If you are staring at a blank page or need to improve your resume, this post should help.

For context, I'm a former Google Recruiter who runs a resume writing service dedicated to IT & Software Engineering

I've worked with more than 1,000 clients, many of whom come to me with common struggles and questions. I try to address each of these with this blog, so that everyone can benefit from insider knowledge for free.

In my last article on How recruiters screen resumes, I explained that your CV is reviewed at least twice before a decision to interview is made.

That article provided an overview of the hiring process and gave you a checklist to optimize for the first filter (Initial Screen) applied by recruiters.

You're probably curious about the rest of the process, so today we'll cover the next logical step: how to get shortlisted.

For your reference, here's a quick reminder of the different screening phases within the hiring process:

The "Shortlisting" review

In the previous post, I explained that your most recent position is one of the 3 key pieces of information a recruiter seeks to make a decision. Where the initial screen was just a rapid skim, this time it will be read entirely, most likely by the recruiter and the hiring manager.

At this point, it's critical for you to understand how this review is performed. Reviewers are going to have a (more or less formalized) list of core competencies they want to see appear within the description of your roles.

At that stage, most of the resumes under consideration are relevant, so addressing most of these topics (core competencies) is critical to score the extra points needed to stand out.

Here's the key takeaway: Just writing down what you think matters isn't enough. You need to prove that you can excel in all (or most) aspects of the position.

So... how do you know what these core competencies are? You need a role profile!

What's a Role Profile?

"Role Profile" is an HR term used to define a position with a set of duties, scope/complexity and seniority.

The more competitive an employer is, the more sophisticated that definition is. For example, FAANG would have detailed internal documentation to define and assess any role within their organization.

These are not job descriptions! These role profiles also theorize levels of autonomy, leadership, problem solving, and other qualitative aspects.

These frameworks are used by recruiters to assess candidates and by hiring managers to evaluate their team during performance reviews. These criteria are very clear in their minds when your resume is being screened.

This means that you need to get a good idea of the role profile for your target position to write a competitive resume.

It’s an editorial exercise.

This may sound abstract, so we're going to use a real-life example. Check out this next section for a step-by-step guide!

Step 1 - Collect Job Descriptions

We need the data first and the best data you can find are job descriptions.

You're probably thinking “I've read many of them already” ... but I doubt you've ever analyzed them in detail and objectively. Job descriptions are more insightful than you think, especially when you know how to read between the lines.

In the resume screen post, we used a Front-End Developer position as an example, so let’s use that here too for simplicity.

📌 What we'll do:

You'll need to gather around 5 job descriptions for your target roles.Your selected job descriptions need to be consistent in terms of:

1. Job Title (example: Front-End Developer)
2. Company Type (example: FinTech startups)
3. Seniority (example: Junior)

The more job descriptions you use, the better, but if your target is clear, most of them will be similar, so adding more won’t help much after a point.

For the sake of our example, we'll target a Front-End role at FAANG/Big Tech companies, so we should gather job descriptions from Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and the like. I want to keep this post simple so I'll only show you 2 of them, but you'll get the gist.

Bear in mind that we'll need to analyze the entire job description (not only the "requirements" part, which is actually the least insightful).

For reference, here are the 2 job descriptions I've selected

📌 JD 1 - Front End Engineer, FinAuto @ Amazon

source: Amazon Jobs

📌 JD 2 - Software Engineer, Front-End @ Meta

source: Meta Careers

Step 2 - List "Topics" & "Notions"

Next, we’re going to build a 2-column table with 2 headers named "Topics" and "Notions".

• In the “Topic” column, we'll list the areas of contribution and concepts included in the job description.
• In “Notion”, we'll list any term related to a specific topic. We'll put down the exact wording used in the job description.
• For engineering roles, I like to separate technical and non-technical topics to provide reviewers with more clarity, but this is optional.

Analyzing JD 1 (Amazon)

Technical

Non-Technical

Step 3 - Structure your Job Block

Step 4 - Write bullet points

Bonus: Finished Job Block Example

Conclusion

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