I’ve built a service to write technical resumes for free at www.leetresumes.com You provide your existing resume, answer ten questions, and in a couple days I’ll email your improved resume back to you, optimized for resume readers, parsers, and what hiring managers are looking for in 2021.
We’re just starting out, so we can probably handle 1,000 or so resumes per week. Hopefully, as we automate, we’ll be able to handle more volume, but right now, there’s still humans in the loop to ensure quality at Leet Resumes: https://leetresumes.com/
And some examples of “before” and “after” are here:
https://leetresumes.com/examples
It might or might not surprise you that multiple colors, multiple columns, and filling your resume up with stuff other than your accomplishments is bad.
We believe in being transparent, open, data-driven, and helpful, so let me know what you think!
I'm not as cynical as notretarded, but I do wonder how you'll eventually make money. It can't be cheap to manually edit 1,000+ resumes weekly, so it does make me wonder what the end goal is and what the paid services will look like. Maybe some AI/data play?
Your blueprint to good technical resumes is super useful though-- I run a technical interview course and mentor quite a number of software engineers, will definitely share out.
I used to use the ladders all the time when looking for jobs, so thanks for creating that service too.
Thanks so much sciencewolf! Cycnicism is OK - there have been a lot of crappy products in this space and devs are sick and tired of LinkedIn spam.
The plan is to become a trusted partner to engineers and technologists - helping to update their resume yearly, produce better resumes by having a deeper insight into their performance. That trust and that relationship will be super valuable and I'm sure we'll find the business model.
As mentioned in FAQs -- "In the future, we will offer additional upgraded services for purchase such as resume distribution, hosting, tracking, salary negotiation, vetted job opportunities, recruiter outreach and cover letter writing." -- but at this moment we don't really know.
The core product today is writing resumes and building that trust. I think if we do that very well, we'll have a lot of opportunities to make a successful business out of it. If we do that poorly, we'll have nothing.
Reading a few of the blog posts, and the FAQ, I'm not sure you're getting to why engineers are bad at writing resumes, what the fundamental disconnect is when they try to do situation-behavior-response type stuff. It's not because "resumes are not written in a programming language."
I personally grokked it when I was writing up some peer review. I thought I was making a compelling case: I showed where he had solved a tough problem, how he worked through problems, resolved it and thought I was establishing that the guy was on an upward trajectory.
My manager kicked it back and was trying to explain what he needed. We went back and forth, and finally he said, "look, I'm going to be in a room full of other managers, and I need ammo to get Chris a promotion."
That was when it clicked. I had learned persuasive writing in an environment where it pays to spend a lot of time making your case. But on a promotion board, there might be a dozen managers trying to get a word in edgewise, so they need to make their case with simple, unambiguous facts.
So it's a matter of it being a writing style that meets a specific need, and which engineers aren't trained in.
A helpful post might be some tips on what to track as your career progresses. Or a tool to do so might be a way to build your client base.
By their nature, the things hiring managers look for on a resume are very similar to what they look for in performance reviews, so having that material always up to date is a good practice.
Another good point, Ben. You seem interested in this stuff - would love to chat further - i'm myfirstname at leetresumes dot com.
We're intending to have a regular check-in to collect facts throughout the years that we then save until you're ready to update your resume. We've also thought about how we could be helpful in 1-on-1s, promotion reviews, and annual performance reviews.
On your examples, for the first resume, your bullet points are inconsistent. Sometimes the second line of a multiline sentence has one and sometimes it doesn't. It was the first thing I noticed.
As mentioned in other comments, our expertise, data, and insights are based on North American hiring practices. European CVs differ in practice quite a bit - for one glaring example, the common presence of a photo of the user on the resume. Our system is not at all capable of handling that today.
Also wondering that. If the resume is written in English does it matter where in the world it's being sent?
Or it might be related to the "premium features" that are mentioned, since initially you can only monetize US/CAN based resume/employees
OK, I don't know what that means. More important than what users write, is what the audience wants -- hiring managers, HR departments, recruiters, to a lesser extent the ATSs that companies use. Those are the real drivers of resume-writing insights.
For developer job market insights, aggregated data such as StackOverflow's annual Developer Survey are far superior to anything you could glean from a few thousand resumes: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020
From the FAQ, under What's the hidden cost?: "[...] we do not sell your information."
From the privacy policy, under How We Use The Information We Collect: "To send [...] information about jobs and third party products and services in which we think you may be interested."
So you may not be selling my information, but you're definitely selling access to it.
Seems like the hidden cost is another source of spam email.
Developers get enough job spam, and it's annoying. Our plan is to create something that users control - don't contact me unless it's above this title, or above this $, or includes these technologies. Or, simply don't contact me at all.
From our research, devs aren't looking for another LinkedIn spam machine, so we're going to build something better than that. Our thought is that if we do that well, and we update users' resumes for them each year, then it will work out well. If we do that poorly, then we can't update users' resumes annually, and it won't work.
But it is free, no hidden cost, no hidden spam. And if we aren't adding value to your career, then it's easy for you to simply opt out permanently.
Great resumes can be purchased for $200 - $300 in many places. Only 6% of customers purchase, though, even though 97-98% really have the need for a better resume. I've run the largest paid resume writing business in the US previously, so I've been through this ringer.
That 94% of people who would use a bad resume through their interviews and job search really bugged me though. Hence… Leet Resumes. I'd prefer to see 100% of people with a great resume, as it makes such a difference.
I really need to improve my resume. However, I feel that if I spent $200 or $300 on my resume, it would not increase my job chances nor salary significantly, and at the end, would be a waste of money. If such resume writing services offered a money back guarantee (say, a job making at least x within 6 months), I'd jump on it in a second.
Of course, resume writers can't guarantee that, and I am in a position that spending $200 or $300 on something that won't return isn't worth it.
In this market? Not at all. We are living in a historically unparalleled employment market for technology professionals. In no other market in history have a special category of 20-somethings by the tens of thousands been paid 5 times the average compensation of the average citizen of the world's richest country.
The demand for tech professionals is extraordinarily high, and sharp career-minded technologists know that keeping in touch with the market can lead to dramatic increases in their cash compensation.
That couldn't be further from the truth. Lots of people are looking for new careers because they may want to move, want to leave their current situation, may have moved as high up as possible in their current company, etc...
I know a number of people looking for new jobs that are currently employed. Not a matter of needing the money; more wanting a better work environment.
I may be missing part of the pitch, but I'm open to targeted emails as long as it's done well. It's frustrating to be sent an email for an opportunity that is barely relevant.
I went another way when I made a CV tool. We charge a small anount, but our privacy policy is absolute. Our customers are customers, not products; we treat them the way we would like to be treated: https://CVservant.com
Beware of the terms of service before sharing any information with this service:
"You hereby grant to Leet Resumes a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up, worldwide license (including the right to sublicense through multiple tiers) to use, reproduce, process, adapt, publicly perform, publicly display, modify, prepare compilations and derivative works of, publish, transmit and distribute your User Content, or any portion thereof, and to publish, transmit, distribute and sell compilations and derivative works of your User Content, in any form, medium or distribution method now known or hereafter existing, known or developed, without compensation to you."
Thanks for the feedback Riley. As mentioned in another comment:
"The plan is to become a trusted partner to engineers and technologists - helping to update their resume yearly, produce better resumes by having a deeper insight into their performance. That trust and that relationship will be super valuable and I'm sure we'll find the business model.
As mentioned in FAQs -- "In the future, we will offer additional upgraded services for purchase such as resume distribution, hosting, tracking, salary negotiation, vetted job opportunities, recruiter outreach and cover letter writing." -- but at this moment we don't really know.
The core product today is writing resumes and building that trust. I think if we do that very well, we'll have a lot of opportunities to make a successful business out of it. If we do that poorly, we'll have nothing. "
That's why we need a fully paid-up worldwide license.
Oh no rswemuc! I'm so sorry. It's the top result for 'software engineer resume' on Google, and the top resume shown by Zety.com -- I assumed it was their design, copyright, ownership. This is your design and they ripped it off?
As far as I can see, it's the exact same as the one listed in this[0] article, and without having seen your CV design, I guess it's completely coincidental.
More stuff like this needs to exist, but this product really looks like it's optimized for responding to job ads or going cold into standard recruiting funnels, which is probably not how you want to optimize your job search. A job prospect where a resume parser is make-or-break is probably not a serious opportunity.
This kind of value prop ("email is clickable, job description is parseable by random job parsers") is probably not what I'd lead with.
@mcenedella, great concept! However the TOS language seems quite permissive - you can basically do anything with my data. Can you elaborate on why such permissions are needed, for example the right to sell my data without compensation to me?
>You hereby grant to Leet Resumes a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up, worldwide license (including the right to sublicense through multiple tiers) to use, reproduce, process, adapt, publicly perform, publicly display, modify, prepare compilations and derivative works of, publish, transmit and distribute your User Content, or any portion thereof, and to publish, transmit, distribute and sell compilations and derivative works of your User Content, in any form, medium or distribution method now known or hereafter existing, known or developed, without compensation to you.
I don't know about this. My resume would fall into the category of some of the bad examples, but I've never had a problem getting contacted by companies or recruiters. In fact, I can count on one hand the amount of times I have not heard back from a company when reaching out to them.
The question isn't "can i get interviews with a bad resume?"
The question is "how many interview requests did I miss because of my bad resume?"
My company did the famous eye-tracking study that shows recruiters' first scan of your resume is 6 seconds long. In qualitative and quantitative research since then, we found what works best based on data.
Our experience is based on successful hiring practices in North America. We don't have enough (read: any) data on hiring practices and resume review in Europe, Middle east, Africa or Asia. We really don't want to do any harm, so we are not yet able to offer our services there.
If you're based outside of US & Canada, but work remote for US or Canada office of a company, feel free to sign up. But if you're based outside of US/Canada and plan to work outside US/Canada, then we are not yet competent to handle your resume well.
I really like that you mention the geographic restriction clearly, and on the landing page.
I'm based in Japan, and often look at remote job boards. It's frustrating when you have to spend time digging into the content of job posting to find out you're ineligible - it's not much time per post, but it all adds up and it's annoying.
Some feedback: the typeform form for the 10 questions was a little hard to use. Only one question allowed using shift+enter to insert new lines, but all of the long form questions would have benefited from this. For most of the questions, I ended up writing one extremely long line, using hyphens to try and separate things.
If possible, I'd explore finding a form system that allows using textareas.
Great feedback, thank you. The proper alternative is probably a Google Form, or an actual doc, I imagine. However, when tested, those long forms tend to scare people into thinking it's too much work. Which it really shouldn't be.
But great feedback, and I'll add this to our product reviews.
Is there good reason to think that optimizing resumes will help with the job searching process?
I've heard that many resume screens are automated these days, which has led to my hearing stories of people trying to game this by cramming keywords in invisible font and other things like that.
Can anyone with experience in recruiting shed some light on this matter?
Not really true. You want to know what the most common keywords searched by the HR team are? "Software engineer", "Java", "Developer", etc. The sophistication of the process is limited by the user, not by the capabilities of the search engine.
I actually heard about this exact same thing yesterday. All the buzzwords are in white at the bottom of the page to increase the chances you make it through the automated filter. I personally find this extremely discouraging and a little bit insulting.
It's not really a thing, so I wouldn't lose sleep over it.
The basics are important - get a clean, standard, well-organized resume. Include numbers that show your ability to improve things. Be explicit about titles, capabilities, and achievements.
Unfortunately, a lot of urban legends have popped up over the years that really cause professionals a lot of grief for no good reason.
Yeah, I'm not buying it. I would rather pay $100 to a professional for a couple of hours of manual work on my CV than try my luck with a free service which sells my information.
Great service. Our startup offers a related service: we send out job applications for candidates and make sure they don't miss an opportunity: https://cvandme.com
We have seen that job applicants leave so much simple improvements on the table, it is unbelievable :) The most basic thing: Give more details on your technology stack for every experience, be more concise and avoid fancy graphics and formatting.
I thought managers only care about how many years of experience you have and the presence of certain technology keywords, so how hard is it to write an adequate resume?
Hi Wendy - when a manager is looking through a pile of 100 resumes, all with 5 years experience, all with similar dozen or so technologies, how do they choose which 10 or 15 to phone screen?
The answer is: the ones with the most compelling presentations of the user's capabilities, accomplishments, and skills on the job.
I do appreciate the focus on straightforward information without stylistic fluff. Will definitely try using it when I update my resume in the next month or two.
Marc had some great suggestions for me when I was last doing a resume update. I haven't used his new service, but can vouch for his knowing about resumes!
Tried it out, former cyber threat intel analyst transitioned to Rec Cannabis in Oregon. I'm not sure I qualfy, but I did at least serve the minimum 2 years in tech...
I Liked the process, waiting 7 days and I'm sure it'll look fine enough. I'll let it be known if I become an endless spam magnet for those still risk-adverse about it.
Received my rewritten resume a while ago, would say it's definitely worth trying. It's a clean rewrite of my otherwise clumsy resume, and I regret not having found this earlier.
Hey Marc... Really excited to see this. I worked at the Ladders in 2017, specifically on the resume builder app. I know how much thought, cool tech and experience went into that and I am sure leetresumes will also knock peoples’ socks off. Good luck!
Student resumes are quite different - placement of education, prominence of projects, importance of specific entry-level knowledge and skills. So they really are a different category of document entirely.
Our expertise is in experienced developers' resumes - two or more years of experience, up to 35+ years' experience. It's a different process, with different hiring teams at a company, and different resume product entirely from new graduates'.
So, unfortunately, for now, the answer is that we have no plans to add student resumes.
Thanks iamcreasy - again, we do not handle soon-to-be or recent graduates. Everything about the graduating student employment market is different - the process, the expectations, the communications, the resume required, etc.
It's really best at this point to follow the guidance of your career services office.
Thanks for your comment. As I mentioned in another comment:
"Our experience is based on successful hiring practices in North America. We don't have enough (read: any) data on hiring practices and resume review in Europe, Middle east, Africa or Asia. We really don't want to do any harm, so we are not yet able to offer our services there.
If you're based outside of US & Canada, but work remote for US or Canada office of a company, feel free to sign up. But if you're based outside of US/Canada and plan to work outside US/Canada, then we are not yet competent to handle your resume well.
Will resumes used as examples or for any other purposes be anonymized? I.e. if you chose my resume as a "bad example" for instance, would it be anonymized? Or would it be shown as-is with my name and other details?
We’re just starting out, so we can probably handle 1,000 or so resumes per week. Hopefully, as we automate, we’ll be able to handle more volume, but right now, there’s still humans in the loop to ensure quality at Leet Resumes: https://leetresumes.com/
If you’re interested in our internals, expertise and philosophy on resume optimization, I’ve written our detailed technical documentation here: https://leetresumes.com/blog/leet-resumes-technical-resume-d...
And some examples of “before” and “after” are here: https://leetresumes.com/examples It might or might not surprise you that multiple colors, multiple columns, and filling your resume up with stuff other than your accomplishments is bad.
We believe in being transparent, open, data-driven, and helpful, so let me know what you think!