobs of text—that is, bullets or paragraphs that are three lines or longer—tend to not be read. Keep things short.

  Anything that’s three lines of text or more should be condensed. Additionally, you should aim to have no more than 50 percent of your bullets expand to two lines.

• Rule #3: Accomplishments, Not Responsibilities

  People don’t care what you were told to do; they care what you did.

  For example:

  Responsibility Oriented: Design features for Amazon S3 and oversee development of the features across software engineers and testers.

  Accomplishment Oriented: Designed the SS Frontline feature, managed its development, and led its integration across three products, leading to an additional $10 million in revenue.

  （Compare responsibilty oriented and accomplishment oriented in resume.）

  Focus on the impact itself; the “what” more so than the “how” (although both are important).

  As much as possible, quantify your accomplishments.

• Rule #4: Use a Good Template

  • Two or three columns, one for company names and the other for jobs titles.
  • No left column dedicated to headings.
  • Limited text stylings.
  • Reasonable use of whitespace.
  • Reasonable font size and margins.
  • Bullets.

• Rule #5: Don’t Skip the Best Stuff

  There are no hard and fast rules about what belongs on your resume and what doesn’t. If it makes you a more interesting or more attractive candidate, include it.

Attributes of a Good PM Resume

It is important to demonstrate these skills:

• Passion for Tech

• Initiative

• Leadership

• Impact

  Show that you’ve had a positive impact in your prior roles. Be clear about what you’ve personally driven, since your team’s accomplishments are much less relevant than your own. Explicitly state what **you’**ve built, created, led, or implemented. Avoid weak phrases such as “worked with” and “helped with.”

• Technical skills

• Attention to detail

What to include

• Objectives: No

• Summary: Rarely

• Skills: As Needed

  You might want to include a skills section on your resume, particularly if you have programming skills or experience with design software. Skip obvious skills, such as Microsoft Word.

• Awards: Yes—And Make Them Meaningful

  You should list awards you’ve received. Even ones that don’t seem directly applicable to the skillset are often relevant in showing success, hard work, or creativity.

  Ideally, your resume should describe what the award is for and how selective it is.

• Activities: Sometimes

• Projects: Yes

• Website URL: Yes

  If you have a website or blog, you should include the URL on your resume. If you don’t have a website, consider building one.

  Some basic personal information is fine, but keep the website mostly professional. Whether you list it or not, employers will likely look at it.

• Social Media Accounts: Maybe

• College/University Details: Sometimes

  • Programming Projects: If you have programming projects, these can stay on your resume for about 2 - 3 years after graduation.

How long is appropriate for you depends on what the item shows, how important that skillset is, how else you show that, and what the opportunity cost of including that item is.

• GPA

• Online Courses and “Extracurricular” Education

  The tricky thing is how to list an online course. If the course is significant enough, you can list it under “Education,” but more likely you’ll put this in an “Additional Information” section.

  Find ways to make these classes sound more legitimate. If you have a (good) grade, you can list that. Or, if you have completed interesting projects for these courses, that will help as well.

(Search book to find more details: after how many years should I remove some projects?)