Copy This Resume

Welcome everyone 👏

What’s in store for today?

• Idea: Occam’s Razor

• Hiring Managers: What are they looking for?

• Keywords: The right technical vernacular is critical

• Certifications: I didn’t say certificates of completion 🤪

• Resume: Download the template at the bottom of this post

First impressions are very important. When you begin your job search, the best first impression you can give is a great resume. A great resume is always a simple one. Occam's razor is a theory of simplicity. In simplest terms, given two competing ideas the simplest one will almost always be the most effective.

Recruiters and hiring managers are looking for keywords and phrases they want to see prior to moving you to the next step in the hiring process, the phone screen. That means you need to tailor your resume for the job you are applying to. That’s almost impossible when you have little work history and no technical skills.

In order to combat skill and experience sparsity, you’ll need to get every facet of your resume correct. Additionally, you’ll need to add items to your resume most of your competition won’t have. Let’s look at the anatomy of a fantastic entry level data analyst resume. While this resume is specific to the data analyst, the same concepts and ideas apply to all the data roles.

The name and title are centered at the top of the page. They know who you are immediately and they know what your role is or the job you are seeking.

Next, we have the contact section. Phone number, email address and web site if you have it. You can put your git profile there if you have one. No one is going to look at it but it looks good on a resume. Hiring mangers don’t click on links, they focus on the correct technology terminology on your resume.

The profile section is your mission statement. This is an excellent one. It’s not overly flowery and long enough to be sincere without being verbose. Notice how simple everything is from the resume layout to the text.

Let’s talk about the left hand side of the resume. After contact we have skills. These are the skills you have and that the company will be looking for. We put PowerBI first because that’s the core tool you’ll be working with. Next, notice you didn’t write Azure, you were very specific about the Azure component. You used the word Fabric on purpose. This tells the technical interviewer you know that Microsoft’s new data platform is Fabric. You’ve listed the type of SQL. You didn’t put SQL alone. 👏

There are tons of SQL variants. Microsoft’s SQL is Transact-SQL and anyone who’s ever worked with it knows that. Again, you are showing the technical interviewer you know more than the average person. Lastly, you’ve listed the database you’ll be working with. If you’re working with the Microsoft ecosystem, you’ll be using SQL Server as the relational database.

Continuing down the left side we have education. Nothing special. You have a degree in something. Yes, you need to have a bachelors in something to work in any top data role.

Moving to the second column of the resume. We’ve already discussed your mission statement. Simple and effective. After your mission statement you have experience. It’s going to be sparse for most of you. That’s ok. It’s the same way for all college graduates and those trying to break into information technology. An internship looks great. It’s not a lot but it’s something. You’ve worked in the real-world for a short time and you know what the expectations are going to be.

If you don’t have an internship that’s ok also. If you have experience working in any job put that next. It can be a summer job a part time job you had during college. If you’ve never worked in the real-world and you in college, get a job. 👍

Lastly, we have the CERTIFICATION section. A CERTIFICATION involves a proctored exam. The only CERTIFICATIONS that count come from the top companies who create the product you are being certified in. A certificate of completion is NOT a CERTIFICATION. A certificate of completion is handed out at the end of a course you take from providers like Coursera, Edx, SpringBoard… etc. These have no value.

These are CERTIFICATIONS, they are not worthless certificates of completion from Google, EdX, Coursera or Udemy. If you put certificates of completion on your resume, that resume will be ignored. This resume has two industry recognized CERTIFICATIONS. Both of these will get attention. These show you understand the real-world. Very few to zero entry level resume will have CERTIFICATIONS on them. This is another easy way to get noticed and your foot in the door.

The best first impression you can make is a great resume with all the correct technological vernacular. If you’re starting out in any entry level technical role, use this resume and put your information in it.

Thanks for reading my newsletter. Seriously, I’m glad you’re here. I believe I can solve a lot of problems many are having in this space. 👍

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Download Resume Template Here 🎉