QA Engineering Manager Heather Wilcox provides tips on crafting your resume for QA and testing jobs. This was presented at the PNSQC Meetup in February 2024

1. Today’s Agenda
• 6:00-6:10 Opening Remarks
• 6:10-6:30 Heather Wilcox - “Crafting your resume for Today's Job
• Market”
• 6:30-6:50 Sue Loth - “Job Search Strategies”
• 6:50-7:10 Ron Wilson of Powin - ‘5 Tips for landing your dream job
• using LinkedIn and AI (ChatGPT’
• 7:10-7:15 Closing Note
• 7:15-8:00 Networking

2. Welcome to the Job Search Workshop!

3. PNSQC
The Organization
• The oldest software quality conference in North America
entering our 42nd year.
• Annual conference held in Portland, Oregon.
• Non-profit organization run by all volunteers.
• Focuses on the quality practitioner community.
• A range of topics and speakers - everything from automation
and distributed teams to measuring quality, AI/ML, and
Enterprise quality.
• Speakers focus on their own hands-on experience, rather than
consultants or vendors.
#PNSQC24 October 14-16, 2024

4. PNSQC - The Mission
Enabling Quality Through Community
• Without You, there is no Us
• The “Last Bastion of Mertiocracy”
• You don’t have to “Be Somebody” to present
• Papers accepted based on merit of ideas.
• We are dedicated to All Things Quality
• People, Software, Hardware, Systems, and Organizations.
• Everyone is Welcome in our community!!!!
#PNSQC24 October 14-16, 2024

5. Heather Wilcox Crafting your resume for Today's Job
Market

6. DISCLAIMER!!!!
• Resumes are variable in nature. There is no
right or wrong way to write one. However,
some ways are better than others.
• Anything I say can and will be used against me
in the Court of Opinion. :)
#PNSQC24 October 14-16, 2024

7. Hiring Manager Challenges
• ~500 Applicants/Resumes per position within a day or two
• ~480+ from recruiters
• Mostly “fake” candidates
• Resumes overstate qualifications (beyond the normal)
• Candidate name stuck on a “preformatted” resume
• Contain “Buzzword Bingo” words without backing
experience
• There’s only so much time to read resumes so…
• Need to quickly sort the “Wheat from the Chaff”
#PNSQC24 October 14-16, 2024

8. What We Want to See
• Looks like a real person wrote it
• ONE page that tells me if I want to read more
• Lead with the skills for the Job you’re applying for
• If you have a statement at the top, it better be good -
don’t waste my time.
• Put Job experience, extra stuff on additional pages
• If I’m looking past page 1 I’m interested, so hook me.
• It’s okay to have more than two pages
• But they better be relevant… (I don’t care about your
Pizza hut job when you were 19.)
#PNSQC24 October 14-16, 2024

9. Danger
Will
Robinson!
Example
Page 1
#PNSQC24 October 14-16, 2024

10. Danger
Will
Robinson!
Example
Page 2
#PNSQC24 October 14-16, 2024

11. Good?
Example
Page 1
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12. Good?
Example
Page 2
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13. Good?
Example
Last Page
#PNSQC24 October 14-16, 2024

14. Tricks you probably know….
• Create a master resume with “All the Things”
• Tailor for specific jobs
• Remove extraneous information (leave the job reference
but remove the details.
• Make it personal but also conforming
• Make sure keywords are included but not as a keyword list
• Avoid “Walls of Words”
• Be bold but honest. If you make it to the interview, you’d
better be able to support your claims.
#PNSQC24 October 14-16, 2024

15. QUESTIONS & THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!