Recently I came across an article which discussed what would be deemed a “Google-worthy” resume, as in, not just your standard well-written CV, but one that could go above and beyond to attract interest from tech giants such as Google, and how to write one.

Yes, it is possible to attract the attention of Google, with their 2 million a month applications and all, through a fantastic, Google-worthy resume. I would know, you could say through personal experience, as I accepted a four-month assignment helping them wrap up a major project, which gave me a unique inside perspective on who they hire, how and why.

While I was approached through an industry referral, other full-time googlers I worked with landed their job through various means, the most common being:

  • They went to a top-tier school (although this is becoming the case less and less)
  • They worked on an amazing project during college/university and got hired before they could even graduate
  • They had senior/management experience at other leading companies and startups
  • They wrote and submitted a killer resume (and not via a friend of a friend, but through an actual job posting)

 

Aside from high achievement, all of the above reasons have one thing in common: proven results, particularly the last three, which are now starting to outshine the Ivy League pedigree (because among other things, SAT scores can only prove so much). Demonstrating your strengths and successes in a tangible way helps you showcase what you have to offer in a factual, undisputable way. Launching a successful startup when you’re 20 (or at any age, really), or leading a division through several projects, and being able to articulate all of that on an 11-and-a-half by eight-inch piece of paper will do just that.

Therefore, when writing a Google-worthy resume, Laszlo Bock, Google’s senior vice president of people operations offers this advice:

    “The key,” he said, “is to frame your strengths as: ‘I accomplished X, relative to Y, by doing Z.’ Most people would write a resume like this: ‘Wrote editorials for The New York Times.’ Better would be to say: ‘Had 50 op-eds published compared to average of 6 by most op-ed [writers] as a result of providing deep insight into the following area for three years.’ Most people don’t put the right content on their resumes.”

It’s that simple really, back up your strengths and accomplishments with real, measurable data (are you surprised? This is Google, after all).
Whether you’re a community college dropout who just sold his first company, or a genius Stanford grad, if you can support every single job role, project, achievement and strength with clear, concise, quantitative examples, then you can absolutely catch the attention of awesome companies, including Google… and Workopolis of course!