Nail your next interview with the The Mobile Interview. The missing guide to prepare the technical interview for iOS and Android developers.
I have been the hiring manager and interviewer for small start-ups and Big Tech companies in the USA and Europe. I have interviewed hundreds of Android and iOS developers, Tech Leads and Engineering Managers. Whenever I have to fill a new role, I get to review more than 50 candidate resumes. In big companies, this number grows exponentially.
I have seen many candidates make the common mistake of thinking the interview process starts with the first call. In reality, it starts earlier, when your resume lands in the inbox of a recruiter.
Your resume (or LinkedIn profile) is the key to opening the door to that dream job. It won't land you the job, but it is undoubtedly decisive in whether you get offered a chance. So, trust me, it's worth investing time in refining your resume to stand out from the rest of hundreds (thousands in BigTech) candidates.
Let's boost your resume with ten simple tricks.
1. Focus on technical skills and experience.
Most recruiters and hiring managers do not read your resume. They SCAN it. They are looking for specific technologies, skills and levels of experience to identify which candidates are worth considering for a role quickly.
Make sure your resume highlights your experience and skills with concrete and specific examples. So, a reader can easily pick them up by scanning through it.
2. Don't describe the role. Highlight your direct contributions instead.
Most companies, and therefore people hiring for them, are already familiar with the roles (e.g. iOS Developer, Senior Android Engineer, Tech Lead, etc.). Please save your readers time describing the role for them.
Instead, highlight in a few bullet points (or sentences) what you achieved and learned during that time.
From
Senior Android Engineer @ Acme LLC (Sep 2020 to Present)
I was a senior Android engineer in the payments team. I worked on the company's Android app, developing new features following scrum and agile methodologies. I worked closely with other engineers, designers and product managers to define and implement new requirements. I proactively contributed to tech improvements in the codebase and documentation. Fixed several bugs to keep the app stable and helped improve technical documentation
To
Senior Android Engineer @ Acme LLC (Sep 2020 to Present)
- Developed business-critical features in the payments team, like the redesign of the paywall, which I led
- Increased the robustness of our networking layer by refactoring it to use Retrofit with Coroutines
- Documented the MVVM architecture followed with guidelines and examples
3. Back it up with data.
Help the reader understand the actual impact and value your direct contributions brought to the app, the team and the business by using quantitative data points. Doing something great is fantastic but meaningless if you don't help the reader understand why. Please explain what you achieved and why it was important for you, the team and the business.
From
Senior Android Engineer @ Acme LLC (Sep 2020 to Present)
- Developed business-critical features in the payments team, like the redesign of the paywall, which I led
- Increased the robustness of our networking layer by refactoring it to use Retrofit with Coroutines
- Documented the MVVM architecture followed with guidelines and examples
To
Senior Android Engineer @ Acme LLC (Sep 2020 to Present)
- Led business-critical features for the app's payments team (XM MAU, >$Yk monthly)
- Delivered a redesigned paywall to reduce friction. Increased paid subscription conversions by 30% (+$Zk monthly)
- Reduced app crashes by 20% by simplifying the networking layer with Retrofit and Coroutines
- Documented the app architecture (MVVM), creating more than 10 high-quality guidelines and several code examples and templates
4. Keep it brief and to the point.
A well-known rule is to limit your resume to one page. I'm not joking. I know hiring managers first-hand who do not read past the first page.
For more senior folks with 15+ years of experience, cover your last 2-3 positions or the last 8-10 years, focusing on your roles and experience most relevant to the job. If you're applying for a Director of Engineering role, don’t list your summer internship 20 years ago (despite how much fun it was and all the fantastic things you learned, I get it 😛)
5. Real estate is expensive; use it wisely.
Now that we have established the one-page rule. If you are having issues adjusting the length to the above rule, here are a few tips and common mistakes to avoid:
- For each role, mention your top achievements. List only the most relevant achievements you had in each role (3-4 bullet points per role).
- Reduce details for older roles and education. This is particularly true with seniority. When you're a recent graduate or have less experience, it's okay to have details on your degrees and school projects. It becomes less relevant as you accumulate hands-on, on-the-job experience.
- Push down and prune the rest. Side Projects, Certifications, Open Source Contributions, Interests and Hobbies are relevant as long as you can highlight clearly why. Keep them to the most relevant and tailored to the job spec.
6. Tailor it to the role and company.
The perfect resume should tell a story that matches the specific job spec and the hiring company's values. It usually works best to create a template and produce different versions for each role and company you apply to. That way, you can ensure it highlights the key technologies, practices and experiences they seek.
For example, don't list all the technologies, tools, and languages you have ever used. Instead, only mention relevant technologies you are confident with (whiteboard-coding-interview confident) that you could go deep into if requested in the interview.
From
Experienced with the following technologies, programming languages and tools: Kotlin, Java, C#, Rust, Jira, GitHub, CircleCI, Android Studio, Ruby, Rails, Fastlane, Gradle, Amazon AWS, Firebase, Retrofit, Coroutines, MVP, MVVM, JSON, Visual Studio, SQLite, Trello, Sketch, Adobe Photoshop, Sublime, Git, Jetpack, XML
To
Experience:
- Languages: Kotlin, Java, C#
- Technologies: Retrofit, Combine, Firebase, AWS
- Other: Modular Architectures, E2E Testing, RESTful API Design, Relational DBs
If you are applying to an Android developer role:
- Everyone expects you to have experience with Android Studio.
- You did C# in school but have yet to use it since? Toyed with Rust on your side project? Unless listed as a job requirement, do not mention them.
- Remove all star dare tools and skills that anyone can pick up (e.g. GitHub, Jira, Sketch, CircleCI, JSON, etc)
Even better, inline the technologies with the projects. It helps understand recency and better show expertise with real examples.
Oh! Talking about expertise. Please do not rate yourself. I've seen many candidates adding a section with scores, rating themselves stars in each technology. Let me tell you a secret: interviewers don't care how good you think you are. Their job is to assess that by themselves.
Self-rating your skills is likely to harm you more than help you.
- If you rate yourself as an expert or 5/5 stars on a technology. Many managers will doubtfully read this. If you've spent enough time in the industry, it is hard to know everything
- If you rate yourself in technologies as proficient or 3-4 stars, it is probably a good sign that you should not be mentioning this technology at all. Plus, if this technology happens to be essential to the job, the recruiter may see it as a gap and disqualify you.
7. Format for readability.
Optimise for a format that lets the reader find out the information they are looking for quickly. For example, the latest role, years of experience, career progression, etc.
Small tricks like keeping all job titles, dates, and company info aligned can make a huge difference. I encourage you to check The Pragmatic Engineer's template as a fantastic example of a clean, clear and easy-to-read resume (>6,500 downloads).
8. Quality Matters. Avoid typos and other clumsy mistakes.
Don't do them, period. Use a spell-checker like Grammarly and ensure you are not giving the impression of being careless by easy-to-make clumsy typos. Oh! And double check all links work and take the reader where you want them.
9. Ask for a second opinion
Ask a friend with a relevant background to review your resume and give you honest, constructive feedback. Take it on board!
10. Iterate
If you are not receiving callbacks to the jobs you are applying for, the resume is not doing its job. Review it and iterate over it, trying different ideas to see what improves conversion as you would do with any other app or product.
Happy job hunting!
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