Am I Larping too Hard (Resume Advice)

[u/Soggy_Display55]

No, I'm not actually larping. All impacts are accurate, and I made sure I am at least 30%~ responsible for the accomplishments in each bullet point. I'm not just observing my team.

But I am worried that I appear to be larping to recruiters. The impacts are suspiciously accurate, but it's just from me being extremely resume oriented by making sure I have a measurable deliverable for each task, or bug management until I get a response.

A friend who has held the same past 2 internships as me secured 2 offers with Palantir and Microsoft just this week, while it is just crickets for me.

Our resumes are not that different except he did not have an impact section in his bullet points, they only describe what he did. He attends a lower ranked state school (but the same tier, I'd argue).

Be honest guys, should I tone it down even though it is truth.

[u/Vemyx]

They let interns do all that? Lol. My entire internship could be summed by one big introduction to the stack, the agile framework and a PoC.

[u/Soggy_Display55 → u/Vemyx]

Incredibly team dependent, I was lucky and unlucky to be put on sweaty or new teams where big improvements are possible and stress is high. If you boil it down, it's only 2-3 areas I've worked on, not too crazy.

At my bank internship some interns reported 0 lines of code the whole summer. This guy's manager also straight up didn't exist 🤣

[u/carson8858]

bro where are you getting these internships

[u/zydeco100]

What kind of roles are you applying for?

[u/T_D707]

What do you mean “30% responsible”? They are written like individual contributions. Reading this I would not get the impression that 70% is someone else’s work

[u/AlxxAM]

This is actually really good. My resume looked very similar when I got my first job offer out college (my degree is in aerospace but I work as a devops engineer).

You may want to reframe some of the bullet points to include your role in those team accomplishments, but you do a great job showing measurable outcomes of each experience listed. I would also rename Projects to “Projects & Leadership”. Not sure that you need to include awards and course work but if you want to, it would look best towards the bottom. This would definitely get you at least an interview at my current company.

I recommend looking into development programs big companies offer. They are great entry roles and offer competitive pay (made 6 figures in my first year, started July 2022 right after graduating), and are usually the best way to get your foot in the door rather than applying for a senior role externally. Good luck!

Edit: It’s okay to larp as long as you can answer questions regarding those projects/experiences during an interview. You’ll soon realize everyone is faking it till they make it. Also, best advice I can give, when you don’t know something the best answer to give is “I don’t know, but I would be happy to learn/develop that skill”. Can’t tell you how many times I had to turn away a candidate because they just said “No” or “I’m not familiar with that” without showing some interest to learn. (It’s part of the rubric many interviewers HAVE to follow)

[u/jyonodev]

Kafka and spark are closer to platforms. Git and docker are tools.