Free The Google Resume by Gayle Laakmann McDowell

résumés are so littered in technical jargon that it’s hard to discern meaning from them. Technical jargon need not mean anything computer related; it could be fancy sales terms, marketing terminology, or even internal expressions. Candidates at big companies are often the worst at this! They spent so long in their own companies that they forget that terms like S + aren’t actually widely known (yes, Microsofties, I’m looking at you).
    Your résumé should be meaningful to recruiters as well as to your future managers and teammates. Avoid acronyms, and translate highly technical terminology to plain English. Explaining the impact or goals, particularly in a quantifiable way, can help laypeople understand your value. You still can’t please everyone, and that’s OK; just make sure that everyone will get the “gist” of your résumé.
    That said, some terms are more understandable than one might think. Google recruiters in Seattle certainly knew what it meant for a Microsoft employee to have been promoted from a Level 60 to a Level 63 during her career.
    5. Clean, Professional, Concise
    Many recruiters will toss your résumé away for a single typo. They figure that they have so many résumés to go through; why waste time on someone with poor communication skills?
    Tech companies tend to be a bit more forgiving, due to their less formal atmosphere and as well as their large international workforce. However, that’s no excuse for sloppiness, particularly in communication-heavy roles.
    Make sure to check your résumé thoroughly for the following potential issues:
Conciseness. Avoid large blocks of text on your résumé; people hate reading, and will generally skip right over paragraphs. Your résumé should be a collection of bullets of around one to two lines.
Spelling. With all due credit to Mrs. O’Connor, my fifth-grade teacher, here’s a useful tip to check spelling. Our minds have a tendency to read through spelling mistakes if we know what word to expect. Try checking for spelling mistakes by reading your résumé backwards .
Grammar. You can use Microsoft Word’s grammar checker, but don’t rely exclusively on this. If you are not a native English speaker, make sure to have a native English speaker—one who is strong in grammar and spelling—review your résumé.
Margins. You’re not fooling anyone with the 0.5-inch margins. Your margins should ideally be one inch, but certainly no less than 0.75 inch.
Normal fonts. Use a standard font, like Times New Roman or Arial, and don’t use fonts smaller than 10 pt. Comic Sans is never acceptable.
Consistency. You can use either commas or semicolons to separate items in a list, but be consistent. End either every bullet with a period, or none. Make sure that your formatting is consistent in terms of bold, underline, italics, and the like. Your formatting decisions are often not as important as being consistent with them.
White space. Using ample white space will make your résumé easy to read. Recruiters have to deal with enough in their day; don’t add to strain with a crowded résumé.
No first person. Although it can be tough, avoid using I, me, or myself. Use the third person throughout your résumé, with the exception of the objective statement, where first person is more expected.
    6. Well Structured and Clear
    When a recruiter picks up your résumé, her eye jumps to certain things. She wants to know your education (school, degree, major, and graduation year) and your professional experience (companies, titles, length of employment). For software engineering jobs, she may also look for a set of technical skills.
    Remember that the path of least resistance for the recruiter is always to toss the résumé. If she can’t find the information she’s looking for, there’s a good chance she’ll just toss your résumé so she can move on to the next candidate.
    Beyond simply structuring your résumé in an intuitive way, you can make small formatting