The Google Resume (3 page)

A strong relationship with your professors can offer you powerful recommendations as you look for jobs, as well as guide you through your academic and professional career. Set a goal to get to know (at least) one professor each semester; it’ll pay dividends for years to come.

Work Experience

While we may hope that our bosses are our best advocates, we need to face facts: our bosses have their own agenda. That’s casting it in a very negative light, of course. Many bosses will be unselfish and help you move up in the company, or out to a better position. After all, the vast majority of MBAs had bosses who wrote them great letters of recommendation that ultimately led to their departure from the company.

Nonetheless, while you can usually trust your boss with having the best intentions, there are limits to this. You are your own best advocate, and you—not your boss—must map out your career from day one.

Make an Impact

A good employee does everything that’s assigned to them; a great employee asks for more. Perhaps the best thing you can do to get a great next job is to do a great job in your current one:

• Think broadly.
  If you’re in an engineering role at a web-based company, is there additional debug information you can log? You probably (or hopefully) work with testers; how can you make their lives easier? The more people that you impact, the better your peer reviews will be and the more the company will value you.
  
• Be really, really good at what you do.
  This doesn’t mean that you have to double your time at work. Perhaps it’s merely a matter of shutting off other distractions, or perhaps it’s a matter of being extra careful.
  
• Solicit feedback proactively.
  Don’t wait until your midyear review to solicit feedback. At that point, your manager may be so overwhelmed that she writes your feedback hastily, at best. Asking for feedback early and frequently will demonstrate maturity, while also ensuring that you are able to quickly correct any issues.
  
• Learn about other teams.
  Understanding the broader context of the company’s roles will be useful when you want a more senior position; for example, if you’re a developer, learn about what program managers do. If you’re in sales, learn about marketing. Even a little bit of exposure will help you a lot. It’ll show you to what other roles are doing and how they all fit together.
  

Become a Generalist

The best program managers, the best marketers, and the best developers have something in common: they each understand the others’ roles. The marketers are figuring how to position and price a product, while the program manager designs user specifications and passes them down to the developer. It’s all interconnected in the great circle of product development.

Start from your role and work outward: who (outside of your own position) do you interact with on a regular basis? Make a point of grabbing lunch with them to understand their role. How do they make decisions? What do they do on a day-to-day basis (you know, when they’re not with you)? Understanding the roles around you will enable you to perform better at your own job by offering greater context, while also offering you transferable skills.

Size Matters: Quantify Your Impact

No matter how happy you are in your current job, with any luck, this role will wind up as a stepping-stone to a new position or to a new company. Suddenly, all your years of work get mashed into a tiny five-bullet box on your résumé and you picture yourself with a T-shirt saying, “I slaved away for five years and all I got were these lousy bullets.”

Your five-bullet box should be planned while you’re working, not after you leave. Seek out measurable, tangible accomplishments. Build something, create something, lead something. If you’ve tackled a major issue for your company, can you quantify its impact in terms of dollars, hours, or reduced sales calls? Seek out this information when it happens to ensure that you can get the most precise, accurate data.

Some students lift boxes at the university mailroom during the year and bus tables during the summer; others go do something a little more . . . “interesting.” I don’t think I need to tell you which role will help you more.

My first “techie” job was doing web development and design for the Penn Medical School the summer before I started college. The pay—$12 per hour—wasn’t bad for my age but more importantly, I had a position that was actually specialized to my background. Exactly one year later, I was an intern at Microsoft getting paid, let’s just say, considerably better.

Of course, not everyone will be so lucky (and I was, indeed, very lucky), but my having an “interesting” job at a relatively early age played a critical role as well. I doubt that my future manager would have looked as fondly upon a waitressing job.

There are lots of interesting jobs you can take—paid, unpaid, and, well, underpaid. Whether you’re looking for a part-time position during the school year or for a summer job, you can get an interesting, résumé-building position through the following:

• Help a professor out with research.
  Many freshmen and sophomores can land research assistantships with professors, where you might code (if you’re a computer science major) or do other field-specific jobs.
  
• Contact a start-up.
  There’s nothing a young start-up loves more than a bit of free labor. One start-up I talked to had 30 interns—and only 12 employees! Offering to help out a start-up for free can give you fantastic experience. If you really need the money, you can always split time between a start-up and a paid but “boring” job like waiting tables.
  
• Volunteer for a nonprofit.
  Like start-ups, nonprofits are usually cash strapped and desperate for help. See if you can help them out with something, whether it’s coding, fund-raising, or advertising. You’ll not only learn marketable skills, but you’ll meet other volunteers who may have full-time jobs—jobs at companies who could, one day, hire you.
  

Remember that experience builds on itself. I never would have gotten to Microsoft if I hadn’t been a Photoshop monkey for a summer. And I never would have gotten to Apple if I hadn’t been at Microsoft. And I never would have . . . well, you get the point. Your path to getting your dream internship junior year starts freshman year, or even before.

Extracurriculars and the Checkbox People

When I was in high school, my mother used to refer to certain classmates as being “Checkbox People.” You know the type. They take all the “right” classes, play all the “right” sports, and join all the “right” clubs. With over 30 percent going to an Ivy League university, my high school was brimming with them. And in a very controlled environment, these students would do exceedingly well.

As much as I loathed the Checkbox People, they were doing something right. They (or my high school) knew how to position themselves for success, even if their alleged passion for theatre was faked.

Things aren’t so different now. Not all extracurriculars are created equal. Some show more intelligence, some show more creativity, and some show more leadership. What’s right for you depends on your background and, of course, what you enjoy. This section will focus solely on the résumé-building aspects of extracurriculars; it’s up to you to mesh that with your happiness and other preferences.

Volunteering

Much like I won’t delve into selecting activities based on enjoyment (which should absolutely be a factor), I won’t discuss selecting volunteer activities based on the value-add to the world. If you choose to volunteer, the way in which the nonprofit or volunteer activity contributes to the world is no doubt important. You can make your own determination on this matter.

With that giant disclaimer in mind, allow me to offer this résumé-specific advice: don’t serve soup in a soup kitchen. Don’t sort clothes for homeless people. And don’t pick up roadside trash. While these may be great activities to do for other reasons, no employer will look at your résumé and say, “So, just how many ladles of soup did you say you could do per hour? We’ve needed a Senior Soup Ladler around here for a while, and I think you’re just the right fit!”

These activities will certainly help in some ways. They’ll show that you are eager to help and that you can juggle multiple responsibilities. They can help fill employment gaps, and they can expand your network. They won’t, however, go the extra mile.

To get the most mileage out of your community service hours, focus on activities that will build your skills, let you explore career tracks, or get initial experience in a field:

• Sales positions.
  Consider helping raise money for a homeless shelter through cold calls and other connections.
  
• Marketing positions.
  Help a local minority entrepreneurship group figure out how to target their advertising and promotion materials.
  
• Software engineering/design.
  Ever seen a nonprofit’s web site? They could probably use your help. Or what about getting involved with an open source project?
  

Almost any role that you wish to break into at a tech company probably takes place at a nonprofit as well, so you are sure to find something that adds a little extra “oomph!” to your résumé.

Start Something

If volunteering gives recruiters a reason to call,
starting something
makes them get down on one knee and propose (an interview, that is). Of course, it depends on the scale of the project, your commitment to it, and your role, but it’s nevertheless one of the best things you can do to boost your odds.

David, a Microsoft program manager, launched a consulting firm whose clients included Fortune 500 companies. He worked nights and weekends for them, which boosted his résumé and refreshed his coding skills. Although program managers often have trouble getting considered for software engineering roles, David landed interviews with both Amazon and Google. Amazon loved his passion and commitment, and offered him a job as a software engineer.

Provided you have the dedication and time to follow through, starting something can be a great way to make your résumé leap. It shows initiative, creativity, and a commitment to go above and beyond. And, if your background lacks in particular areas, whether that’s leadership, coding, or marketing, launching a business or a web site can be a great way to fill that gap.

If you’ve got some time to spare, consider pursuing the following paths:

• Launch a business.
  Lots of us have ideas floating around in our heads—why not pursue one of them? If you’re a coder, this is a great way to learn something beyond the relatively narrow field of your work experience. If you’re not, this can be a great way to boost your tech or field background. You can hire developers or other skilled workers to implement your project from web sites like
  odesk.com
  and
  elance.com
  .
  
• Write a blog.
  Writing a blog is a great way to show that you have great writing skills, to increase your “net presence” (making it easier for recruiters to find you), and demonstrate your interest in a field such as technology, media, or gaming. Your blog should be updated at least every week or two, so be sure that you have the diligence to post regularly. This can prove much harder than many people expect.
  
• Start a club or organization.
  You don’t want to form clubs just for the sake of forming a club, but if there’s a genuine gap in your area, you may want to create an organization to fill it. Doing so can build your leadership experience, expand your network, and show a proven interest in a new field.
  

But, be warned: if you don’t follow through on your project, it can demonstrate flakiness and potentially burn bridges. Make sure that you are excited and committed to your plans.

Your Questions Answered

Well, There Go the College Hires