4 Computer Science Resume Red Flags to Avoid (from a Recruiter)
Don’t let a simple mistake take you out of the running!
As a part time recruiter for an online Computer Science academy called Juni Learning, I’ve conducted my fair share of phone screens and technical interviews. That’s hundreds of college CS majors whose resumes I reviewed and whom I spoke to over Zoom to gauge their technical skill in Computer Science.
Obviously, I’m a Computer Science major myself, so I’ve been on the other side of the table as an interviewee as well, particularly for Software Engineering Internships and Full-time jobs. I feel extremely lucky to have had experience as an interviewer, and my knowledge of how recruiting works certainly helped me score 6 Software Engineering internship offers my Junior year and 4 full-time offers the following year.
At Juni, I saw plenty of faux pas that I made sure to eradicate from my own resume, as well as some interesting ideas that I infused into my resume as well. And I don’t claim to have intimate knowledge of the candidates’ software engineering skills (that wasn’t what I was on the lookout for) but I can cut through the BS of a resume pretty quickly. I imagine that more seasoned recruiters are only better at this than I am.
If you’re here for a good time (and not a long time), jump to #4! It is perhaps the best piece of advice that could really make or break your resume.
1. Sending in a Word Document
If you’ve been sending in your resume as a Word document to applications, its time to switch to PDF. After all, PDF stands for “Portable Document Format,” so it was literally created for this express purpose — sharing a document with others.
Your Word document might look fine on your own computer, but there’s simply no way to verify what it looks like on anyone else’s computer. The recruiter who opens your file could be using a different version of Word, Pages on a Mac, TextEdit, not have the font you used, etc. The list of possible errors (that absolutely do happen) goes on and on.
Or, a recruiting platform like Lever will automatically generate a PDF version for the recruiter, and you have no way of knowing if that file conversion successfully kept your format intact. This is a terrible gamble on your first impression, because the first thing I do when reviewing a candidate is take a look at the resume.
2. Not Checking the PDF Format
A lot of these red flags have to do with formatting, and it’s because I would say that roughly 10% of the resumes that reached my desk had some formatting issue that I’m certain wasn’t intended by the candidate. I’ve seen completely unreadable PDF versions with a few lines onto a second page (even though I bet the Word document was a nice single page) or margins cut off (maybe they chose to create a printer friendly PDF).
It’s not enough to just generate a PDF file and send it in; you have to make sure that the file you send in is still correctly formatted. There are all sorts of issues that pop up when converting to PDF, starting with whether you select “best for printing” (the default) or “best for electronic distribution.” “Electronic Distribution” has always worked for me on Word, but the bottom line is that your resume is too important a document to send in cavalierly — check your PDF’s!
3. Writing a Generalist Resume
If you’re applying to a Computer Science related role, like a Software Engineering Internship, you need a Computer Science Resume. I was never impressed by a generalist resume.When I see a generalist resume (for example, one that equally highlights their experience in a second major subject) I have 3 thoughts:
- The candidate is too lazy to create more than one resume.
- The candidate doesn’t have enough Computer Science experience to warrant a separate resume.
- The candidate isn’t committed to Computer Science (as opposed to the countless other resumes that are specifically tailored to CS).
None of those thoughts are positive, so it’s best to have a resume focused entirely on your Computer Science related accomplishments.
4. Obvious Efforts to Compensate Lack of Experience
First of all, if you are a college student it’s perfectly okay to not have much experience. There are certainly ways to gain more experience, though, and you definitely don’t need to land an internship to have a stellar resume. If you need some thoughts for how to beef up your resume, take a look at my thoughts here:
But I constantly see overt efforts to “extend” resumes in an effort to make it look better. Here’s a (non comprehensive) list of things I saw on resumes that screamed, “I’m trying to make up for lack of experience!”
- Making the margins slightly larger.
- Spacing the resume anything other than the “1.0” option.
- Large font size (the only acceptable size is between 10 and 12).
- Having multiple columns (this is what I did previously, because it “organically” adds a middle margin in the resume too).
- Wording your bullet points so that they take up more than one line and overflow a bit onto the next.
- Adding a picture of yourself.
- Adding an “objective statement” at the top of the resume (please never, never do this).
If that’s you, don’t worry, lots of people do it. I saw some set of these tactics on many of the resumes I reviewed, mostly for Freshman and Sophomore candidates. I was willing to give a slight pass on younger candidates, but once you hit Junior year a resume that needs help to fit a full page is a huge red flag.
The bottom line is that it is immediately obvious to recruiters when you are compensating for a lack of experience. I argue that at the very least, it feels more honest when I see the same resume but without the formatting slight-of-hand. I tend to give those a closer look at the experience they do have.
There you have it. Remember that your resume is your first impression and the right way to stand out is through the stellar content of your resume. Don’t waste your time trying to artificially extend your resume, and instead go out and create more experience yourself!
Finally, treat your resume like a priceless artifact — it is a representation of your proudest career accomplishments. Obsess over exactly how your resume will show up on the recruiters desk to ensure a good first impression.
Happy job hunting!
