For interns, new grads, and engineers with 0 to 3 years of experience. You will finish with a one-page base resume, sections in the right order for your track.
In that study, 76 recruiters judged about 1,000 resumes and picked correctly only 55% of the time. Candidates with FAANG or FAANG-adjacent experience were 35% more likely to be picked. You cannot add a company name you do not have, so put your best evidence in the top third.
Watch out: A resume is necessary, not sufficient. Jugal: "When I was searching for my first US role, I sent around 700 applications and got 3 interviews." He fixed it with people, not a better resume (7 videos on networking your way to offers). Pair this section with referrals.
Keep it to one page. Laszlo Bock, then Google's head of People Operations: "one page per 10 years of work experience" (HC Magazine). Gayle Laakmann McDowell: a second page adds "weaker content to your resume, by definition" (Fortune). Google sets no hard limit but says "Keep it short" (how we hire); UK CVs are the exception (country formats).
Use one column and standard headings. Education, Experience, Projects, Skills. Parsers and recruiters both look for them (how ATS works).
Put your strongest evidence in the top third. Most relevant role first, most relevant bullet first inside each role.
Write every bullet as result, measure, method. Google's wording: "accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]" (Google: how we hire). Full method: writing bullets.
Tailor. Keep one base resume, one version per role type, and a full pass for your top roles (tailoring).
Send a text PDF named after you. Use Firstname_Lastname_Resume.pdf. The Georgia Tech guide asks for your name in the file name.
Ship zero typos. Bock calls typos "deadly" because employers read them as carelessness. In one company's 2012 hiring data, typo count was the strongest signal of who got an offer (interviewing.io); it is one small dataset, and the fix costs 10 minutes.
The Tech Interview Handbook keeps Education above Experience until about 3 years. Decide by signal: if your employer name is stronger than your school, lead with Experience.
Yes. Harvard's 2026 CS example lists a Teaching Fellow role under experience (PDF)
Experience
Research assistant
Yes
Experience
Paid freelance or contract work
Yes
Experience
Open-source programs (Google Summer of Code, MLH Fellowship, LFX Mentorship)
Yes
Experience
Hackathon
Usually a project
Projects, placement in Awards
Non-tech part-time job
Yes, 1 to 2 bullets
Below Projects if your CS work is thin
Club leadership
Only with scale (members, events, money)
Leadership
Bullet count per role: 4 to 6 for high-relevance positions and 1 to 2 for low-relevance ones (Georgia Tech). On a full student page, 3 to 4 for your best role is a practical floor.
Languages: [Python, Java, C++, SQL, TypeScript]
Frameworks: [React, Node.js, Spring Boot, FastAPI, PyTorch]
Cloud and tools: [Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, GitHub Actions, Linux]
Databases: [PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB]
List only what you could answer interview questions about. Jugal: "If the role asks for Kafka and you have never used Kafka, do not add Kafka" (I Asked Claude to Make My Resume Unrejectable).
Leave out soft skills. Georgia Tech: "Do not list soft skills in this section."
Order each line by the job description's priority.
Spell out an acronym once: "Amazon Web Services (AWS)" (Tech Interview Handbook).
Add AI coding tools only if you used them on real work. Amazon's Summer 2027 SDE intern posting lists "Experience using AI-assisted development tools in academic or professional settings" as a basic qualification (posting).
Weak: Motivated computer science student seeking challenging opportunities to grow.
Strong: Backend engineer, 2 years on payments APIs in Java and AWS; cut p99 latency [60%] on a [5k] requests/sec service.
Dump everything into a plain doc: every project, internship, TA role, hackathon, club role, award, and pull request. Jugal: "Write down every single thing you've ever done professionally. Everything. We'll cut it down later" (Amazon is still hiring after the biggest layoffs).
Save this as your base. Make role-type copies next (tailoring).
Tip: Keep a running "wins" doc. Every time you ship something, write one line with the number. Your next resume update then takes 20 minutes instead of a weekend.
Build a resume for each job, show you meet the minimum qualifications, use the X, Y, Z formula, no length requirement but keep it short. Cover letters are not required. You can apply to up to three jobs every 30 days
The 2027 software engineering intern posting says your anticipated graduation month and year "must be clearly indicated on a resume or CV to be considered". It also states that NVIDIA uses AI tools in recruiting (as of Oct 2026)
Tech Interview Handbook: Resume: free SWE resume guide by Yangshun Tay, updated Aug 2026. How to use it: read the ATS and keyword sections, then run its plain-text test on your PDF.
Georgia Tech CS Resume Guide (2026 PDF): a university CS guide with section rules and a CS verb list. How to use it: copy its bullet-count rule and verb list.
Gayle Laakmann McDowell on Fortune (2014): short rules from the author of Cracking the Coding Interview. How to use it: apply the bullet-length and quantify rules. Skip the dated language advice.