Cracking the Coding Interview, 4 Edition - 150 Programming Interview Questions and Solutions

Before the Interview | Resume Advice
What Resume Screeners Look For
Resume screeners look for the same things that interviewers do:
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Are you smart?
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Can you code?
That means that you should present your resume to show those two things. Your love of
tennis, traveling, or magic cards won’t do much to show that, so it’s likely just wasting space.
Keep in mind that recruiters only spend a fixed amount of time (about 20 seconds) looking
at your resume. If you limit the content to the best, most impressive, most relevant items,
they’ll jump out at the recruiter. Weak items only dilute your resume and distract the recruiter
from what you’d like them to see.
Employment History
Relevant Jobs: Your resume does not
- and should not - include a full history
of every role you’ve ever had. Your job
serving ice cream, for example, will not
show that you’re smart or that you can
code. Include only the relevant things.
Writing Strong Bullets: For each role,
try to discuss your accomplishments
with the following approach: “Accomplished
X by implementing Y which led
to Z.” Here’s an example:
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“Reduced object rendering time
by 75% by applying Floyd’s algorithm,
leading to a 10% reduction
in system boot time.”
Here’s another example with an alternate
wording:
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“Increased average match accuracy
from 1.2 to 1.5 by implementing
a new comparison algorithm
based on windiff.”
Not everything you did will fit into
this approach, but the principle is the
Got some extra time to prepare?
If you have at least a couple months
before an interview (or if you’re in school
and not graduating yet), you may be able
to improve your resume.
Go out and get project experience! Take
course that have major projects. Get
involved in open source. Ask a professor if
there is any research you can get involved
in, or ask if he/she can sponsor you on an
independent study.
This will put you in a better position to
have your resume selected down the
road. It will also give you lots of things to
talk about in an interview.
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Cracking the Coding Interview