Common Mistakes On Engineering Internship Resumes

I’ve reviewed 500+ applications as a recruiter at Amazon, Microsoft, and TikTok. This is the kind of resume that gets rejected in 3 seconds. I'll break down why such resumes fail to create an impact and how you can avoid such mistakes. Problem 1: Too much, too soon Two degrees, 15+ courses, and 30+ tools listed - all in the top half. Recruiters don’t need a tech stack dump upfront. Instead: ➡️ Start with a skills summary tied to impact-driven achievements. ➡️ Highlight tools you’ve mastered, not dabbled in. Problem 2: Responsibilities ≠ results Worked with IT to maintain PC and network health. Okay... but how did it matter? Reduced downtime? Saved costs? Improved performance by X%? Instead: ➡️ Write impact-focused bullets — e.g., “Reduced network downtime by 35% through system upgrades.” Problem 3: Irrelevant experience Amazon Prime Shopper role at Whole Foods is listed in detail. Unless applying for retail or logistics, this distracts. Instead: ➡️ Group unrelated roles under a single “Other Experience” section. ➡️ Focus on transferable skills like teamwork, deadlines, or inventory handling — but keep it brief. Problem 4: Projects without purpose Projects sound impressive but lack outcomes. E.g., “Built an AI model to detect human emotion.” Questions recruiters ask: What accuracy did it achieve? Was it deployed? How did it solve a problem? Instead: ➡️ Add metrics — e.g., “Improved emotion detection accuracy by 20% and reduced processing time by 15%.” Here’s the hard truth: Most resumes don’t fail because candidates lack skills. They fail because they fail to communicate impact. If you're not receiving calls from recruiters despite applying to 100s of jobs, it could be due to your resume. Repost this if you found value. P.S. Follow me if you are an Indian job seeker in the U.S. I share insights on job search, interview prep, and more.

I reviewed 4,000+ resumes last year. Avoid these mistakes that 90% make: 1. FOCUS ON ATS OPTIMIZATION ❌ Candidates pack their resumes with keywords to beat ATS systems but forget to make them readable and user-friendly. ✅ Remember there’s always a real person reviewing your resume (!) 2. GENERIC SUMMARIES ❌ "Experienced professional seeking to contribute my skills in a dynamic company." ✅ "Product Manager who launched 3 successful SaaS tools, driving $2.5M in revenue within the first year.” 3. NO COMPANY DESCRIPTIONS ❌ Listing company names without context. ✅ "XYZ Inc. | SaaS startup in data security, serving 100k+ enterprise clients.” 4. FOCUS ON RESPONSIBILITIES ❌ "Managed projects and oversaw deadlines." ✅ "Led 3+ cross-functional teams, delivering 7 projects on time with a 98% client satisfaction rate.” 5. TOO MUCH FOCUS ON EARLY JOBS ❌ Detailed descriptions of high school internships or your first retail job. ✅ Highlight key accomplishments from the last 10 years that showcase your growth. 6. NO METRICS OR DATA ❌ "Improved performance and reduced costs." ✅ "Increased team efficiency by 20% and cut operational costs by $50K annually.” 7. TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE TEXT ❌ Dense paragraphs or single-sentence descriptions. ✅ Concise bullet points that provide enough detail to convey impact. 8. IRRELEVANT INFORMATION ❌ Listing outdated or irrelevant skills (using Slack, Outlook) ✅ Focus on skills and experiences that match the job you want. 9. TYPOS ✅ Double-check for spelling errors, or use tools like Grammarly or ChatGPT to catch mistakes. Which of those mistakes you’ve seen? Or you’ve made?  I'm Kris Holysheva 👋 Follow me for more hiring tips.

Are you a student or early-career professional struggling to get callbacks after submitting your resume? I’ve been there. During my first year of grad school, I blamed the job market when I didn’t get a single interview for nearly seven months. I started applying for Summer 2024 internships in August 2023, but didn’t receive my first callback until March 2024. Over time, I began refining my resume based on what the industry values and what it takes to stand out. That made all the difference. Here are some of the most important lessons I’ve learned: 1. Keep the Format Simple Avoid horizontal lines, text-heavy formatting, or excessive bolding. They clutter your resume and make it harder to read. Could you stick to one page? If you can’t explain your work clearly and concisely, you’re not ready to present it. 2. Don’t Just List Tools or Describe the Problem, Explain What You Did Many students focus too much on the business problem (“Built a dashboard for retail analytics”) and gloss over the engineering behind it. Even worse, some just list the tools used: “Used Python, Flask, and AWS to build a service that did X.” Instead, go deeper. What did your Flask service do, exactly? What challenges did you face? What decisions did you make? As engineers, we’re expected to show technical depth. If your resume can’t reflect that, you’ll struggle to stand out, especially for technical roles. 3. Be Realistic with Metrics Many resumes include lines like: “Improved model accuracy from 12% to 95%.” This kind of stat, usually influenced by generic advice from career centers or the internet, raises red flags. It often signals that the project wasn’t technically complex to begin with. Instead of inflating numbers, focus on what you improved, how you improved it, and why your work mattered. Strong technical framing > flashy percentages. 4. Clarity > Buzzwords You might write something like: “Leveraged CUDA for token-level optimization of transformer inference under real-time constraints.” It sounds cool, but what does it mean? This happens when people assume the reader will be as familiar with the project as they are. But if someone in your field has to guess what you did, you’ve already lost them. Don’t rely on buzzwords to do the talking; let clarity drive the message. 5. Your Resume Isn’t for You Your resume isn’t meant to impress you. It’s intended to communicate what you’ve done to people who don’t share your background. Most first-round reviewers aren’t ML engineers or CUDA developers. They often rely on keyword checklists and rubrics to decide which resumes move forward. The one thing that matters is: Can you clearly explain what you did and why it mattered? That’s it. Feel free to put your thoughts in the comments. Follow me for more advice!

Applying to 100s of jobs and not getting interviews? There's a good chance the problem is your résumé. After looking at 1000s of résumés, I've seen it all. Here are 7 common résumé mistakes and how to fix them: 1️⃣ Bullets focused on function instead of IMPACT ↳ Created content for various social media platforms. Better: "Created a social media campaign that led to a 4X increase in engagement, and over $200K in new business in 6 months." 🌟Why It Matters? Documenting impact shows not just what you’ve done, but how well you’ve done it. 2️⃣ Listing general duties instead of specific DETAILS. ↳ Analyzed and reported data on customers to senior leadership Better: 'Used R and Tableau to analyze customer fraud metrics, producing monthly reports on key indicators for senior leadership." 🌟Why It Matters? Details show the hiring manager that you have applied your skills in similar situations. 3️⃣ Summaries that try to fit in instead of STAND OUT. ↳ “Results-driven professional with strong communications skills...” Better: “Dedicated and collaborative project manager with experience navigating complex challenges under time and budget constraints.” 🌟Why It Matters? The candidates who land interviews don’t have “boiler plate” résumés that look like everyone else’s. 4️⃣ Using AI language instead of being AUTHENTIC. ↳ Utilized my competencies to effectuate revenue augmentation. Better: "Able to quickly build rapport and turn prospects into satisfied customers, consistently exceeding sales quotas." 🌟Why It Matters? Recruiters look at 1000s of résumés and know AI language (which can be flowery and awkward) when they see it. 5️⃣ Sloppiness instead of clean, clear and ERROR-FREE. ↳ Typos, awkward sentences and formats that are hard to read. Better: Correct grammar and punctuation throughout the document, in a consistent easy to read format. 🌟Why It Matters? “Detail-oreinted professional who takes great care with thier work,” shows neither detail-orientation nor care. 6️⃣ Going for flashy design instead of EASY TO READ. ↳ Including graphics, icons, multiple fonts and colors. Better: Sticking with a clean and simple format that is easy on the eye. 🌟Why It Matters? Graphics, multiple fonts and colors can be difficult for applicant tracking software to read. Details may be lost in the initial scan, leading to an automatic rejection. 7️⃣ Confusing work details instead of CONSISTENCY. ↳ Having different jobs and dates on your résumé vs. LinkedIn. Better: Alignment on jobs, titles, dates, and your skill set across all branded materials and platforms. Why It Matters? 🌟87% of recruiters look at your LinkedIn profile before deciding to interview you. Any inconsistency raises questions, and gives a hiring manager a reason to pass. Recruiters/Hiring Managers: What would you add to the list? ♻️ Share to help others create strong résumés! 🔔 Follow Sarah Baker Andrus for more career strategies 📌Need support in your job search? DM me to chat!

I've reviewed >100k resumes in my career. So many people make easy to fix mistakes. Here's what I wish everyone knew before submitting an application: Contact info - Include email, linkedin, github/portfolio - Show the actual linkedin url, don't hyperlink with different link text - Include city / state (or relevant to country), full address isn't necessary - designers: password protect at your peril, resume reviewers are lazy Use standard resume template - Order should be Name / contact details --> work xp --> education - Work xp should be listed most recent --> least recent - Use specific dates (month + year) - No sensitive info (DOB, Citizenship, Marital Status, Religion, etc) - No pictures - No skills / jobs chronology "side-bar" 🙄 - No skills / accreditations alphabet soup at top of resume No "fun" stuff - No weird colors (just black) - No "fun" font selection - *Designers, this section doesn't apply to you* Be concise - Max 2 pages - No more than 6 bullets per job - Bullets should be no longer than 1 line (no wrapping text) - Distill, distill, distill - resumes ARE NOT exhaustive - Do not use evasive language (unclear dates, titles, etc) - Use commonly understood (but select) metrics to exhibit impact Errors - No spelling errors!!! - HAVE SOMEONE ELSE PROOFREAD!!!!!!! ------------------------------------------ Resumes are not a place for innovation. More is not better. Be selective and thoughtful. Accept that you will get very little attention from resume reviewers - your job is to decide what to communicate in that very short span. Your resume is a MARKETING TOOL - it's intended to help you get an interview. It is NOT intended to document all of your experience. That's what the interview is for! What else belongs on this list? Any ya'll disagree with? ------------------------------------------ 👋 Follow me (Jordan Mazer), Caitlin Cooke & Jordan Carver for more tips just like this. 🏃♀️ Join the a16z speedrun talent network here: https://lnkd.in/geyt5f9b

Recently I am reviewing a lot of resumes to help my unfortunate friends that are laid off. The most common mistakes I see are; 1) Talking about what you did more than your accomplishments and impact Statements like these: “developed an application in Java, implemented features, project managed, was a scrum master” etc…, makes HMs get curious about these questions: “But were you successful? How did you measure success? How did you do according to this measurement? With that work what kind of value your company gained?” etc… HMs care about measurable accomplishments more so than just doing things blindly. Accomplishments make the resume standout more and a lot more impactful. I’m not saying every statement needs to be an accomplishment, but you need some accomplishments mentioned. There are many articles online about this, “X-Y-Z formula” is a common technique to use. 2) Not tailoring your resume to position you are applying The first step in recruitment process is almost always a resume review, which involves someone, potentially not in your craft, to compare the resume to the position requirements. So make sure your resume showcases all the things they are looking for very clearly. Relevant experiences with technologies and skills they care should be mentioned. If this requires you to have multiple resumes, even one per job, so be it. You want to standout among the competition. 3) Using big paragraphs instead of bullet points Bullet points might sound a bit mechanical but they make the resumes very easy to read. Big paragraphs just frustrate the resume reviewers. 4) Not keeping things simple and readable I don’t remember a single case where an applicant was preferred due to a fancy resume. Content and readability are a lot more important. 5) Lots of typos and grammar mistakes Gives an impression of lack of attention to detail and sloppiness. There are many online tools to check typos and grammar. 6) Too long resume No resume reviewer will be happy to go through a 10 page resume. Focus on recent and relevant experience more. HMs don’t care that much the details of your job or school projects from 10+ years ago. For folks that are fairly new in the industry (5- years) I would say a single page resume is enough. For more experienced folks, don’t pass 2 pages. What do you all think? Am I missing anything?