- Sahil Dua taught himself the fundamentals of software engineering while in college.
- Dua shares the resume that helped her land her first job in Amsterdam, a software development position.
- He also emphasizes the importance of increasing awareness both in-person and online.
Sahil Dua’s journey into software and computer science began with a robotics competition.
In my first year of college in Delhi, I studied electronics engineering and started building robots with my friends. He soon realized that he was more passionate about software than hardware and began learning outside of his classroom.
“Everything I learned in computer science was actually learned on my own time in addition to studying for my electronics degree,” he told Business Insider.
Over the next three years in college, Dua taught herself to code and learned about different operating systems and networks. He applied these lessons to several tech internships and co-founded a startup company.
While Indian students often look for jobs through university, Dua actively applied for jobs on her own, including opportunities overseas.
This is the resume he used to land a position in the software development graduate program at Booking.com in Amsterdam right after college. He then used the same template and an updated version of his resume for his software engineering role at Google, where he worked for over four years.
Dua is currently a senior machine learning engineer in Google’s Zurich office.
BI has verified his work history.
Looking back at the documents, Dua said that two things on her resume helped her in her job search. Also, if he were a junior developer now, he would change two things.
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Highlight your project: He said listing sections for projects helped give interviewers a starting point for discussion before he had extensive work experience. “These projects helped me stand out even when I was looking for a job straight out of college because they proved I had work experience.” Dua He said he applies the same principle to his LinkedIn profile, where he lists 26 projects.
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Use your own format. Dua needed a template that would solve two purposes. First, I realized that a one-column resume doesn’t give me enough space to list everything. “The second reason is that I wanted my resume to stand out,” but not “so extreme that it looks weird,” he said of his two-column template.he found this template GitHub.
He plans to make some adjustments, such as removing links to his personal Twitter account and reducing his focus on education, but for now there are two other ways he can increase his visibility.
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Build your personal brand: Mr. Dua said he would revamp the “accomplishments” section of his resume to include projects such as speaking at technology conferences. Speaking at events such as his PyCon, a conference focused on Python, gave him visibility within the industry even early in his career and led to the opportunity to write a book.
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Make yourself searchable online: Dua has taken steps to increase her online visibility by adding a link to her online profile on her resume. “Whenever he takes a course online, he posts it on LinkedIn as a certificate,” he said of learning new skills like machine learning. This ensures that “my profile is being clicked on or showing up high when people are searching for those fields.” On LinkedIn, he uses his Current Jobs section to add more about his role and accomplishments than a one-page resume would allow.
Career experts recommend Dua’s approach to enhancing your LinkedIn profile to make it more searchable.
Nick Sher, 26, founder of Peterson Technology Partners, said recruiters are actively searching for candidates using keywords. A technical staffing company based in Park Ridge, Illinois.
“Job seekers should research keywords related to their industry and incorporate them into their profiles to increase their chances of appearing in search results and attracting the attention of recruiters,” Shah previously told BI. Ta.
Shah said job seekers should clearly define their role in LinkedIn’s work history section and provide examples and accomplishments, similar to what Dua does in her profile.
Do you work in technology, finance, or consulting and have a story to share about your personal resume writing journey? Email this reporter at [email protected].