Format: Prepare your resume in a common format. Microsoft Word .doc files, or .rtf files, are the best. Use a fairly recent Word format. Avoid "macros" in Word.
It is also OK to prepare a .PDF file. I discourage pure ascii, PostScript or HTML resumes. Postscript is great for academic/Unix positions but not for the positions that I handle. With HTML, you run the risk of browser incompatibility.
Save your file to disk at 100% "zoom".
Do not send a URL for your on-line resume to a hiring manager. You will have about 8 seconds to get past the hiring manager's first reaction, and you don't want that time spent on internet downloading. If you really want to mention your web site, then send your resume as a .DOC file, and include there the URL for the on-line version. Another reason to send a .doc file instead of a URL: the URL may go stale. So if they dig out your email in their archives and get this response, as has happened to me:
Contact Information: Put your contact information at the top. By contact information I mean your complete address, phone number, and email. If you send me a resume with the address missing, I won't even process it. Probably some companies operate the same way. Provide a phone number that also accepts messages. Put your daytime phone number only if you can really receive telephone calls there during the day. If you give your home phone, then don't have the hiring manager listen to 2 minutes of your music on your home machine before a message can be left. Provide email, preferably not at your current employer. (And for a bonus point, would you hire someone whose resume gave this address?: "245 W California Street, California, CA, 94086").
Personal Information: Don't put marital status, family status, number of children, religious membership, politicaly party, age, or birthdate here or anywhere else on the resume. If you have extensive background abroad but are in fact a US citizen, state this to avoid the HR people coming to any other conclusion. If you are not a US citizen, do put your work status ("green card," "H1-B visa holder," etc.).
Objective: Put a one-line Objective directly below the contact information. Think carefully about what you want to do when you show up to work every morning at your next job, then put that down. Don't just say you want to be in the audio industry. Don't just say that you want to write software; instead tell us what kind of software (embedded, DSP, GUI, Windows application; assembler, C, C++, Java, ...). Don't say that you want to design hardware; tell us if you want to design boards, design FPGAs, PCI plug-in cards, Xilinx, and so on. If you mention management, make it clear whether you just want to manage, or whether you want to manage and do technical work at the same time. Example:
Objective: Implement assembly-language DSP audio algorithms.
Work history: Next comes your work history, in reverse chronological order. Structure it first by company. For each company, give the dates. If you were recruited to join a company, say so. If you give a URL for the company, then don't just give www.microsoft.com but instead point at the URL for the division where you worked.
If there is a large chronological gap between successive companies, be prepared to explain the gap in the first phone interview, or else forestall suspicion with a one-line item such as:
(June-September 1997, travel to South-east Asia)
But if you took two years off to get your Master's, no need to mention that in the reverse chronological list of companies, as long as there are no time gaps between jobs and schools when the hiring manager flips back and forth.
Within each company, give your title. If you had more than one position (title) in the company, devote separate space to each one. For example maybe you ended up as Senior Software Engineer, so that's the first one under that company. But maybe you started as Software Engineer for the first two years, so that's a later section inside that company. For each position/title, give the dates.
I do not encourage one-page resumes. But if you have more than, say, 10 years work experience, you may wish to be briefer about the older jobs. (A candidate recently pointed out that a one-page resume is still reasonable at a job fair, where you have the chance to interact with the interviewer and provide more detail on the spot).
Project descriptions: For each position in each company, provide a summary of each project that you did. In my opinion this is the meat of the resume. It is here that you will convince the hiring manager that you already have all the skills and experience for that new job you want. The description is either a bulleted list or a narrative. Tell us what you did, using phrases such as these:
implemented
designed
prototyped
developed
debugged
responsible for
project lead for
team leader for
managed
For each item, tell us (without giving away anything confidential)
What was the content of the work? By this I mean: you designed hardware for a PCI plug-in card, you wrote software for an audio console GUI....
What was the technology you used? Verilog, Visual C++, Tiger Sharc assembler, Matlab, ...
To the extent that is applicable, show how you were a member of a team or worked well with others.
Here are some examples:
Working with three other engineers, implemented a software music sequencer in Microsoft Windows C++ 5.0, using MFC. My responsibilities included GUI and MIDI file read/write.
Designed a 4-layer PCI plug-in card with 3 Xilinx chips, a Crystal XXX DAC/ADC, and an Analog Devices ADSP-2118 to implement 2-channel 24-bit 96-kHz direct-to-disk audio. This included analog circuitry such as headphone output amplifier and input buffering. Collaborated with device driver software engineer to specify and help debug Windows device drivers.
Developed an original algorithm for adaptive loudspeaker equalization. Prototyped in Matlab, ported to C++ for testing, implemented in Motorola 56300 assembler for final production run in 1996. Upgraded to Texas Instruments C6X assembler for a second version of the project in 1998. Patent application in progress.
With each project, you may also add one or two (at most) sentences explaining what was unique about the project and/or your contribution. For example you may explain that you came up with new techniques to optimize the discrete wavelet transform, or maybe your project was the first on the market. You can also give a URL if the product or project is viewable on-line.
Be careful with three-letter acronyms. Remember the resume will be first screened by the HR staff who do not have an MSEE. It is probably safe to use DAC as I have above; but will HR know that BER means bit error rate? How about DWT for Discrete Walsh Transform? If you think HR is focusing on text search matching, then include the acronym in parentheses:
Performed bit error rate (BER) tests on telephone line (frequency distortion / noise) simulators for product quality and reliability.
One hardware engineer had the good idea of collecting small pictures of hardware projects into one page of the resume. The candidate gave me permission to post a PDF of what the page with pictures looks like.
Training: After the list of jobs comes training, again in reverse chronological order. Put down the degree, the date of the degree, the institution, the city and state where the institution are located. If you wrote a Ph.D. thesis, a Master's project, or even an undergraduate thesis project, put down the title of the project. Put down GPA if it's good, otherwise just skip it. If you already have 2-3 years industry experience, usually there is no need to list the classes you took. If you studied with someone famous and you are sure that that professor will give you a good recommendation, then mention the professor's name here. If you did something else exceptional, such as Dean's List, graduated magna cum laude, or received an AES Fellowship, mention that. Think through your years at school and list here the projects that you did. For example, your master's thesis may be on reverberation, but to land an industry position it is important to tell us also that you implemented your reverberator design in Pentium assembler. Likewise, if you completed significant classroom projects, such as designing a DSP chip from scratch in your VLSI class, tell us that.
Affiliations: Do provide a list of relevant professional organizations to which you belong. If you've done something like local chapter chair, please mention that.
List of technologies: Some people like to put in a list of technologies with which they're familiar. I vote instead to put all those buzzwords into the body of the discussion of your industry and academic projects; see above.
Publications: Put in a list of publications that are relevant. But you don't have to list everything if you really have several dozen. You can add "complete list of publications available on request."
References: Don't include them here, just use a stock phrase such as "references available on request."
Salary history: I don't recommend putting this onto resumes for jobs that I handle. If you think the target company might not be able to afford you, then put your desired and/or current salary in the cover letter.
Relocation: If you will move anywhere in the free world, then put "willing to relocate." If you want to relocate to certain states or certain areas, then list them. If you really need to stay within greater Manhattan, then be explicit. This item alone will save everyone a lot of wasted effort.
Extracurricular: At the end, put in a section such as "personal interests." Here, do tell us about hobbies that have nothing to do with audio, music, technology (skiing, model boats, ornithology, ...) If you do have music or audio interests, mention them here. Maybe you do sound every week for some group. Maybe you play or played in a band. Maybe you have a home studio. Maybe you have played trombone since you were eight. A long-standing interest in music or audio will help you get jobs in this industry. This section is also a good place to mention things that show that you work well in groups, so if you're in an Ultimate Frisbee team or help with the local school auction, mention that here.
Creations: Do not include your compositions, art work, and the like with the resume. Instead, tell us that they're available on request, and/or point to your web site where we can hear your work with RealAudio or whatever.
Above all else: Do run the spell checker when you think you're done. Do not put "copyright" on your resume (yes, I've seen that!).
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