This week is our first dive into the world of hiring! One of you ❤️ suggested I write about résumés, so that’s what we’re going to start with. (If you have any suggestions for future topics, please just reply to any of these emails.)

Hiring has been a massive part of my last few roles, so I’ve parsed thousands of résumés, interviewed hundreds, and designed many hiring processes. While every company does hiring a little bit differently, these are 3 tips for résumé structure that I think apply for every role.

⭐️ Make your résumé easy to scan.

Unless you've got a connection with the hiring manager, your résumé is usually the first thing a company sees about you. And people screening résumés have a lot to get through, so they’re usually not reading thoroughly – recruiters typically spend less than 10 seconds per résumé.

That’s just the first pass though. Typically, I scan looking for anything that stands out or any deal-breakers. Deal-breakers get disqualified really fast so I can clear out my backlog of applications. But stand outs are worth spending more time on, so I’ll go back and do a more thorough look.

What should stand out? Relevant job titles, key skills, and any amazing outcomes are all things you want a recruiter to notice in that first scan.

Some little design tips for scannable résumés:

• Keep everything aligned to the left.

• Make sure your job title is in bold or larger, and have the company and dates nearby.

• Order everything in reverse chronological order – that is, most recent first going to the oldest.

• Start with your opening statement, then work experience, and education last. If you’re going to add skills or software, make sure it’s after your work experience.

✏️ Craft an exciting and unique opening statement.

An element of résumés you definitely shouldn’t skip is the opening statement: a short (1-3 sentence) paragraph at the top of your résumé that introduces yourself to the reader. A lot of people will write something generic, but this is a really big opportunity for you to stand out and grab attention.

Think about the role you’re hoping to land. What unique mindset, capabilities, or approach would you bring to it? What’s something about you that would excite an interviewer that they might not be able to find out from your previous experience?

Let’s look at two opening statements – one is generic, and the other is the one on my latest résumé (which got me my current job).

Generic opening statement

Why it doesn’t work:

• It’s impersonal – it’s written like a robot (or an AI) and has no personal touch.

• It adds no new information on top of what is listed in the résumé.

• It’s generic! This could be about a lot of designers and gives me nothing special.

Opening statement from my 2022 résumé

Why it works:

• It’s written personally, and in my own tone of voice. It’s clear that I wrote it for another human to read.

• It’s opinionated and is clear that I bring a specific set of values and attitudes to my role.

• “Take a vision to market” is very clear about what I want to do, and is targeted to specific types of companies – startups.

• Nothing in here is in my résumé later on, so reading it actually gives you more information about me.

🧵 Tailor your résumé to the role… sometimes.

It’s pretty common advice to tailor your résumé to the role you’re applying for, but I’ve met very few people who do this – and for a good reason! Your experience is your experience, why would you change it?

In actuality, you should only tailor your résumé if you’re applying for a range of different roles.

That means, for example, if you’re a Senior Product Manager and you’re only applying for Senior Product Manager roles, you probably only need to have a single résumé that is optimised to convey your experience.

But if you’re a bit of a generalist, or you’re early in your career, and you’re applying for a range of roles in the Operations space, then you might need a version that suits customer support, one for sales, one for general operations, etc.

Some ways to tailor your résumé:

• Write a different opening statement for each role type to reflect your strengths.

• Highlight key experience for each of your roles that’s relevant for this particular focus area.

• If you have a section about skills, software, or something similar, reorder it to have the most relevant at the start.

Be careful about lying or changing your job titles for your résumé variations. Many people will verify against LinkedIn (or find out through references) so you want to make sure your actual experience is accurate.

That’s it for this week. Is there anything else you’d like me to cover about the hiring process? Let me know! 📧