“Non-Negotiable”: Woman Got Offers From Google, Microsoft With These 2 Resume Hacks

A resume acts as a bridge between you and the prospective recruiter. Its importance can never be underestimated since it shows off your best and most relevant skills and traits in a page or two. Now, a software engineer has shared how her curriculum vitae helped her land offers from Google and Microsoft, as per a report in Business Insider.

Sonakshi Pandey, who lives in Seattle, landed a job as a software engineer at Amazon after completing her master’s degree in computer science. For three years, she used to write code for eight hours in the office, a job she loved. “I was very shy, very introverted. I used to wear my headphones and code for eight hours straight,” she said.

One day, she stumbled upon a YouTube video featuring a tech expert discussing databases in depth. She appreciated his confident demeanour. “I want to exactly do what this guy is doing: I want to go on a stage and I want to talk confidently in front of a bunch of people,” she said.

Her career path changed from software development to solution architecture at Amazon Web Services as a result, requiring her to do more client presentations and give public speeches. Ms Pandey wanted to try her hand at working at other FAANG businesses after five years at Amazon, so in 2021, she applied to Microsoft and Google.

She shared the resume that landed her a job as a customer engineer at Google and another offer at Microsoft. She said that two unique things worked for her. Ms Pandey said that while working at Amazon, she wrote blogs for the company’s cloud computing page. Blogs are a reflection of thought leadership, she said, adding that posting blog entries on a corporate website highlights your knowledge if you want to establish yourself as an authority in any field.

According to Ms Pandey, she would not incorporate some of her other public endeavours, such as her YouTube and Instagram job guidance pages since she “does not want that to deflect attention from my product manager skills.”

The executive also said that adding a section on volunteering, which discusses her mentorship projects is “non-negotiable”, even if it exceeds the one-page resume rule. For her, this section captures a significant aspect of her career path in technology. The woman struggled with impostor syndrome and public speaking anxiety and is now helping other women get beyond similar obstacles. She attributes this to her mentor at Amazon.

“She recommended books to read, podcasts to listen to, and it eventually got me to killing it at my job. I feel this is very important to have and is a piece of me that I want to share with everyone wherever I go. And that’s why I was like: It doesn’t matter if it’s two pages, this needs to be here,” she told the outlet.