Resume, Portfolio & GitHub Profile
Resume, portfolio and GitHub profile flashcards
Flashcards on how applications are read, resume format and bullets, tailoring, LaTeX, portfolio projects, GitHub, portfolio sites, LinkedIn and privacy.
246 cards. Read the question, answer it in your head, then open the card to check.
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What are the two jobs of a resume?
First it has to win you the next conversation. Once you are invited, interviewers pick their questions from it, so each line has to hold up when someone asks about it.
From the lesson What a resume is for and who reads it
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Which test should every line of a resume pass before you keep it?
Could you talk about it for about five minutes: what you did, why, how you measured it and what you would now do differently? A line you cannot explain may get you through a screen and then cost you the interview.
From the lesson What a resume is for and who reads it
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In what order do the readers of a typical application see it?
Software first: a tracking system stores the file and indexes its text. A recruiter then checks the fit with the posting, the hiring manager reads for depth, and each interviewer rereads the page before their round. Some employers merge or skip steps.
From the lesson What a resume is for and who reads it
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What does each reader of an application need from the page?
The tracking system needs readable text in sections it can recognise. The recruiter needs the posting's requirements easy to spot near the top. Hiring managers and interviewers need substance: what you built, how big it was and what changed.
From the lesson What a resume is for and who reads it
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About how many words does a short first screen cover?
At an average adult silent reading rate of 238 words a minute, a 7.4-second look takes in about 29 words and a 30-second skim about 119. Your name, your target role and one measured result should sit in the opening lines.
From the lesson What a resume is for and who reads it
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How do a resume, a job CV, an academic CV and a marriage biodata differ?
A resume (US and Canada) and a CV for a job (UK, EU and elsewhere) are one document under two names. An academic CV records research and teaching in full and grows long. A marriage biodata holds family details and is not a job document.
From the lesson What a resume is for and who reads it
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Which personal details do official guides tell job seekers to leave off?
The UK's National Careers Service names age, date of birth, marital status and nationality; Canada's Job Bank adds weight, height and religious preference. Templates modelled on a biodata sometimes keep such fields by mistake.
From the lesson What a resume is for and who reads it
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Whose rules decide which document you send, and in what form?
The employer's. A company, a job portal or a college placement office may set its own length, format or cover-letter rules, and those come before any general advice.
From the lesson What a resume is for and who reads it
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What does an applicant tracking system do with an uploaded resume?
It keeps the file, pulls the text out and parses it, copying details such as your name, contacts, jobs and education into profile fields. The text then becomes searchable by recruiters.
From the lesson How applicant tracking systems really work
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What happens in Greenhouse when it cannot parse a resume?
Nothing is rejected. The file stays attached to the candidate and someone fills in the profile by hand. Greenhouse also cannot parse a file above 2.5 MB.
From the lesson How applicant tracking systems really work
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Which layouts does Greenhouse name as causes of a partial parse?
Spaced-out letters; graphics, photos, word art or a resume uploaded as an image; tables, headers, footers, text boxes and columns, above all with the name or contacts inside them; and sections that are unclearly marked or formatted unevenly.
From the lesson How applicant tracking systems really work
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What usually rejects an application automatically?
A rule on the application form. In Greenhouse the employer marks the answer to a yes-or-no or select question that rejects, and anyone who gives it is turned down without a person reading the resume.
From the lesson How applicant tracking systems really work
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Will a recruiter's search for PostgreSQL find a resume that only says Postgres?
Not in Greenhouse's talent filtering, where the keyword has to match the application exactly. Write the posting's own name for a skill you really have.
From the lesson How applicant tracking systems really work
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Does Greenhouse Talent Matching reject candidates on its own?
No. It sorts applicants into categories such as Strong or Limited against a calibration the hiring team sets, and its documentation says it neither auto-rejects nor auto-advances anyone. Matching more terms does not always lift the category.
From the lesson How applicant tracking systems really work
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What do New York City and the EU require of automated hiring tools?
New York City wants a bias audit from within the past year, a public summary of its results and a notice to candidates. The EU classes AI that analyses and filters job applications as high-risk, which brings strict obligations for such systems.
From the lesson How applicant tracking systems really work
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Is there a source for the claim that software rejects 75 % of resumes before anyone reads them?
None of the vendor documentation or surveys the lesson checks says anything like it, and people who repeat the figure give no study. Treat it as unsupported until someone shows where it was measured.
From the lesson How applicant tracking systems really work
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Which of a posting's two lists decides whether you are eligible?
The minimum qualifications, its must-haves. Preferred qualifications are wishes: missing one is a gap to mention or close later, not a reason to stay away.
From the lesson Reading a job description like a recruiter
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How do you tell requirements from wishes when a posting has only one list?
By its verbs. Lines that say “must have” or “required” bind you; a skill called “a plus” does not.
From the lesson Reading a job description like a recruiter
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Where do a recruiter's search terms come from?
From the posting: Greenhouse even suggests keywords built from the public job post. Note its languages, tools, domains, certifications and location or right-to-work rules, each in the posting's spelling.
From the lesson Reading a job description like a recruiter
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How does an evidence matrix grade your proof of a requirement?
Strong when a bullet about your work names it, partial when only another line such as the skills list does, and none when nothing on the page mentions it.
From the lesson Reading a job description like a recruiter
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What should you check before you mark a requirement as a gap?
Whether you have done it under another name. If only the wording is missing, a true bullet rewritten in the posting's words fixes it; a real gap is something to learn, never to invent.
From the lesson Reading a job description like a recruiter
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Which signals in a posting's duties decide which of your bullets lead?
Verbs such as own, lead and mentor point to seniority; counts such as users or shipments a day point to scale; on-call duty, travel and team size describe the work itself. Lead with the bullets that answer them.
From the lesson Reading a job description like a recruiter
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When should you apply, rewrite first, or wait?
Apply when every must-have has proof you could defend. Rewrite first when the proof exists but not the posting's words, close a real gap before applying, and skip a posting whose hard conditions you cannot meet.
From the lesson Reading a job description like a recruiter
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How many applications does Google accept from one person in a rolling 30-day window?
Three at most. Google suggests narrowing your choice to the roles that truly fit your skills, experience and interests.
From the lesson Reading a job description like a recruiter
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Which sections does a typical tech resume need?
A contact block, experience, projects, skills and education. A short summary is optional, and an extra section such as certifications earns its place only when it adds evidence for the job.
From the lesson Resume sections, order and length
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Should a resume list your references?
No. The UK's National Careers Service says another person's contact details do not belong on your CV, and Canada's Job Bank suggests a separate sheet that you hand over only when asked.
From the lesson Resume sections, order and length
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How do you decide the order of a resume's sections?
After the contact block comes whichever section holds your strongest evidence for the job: education and projects early in a career, experience once you have a few years of it. Inside each section, put the newest item first.
From the lesson Resume sections, order and length
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Why should someone changing fields keep a dated work history?
A skills-first layout hides when things happened, and readers then hunt for what is missing. Put projects in the new field first, with the dated jobs below them.
From the lesson Resume sections, order and length
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What goes in a resume's contact block, and what stays out?
Your name, city, phone, e-mail and links to your work. Age, date of birth, marital status, nationality, religion, family details, a street address and identity numbers all stay out.
From the lesson Resume sections, order and length
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Why should an Aadhaar or PAN number never appear on a resume?
The Aadhaar Act bars publishing or publicly displaying an Aadhaar number collected under it, and a resume is copied to people and systems you never see. Give such numbers only in an employer's own checks after an offer.
From the lesson Resume sections, order and length
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When does a resume grow from one page to two?
MIT keeps it to one page unless you have extensive experience or an advanced degree; this track puts that line at five or more years of relevant work. Two pages are a ceiling, and an employer's own limit always wins.
From the lesson Resume sections, order and length
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Why write “Experience” rather than a creative heading such as “My journey”?
It is the word readers scan for and parsers look for. Greenhouse lists unclear sections, and formats that change within a section, among the causes of a partial parse.
From the lesson Resume sections, order and length
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What does a PDF store, and what does text extraction rebuild from it?
Characters, each with a font and a place on the page, not lines or paragraphs. An extractor works out words, lines and a reading order from those positions, and every parser, search and AI ranking uses its result.
From the lesson Resume formatting that survives parsers
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Why must a resume layout survive more than one text extractor?
Extractors guess differently, and you cannot know which one an employer's system runs. The lesson tested poppler's pdftotext, MuPDF and pdf.js; a layout is safe only when its text comes out whole in all of them.
From the lesson Resume formatting that survives parsers
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What text does a scanned or photographed resume give an extractor?
None at all. A picture of a page has no text layer, only pixels, so no extractor returns a word and no search can find the resume.
From the lesson Resume formatting that survives parsers
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Which layout came out whole in all three extractors in the lesson's test?
One plain column of real, left-aligned text, with standard headings and the dates on the same line as each job. Every extractor returned the same text, with each heading followed by its own content and all ten keywords intact.
From the lesson Resume formatting that survives parsers
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What can go wrong with two columns, right-margin dates and justified, hyphenated text?
Columns may be read straight across, so a heading loses its text; dates in the right margin can drift away from their job; and hyphenation cuts words and links at line ends, so a cut word no longer matches a search.
From the lesson Resume formatting that survives parsers
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What happens to spaced-out capitals and to white or tiny text when a resume is extracted?
Letter-spaced words can come out as single letters that no search for a name or heading matches. Hidden text is extracted like any other, so keywords hidden that way reach every reader of the text.
From the lesson Resume formatting that survives parsers
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Did the layout with contacts in the page header and skills in a table break in the test?
It came out whole in all three extractors. Greenhouse still names headers, footers and tables as causes of partial parses in its own parser, so the plain layout stays the safer choice.
From the lesson Resume formatting that survives parsers
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Why is there no single resume format for the whole world?
Official guides disagree, most of all about photos: Europass advises one, while US and Canadian guidance discourages it. The country of the job sets the conventions, and the employer's own instructions come before those.
From the lesson Resume rules by country: photo, age, length
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What do you do with a personal detail that neither the country's guide nor the employer mentions?
Leave it off. A detail you held back can still be given if someone asks, but one you have already sent cannot be taken back.
From the lesson Resume rules by country: photo, age, length
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Does a resume for a job in the US, Canada or the EU carry a photo?
US: no, as MIT says photos are generally not preferred and the EEOC says employers should not ask for one. Canada: no, since Job Bank says a picture is not the norm there. EU: Europass advises a professional photograph.
From the lesson Resume rules by country: photo, age, length
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When may a US employer that needs a photo for identification obtain one, according to the EEOC?
Once the candidate has received and accepted a job offer, not while they are applying.
From the lesson Resume rules by country: photo, age, length
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How should a CGPA be turned into a percentage?
Only by the conversion rule of the body that awarded it, usually your university, so the same CGPA can give different percentages. Recruitment forms in India, such as a public-sector bank notice, ask for the figure the university's own rule gives.
From the lesson Resume rules by country: photo, age, length
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Which practical lines does a move to another country add to a resume?
Work authorisation and relocation when the posting raises them, always stated truthfully; a time zone beside your city for remote roles; and the language the employer asks for, because a parser reads only the languages it supports.
From the lesson Resume rules by country: photo, age, length
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What shape does Google's hiring page ask a resume accomplishment to take?
Accomplished X, as measured by Y, by doing Z: the result, the measure that shows it, and the work that produced it.
From the lesson Resume bullet points that show impact
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Which parts must a strong bullet keep, whatever their order?
A verb for your action, the change with its measure, and the method. The order may bend, for instance to put a technology the posting asks for before the numbers, but without the change and its measure the bullet is a duty again.
From the lesson Resume bullet points that show impact
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Which three questions turn a duty into a result?
What was different after your work, how do you know, and what did you do to make it so? The answers supply the result, the measure and the method.
From the lesson Resume bullet points that show impact
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What can a bullet offer when there is no hard number?
An outcome someone can check, such as a pull request the maintainers merged, or an honest estimate labelled as one, such as about 3 hours a week saved.
From the lesson Resume bullet points that show impact
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What can a bullet checker never tell you?
Whether the bullet is true. It reads form only: a verb first, no pronoun, a measure, a sensible length. A bullet with a wrong figure passes just as easily, so every number has to come from your own records.
From the lesson Resume bullet points that show impact
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Which habits keep a list of bullets readable?
A precise action verb instead of “worked on” or “helped with”; no “I”, “my”, “me” or “we”; past tense for finished work and present tense only for what you still do, used consistently; and active voice, which shows who did the work.
From the lesson Resume bullet points that show impact
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How many bullets does a recent, relevant role get, and in what order?
Three to five, none longer than two printed lines, and fewer for older or less relevant roles. Order them by relevance to the posting, because the first bullet under a job is the one most likely to be read.
From the lesson Resume bullet points that show impact
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What is a bullet bank, and why keep one?
A private file holding every true bullet you could write for a job, each next to the record behind it. For each posting you pick and order from it; the lines you leave out wait for another posting.
From the lesson Resume bullet points that show impact
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Which five kinds of measure cover almost all technical work?
Time, such as latency; volume, such as events a day; quality, such as test coverage; scope, such as services moved; and money, such as hours or costs saved, which you share only with permission.
From the lesson Finding numbers for your resume bullets
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Where do the numbers for a resume usually come from?
From records the work left behind: version history, ticket trackers, build logs, monitoring, test reports, feedback forms and usage logs. A student's projects and contests leave the same kinds of record.
From the lesson Finding numbers for your resume bullets
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Which two Git commands give scope numbers for a project?
git shortlog -sn counts the commits of each person, and git log --shortstat reports the files and lines each commit changed.
From the lesson Finding numbers for your resume bullets
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Why is a commit count a weak number on a resume?
It shows how much you did, not what changed for anyone. A result, such as a canteen wait cut from 14 to 6 minutes, beats it whenever you have one.
From the lesson Finding numbers for your resume bullets
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What does a result need before a reader can judge its size?
Its baseline, its unit and its source, as in “from 420 ms to 180 ms”. The size of the change is taken against the baseline, which makes that drop 57 %.
From the lesson Finding numbers for your resume bullets
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Test coverage rose from 48 % to 81 %. How do you state the rise?
As 33 percentage points. When the measure is itself a percentage, the difference is given in points, which is not the same as a 33 % increase.
From the lesson Finding numbers for your resume bullets
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What do you do when no record holds a number, when a number is an estimate, or when it is confidential?
Measure it by running the work before and after your change on the same input, and keep the output. Label an estimate, name its source and round it down. Show a confidential figure's scale as a range, a percentage or a relative change.
From the lesson Finding numbers for your resume bullets
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When does a skill stay on a resume's skills list?
Only when some line of the resume, a bullet or a project entry, shows you using it. The list is a set of claims; the lines above it are the evidence.
From the lesson Writing a skills section you can defend
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Why name the language in an experience bullet as well as in the skills list?
MIT's careers office notes that a skill mentioned in an experience description is reinforced by its context: the reader sees what you did with it, not only its name.
From the lesson Writing a skills section you can defend
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How should a skills list be organised, and how long should it be?
Sort it into groups such as languages, frameworks, data, cloud and DevOps, and tools; open each group with the terms the posting uses; and stop at about 8 to 15 items.
From the lesson Writing a skills section you can defend
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Where do soft skills such as leadership belong on a resume?
In bullets, as evidence of what you did with them, such as a line that opens “Led a team of four”. Listed as adjectives among the skills, they prove nothing.
From the lesson Writing a skills section you can defend
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Which skill should stay off the list even though you have used it once?
One you could not discuss for ten minutes with an example of your own. An interviewer may pick any item on the list and ask how you used it.
From the lesson Writing a skills section you can defend
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LinkedIn allows up to 100 skills. Why keep a resume's list far shorter?
A resume list that long stops being read, and each item is a claim someone may test. About 8 to 15 skills, each proved by a line, serve a reader better.
From the lesson Writing a skills section you can defend
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Which two habits in a skills section look helpful but are not?
Writing a skill in your own spelling when the posting uses another, since a search for PostgreSQL misses Postgres, and rating yourself with bars, stars or percentages, which tell a reader nothing.
From the lesson Writing a skills section you can defend
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Which six parts make a project entry a reader can check?
A name, a one-line purpose, your role, the stack, a measured result and a link to the code or a demo.
From the lesson Projects, education and certifications
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Why does an entry for a team project need a role?
It says which part was yours, for example one of three students who built the token queue and its tests, so the entry stays honest about what the team did.
From the lesson Projects, education and certifications
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Do class and personal projects count as experience on a resume?
Yes, when described so their relevance is clear: MIT's careers office counts class projects, competitions and personal projects. Google suggests recent graduates and anyone with little work history add them.
From the lesson Projects, education and certifications
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How does an education entry show a grade and a degree still in progress?
The grade exactly as awarded, with its scale, such as CGPA 8.4/10, and an unfinished degree marked with its expected year. Convert a CGPA to a percentage only when asked, by the university's own rule.
From the lesson Projects, education and certifications
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When does coursework earn a line in the education section?
Only when the posting would value it, and then two or three courses are enough. Education sits near the top early in a career and moves to the end after years of work.
From the lesson Projects, education and certifications
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What does a credential line need so that a reader can confirm it?
The credential's name as its issuer writes it, the issuer, the year and an ID or a link. Some issuers, the Linux Foundation among them, run public tools that confirm a credential from a last name and an ID.
From the lesson Projects, education and certifications
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How do you describe a course you finished without passing any exam?
As completed, whatever its badge says. Only a credential you earned by passing an exam keeps the issuer's title for it.
From the lesson Projects, education and certifications
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Who gains most from a resume summary, and who can skip one?
An experienced engineer whose titles say little, or someone moving into a new field: the page needs a frame. Many students can skip it and open with their education.
From the lesson Summaries, cover letters and application forms
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What goes into a resume summary, and how long is it?
The role you want, your strongest evidence with a number, and what you want next: two or three lines and about 60 words at most.
From the lesson Summaries, cover letters and application forms
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Why do phrases such as “hard-working team player” weaken a summary?
They could describe anyone and leave a reader nothing to check. Harvard's guide asks for specific language, and every word of a summary should be something a reader can verify or ask about.
From the lesson Summaries, cover letters and application forms
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When should you send a cover letter?
When the employer asks for one, or when the application holds something the resume cannot say. An optional box needs only about three sentences, and when the employer says it does not need one and nothing needs explaining, send none.
From the lesson Summaries, cover letters and application forms
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What do the official guides agree on about writing a cover letter?
Tailor it to the job and keep it to one page. The National Careers Service suggests 3 to 5 paragraphs written afresh for each job, and MIT warns against retelling the resume in paragraphs.
From the lesson Summaries, cover letters and application forms
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What can a form rule do before anyone reads your resume?
In Greenhouse, a rule on a yes-or-no or select question can reject you on its own, record a reason and send an e-mail, and the people told about new applications hear nothing of it.
From the lesson Summaries, cover letters and application forms
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Which three habits stop a form from ending your application by mistake?
Read every question as a possible filter and answer exactly what it asks; answer truthfully, because a false “Yes” may pass the rule and fail later, when it is checked; and keep each date, title and degree identical to the resume, with a copy of your answers for the interview.
From the lesson Summaries, cover letters and application forms
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Where should every tailored version of a resume start?
From your bullet bank, never from the last version you sent. Edits carried from version to version drift away from the records, while each bank line still sits beside the record that proves it.
From the lesson Tailoring your resume to a job, honestly
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Which four edits does honest tailoring allow?
Choose a true line that answers the posting, put the strongest match first, shorten without losing anything the claim needs, and swap a word for the posting's name of the same thing, such as Postgres for PostgreSQL.
From the lesson Tailoring your resume to a job, honestly
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Which small edits turn tailoring into a new claim?
A number the record does not hold, a skill the line never involved, a verb that enlarges your part, such as “Helped with” becoming “Led”, or a cut that drops context the claim needs, such as the words “as one of six on-call engineers”.
From the lesson Tailoring your resume to a job, honestly
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What does a keyword coverage score measure, and what can it not tell you?
The share of a posting's terms that your resume names. It cannot tell whether any line proves the skill: pasting every term into one line raises the score while the evidence stays the same.
From the lesson Tailoring your resume to a job, honestly
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What does a stem matcher find, and what does it miss?
It matches words with different endings, such as forecasts and forecasting. It misses synonyms and abbreviations, such as Postgres for PostgreSQL, and a hyphen makes data-quality one word that does not match data quality.
From the lesson Tailoring your resume to a job, honestly
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Which records keep you from mixing up versions after several applications?
One file per application in its own folder with a clear file name; one tracker row per application with the employer, role, version, bullets used, date sent and next step; and a comparison with the base resume before you send.
From the lesson Tailoring your resume to a job, honestly
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What do you do when a must-have has no true line in your bank?
Stop tailoring, since no allowed edit can close a real gap. Apply only if the posting trains or accepts equivalent experience, saying what you have instead; otherwise close the gap first with a project, a course with a result or a role that uses it.
From the lesson Tailoring your resume to a job, honestly
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A posting asks for Python or Go, and your bullets show Python. Is Go a gap?
No. When a must-have offers options, proof of one of them meets it.
From the lesson Tailoring your resume to a job, honestly
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In what order does a fresher's one-page resume run?
Education with three or four courses the posting values; two to four projects, every one linked and with its result; internships; achievements and positions of responsibility with a number or an outcome; then only the skills a line above shows.
From the lesson Fresher resumes for campus hiring in India
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What stays off a fresher's resume although many drafts include it?
A career objective, a declaration and personal lines such as a date of birth or a parent's name. Where an employer needs such details, its own form asks for them.
From the lesson Fresher resumes for campus hiring in India
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How does a placement cell's form differ from your resume?
The form carries what the cell checks against each company's rules, such as marks, backlogs and gaps, filled in exactly as your records state. The resume carries the evidence a recruiter reads.
From the lesson Fresher resumes for campus hiring in India
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Whose format wins when your placement cell prescribes a resume template?
The cell's. Use its template or format exactly, whatever general advice says, the advice of this track included.
From the lesson Fresher resumes for campus hiring in India
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Does India's National Career Service charge jobseekers anything?
No. Its own pages say that registering, applying and interview processing cost nothing, and they warn jobseekers against paying employers too. A request for money to process an application is a warning sign.
From the lesson Fresher resumes for campus hiring in India
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How do India's coaching guidelines treat promises of a job?
They call false claims of selection or job security misleading. Ask for written terms, and walk away from anyone who promises you a job for a fee.
From the lesson Fresher resumes for campus hiring in India
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Who can apply for GitHub Education's student benefits?
Students aged at least 13 in a programme that grants a degree or diploma, with proof of their student status, and a college e-mail address where asked.
From the lesson Fresher resumes for campus hiring in India
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How did employers in the Hidden Workers survey treat a work gap of more than six months?
Almost half of the companies filtered such histories out automatically, so no recruiter saw them. The UK's National Careers Service still says gaps between jobs are normal when life events happen.
From the lesson Career switches, gaps and senior resumes
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How should a resume show a gap of more than six months?
With honest, continuous dates that include months, and one dated career-break line that says in a few plain words what you did. Europass asks for an explanation of long gaps.
From the lesson Career switches, gaps and senior resumes
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Why can dates given in years alone make a gap look worse?
They hide how long the gap really was, and the reader has to guess: the same history can suggest anything from 12 to 34 missing months.
From the lesson Career switches, gaps and senior resumes
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Why not hide a gap behind a skills-first layout?
A functional resume hides every date, and a reader who cannot see when things happened starts looking for what is missing.
From the lesson Career switches, gaps and senior resumes
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How should a resume show a job that ended in a layoff?
List the role as usual with its real end date, and explain only when you are asked.
From the lesson Career switches, gaps and senior resumes
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What leads the resume of someone switching careers?
A summary naming the new role with two proofs, such as a project result or an exam passed, then projects in the new field, then the full dated history with each old role's transferable skills written as outcomes.
From the lesson Career switches, gaps and senior resumes
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What changes on a senior engineer's resume?
Each bullet names its scope, the systems, teams or people it covered, as Google asks of people who led, and the decision it took. The page stays within two pages, and following Canada's Job Bank, experience older than 15 years is cut or minimised.
From the lesson Career switches, gaps and senior resumes
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When does LaTeX make sense as the source of a resume?
When your placement cell hands out a LaTeX template, or when exact control of one page and a plain-text source you can compare and version matter to you. If an employer wants Word or a portal builds the resume from its fields, follow that instead.
From the lesson Choosing a LaTeX resume template that parses
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Does an applicant tracking system read your LaTeX source?
No. It reads the PDF that LaTeX produced, through text extraction, so what counts is the text that comes out of the PDF, not how the page looks.
From the lesson Choosing a LaTeX resume template that parses
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Why is a GitHub link drawn only as an icon a quiet failure?
Its address lives only in a link annotation, the clickable area over the icon. None of the extractors' text held it in the test, so a recruiter reading the parsed text, or a portal filling its fields, never sees it. Write every address out as text.
From the lesson Choosing a LaTeX resume template that parses
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Which template features broke extraction in the LaTeX test, and what fixed each?
Justified, hyphenated text (ragged right, no hyphenation), icon-only links (addresses written out), a letter-spaced name and headings (size and weight instead), two columns (one column) and an education table (one line per degree).
From the lesson Choosing a LaTeX resume template that parses
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Which popular template features came through extraction unharmed in the test?
Small-capital headings drawn by titlesec came out as ordinary words, and dates pushed to the right margin with tabular* stayed on their own lines.
From the lesson Choosing a LaTeX resume template that parses
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What went wrong with XeLaTeX's PDFs in poppler, and what fixed it?
The ff ligature came out as one character, so a search for “efficient” failed. Loading the font with Ligatures={TeX,CommonOff} cured it; the LuaLaTeX build was clean from the start.
From the lesson Choosing a LaTeX resume template that parses
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Do the glyphtounicode lines that many templates carry fix text extraction?
No. LaTeX News 33 reports that LaTeX already adds that information by itself when pdfTeX compiles a document, and a build with it switched off still extracted cleanly. The lines do no harm, but they fix nothing.
From the lesson Choosing a LaTeX resume template that parses
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Which three facts about a template should you check before relying on it?
Its paper size, Letter or A4, as your cell or employer expects; its licence, which Overleaf says governs the source files and generally not your PDF's layout; and its status, since a page saying a placement office approved it is a claim to confirm with your cell.
From the lesson Choosing a LaTeX resume template that parses
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Is a phone number you deleted from an Overleaf resume an hour ago gone from the project?
No. The History panel shows the last 24 hours of edits and every labelled version, even without a subscription, so assume that anyone you share the project with can find it.
From the lesson Overleaf resumes: sharing, history and privacy
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Which two settings of an Overleaf resume project should you note and leave alone while applying?
Its TeX Live year and its compiler, both found under Compiler in the settings. Changing years can change how packages behave; a new project or a copy gets the latest year, while an existing project keeps its own.
From the lesson Overleaf resumes: sharing, history and privacy
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What does Overleaf's link sharing hand out?
A view link that anyone holding it can open and an edit link that anyone with an Overleaf account can use. A link posted on a website can even turn up in search results.
From the lesson Overleaf resumes: sharing, history and privacy
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How do you share an Overleaf resume with one person who will suggest changes?
Invite them by e-mail with the least access the task needs: view-only to read, or review, which turns their edits into suggestions. Projects on a plan with no subscription allow one collaborator, an editor or a reviewer, plus any number of viewers.
From the lesson Overleaf resumes: sharing, history and privacy
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How should you share a resume with a whole group, such as a class chat?
Send the PDF. Never post a project link, and switch link sharing off as soon as a link has travelled further than you meant.
From the lesson Overleaf resumes: sharing, history and privacy
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Why share a cleaned copy made with “Make a copy”?
The copy starts with no history, comments or chat, with link sharing off and none of the original's collaborators. Check its files first, because an old file the build no longer reads still travels with the project.
From the lesson Overleaf resumes: sharing, history and privacy
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Which two other Overleaf places can carry your details further?
The public template gallery, which refuses resume and CV templates and anything holding personal data, and some of Overleaf's AI features, which send project content to other services, so take private details out before using them.
From the lesson Overleaf resumes: sharing, history and privacy
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What is latexmk, and why can it build an Overleaf resume on your own computer?
A build tool that runs pdfLaTeX, XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX as many times as a document needs. Overleaf compiles with it, and the same tool from TeX Live or TinyTeX builds the same source locally.
From the lesson LaTeX resume builds: TeX Live, variants and CI
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What does a build on your own computer give you that an online build does not?
A private file for your details that never leaves your machine, and checks of your own, such as a pdftotext search, that run on every build. The copy also keeps working whatever happens to any website.
From the lesson LaTeX resume builds: TeX Live, variants and CI
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Why should a resume variant never be a copy of the resume?
Copies drift, and a fix made in one never reaches the other. Keep one source and a short driver file per variant that names it, with the few lines that differ inside tests of that name.
From the lesson LaTeX resume builds: TeX Live, variants and CI
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Why does each driver file declare the document class?
On Overleaf the driver is the file you pick as the main document, and Overleaf's main document must contain a documentclass declaration.
From the lesson LaTeX resume builds: TeX Live, variants and CI
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How do you keep your phone number on your own PDF but out of the repository?
Put it in a separate file that the source reads only if it exists, and never commit that file. A build without it prints a fallback such as “phone on request”.
From the lesson LaTeX resume builds: TeX Live, variants and CI
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Which details can a PDF carry besides what its page shows?
The path of an included PDF file, which pdfTeX records; a photo's location and camera details; and the moment of the build, so two builds of one source differ unless SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH fixes the time.
From the lesson LaTeX resume builds: TeX Live, variants and CI
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How do you check what a PDF carries before you share it?
Search its objects for PTEX.FileName, read the metadata of any embedded image, build twice and compare the files, set the text of a Word copy beside the PDF's text, and validate the tags for screen readers with veraPDF.
From the lesson LaTeX resume builds: TeX Live, variants and CI
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How many projects does GitHub's tutorial suggest pinning, and why so few?
Three to five. A hiring manager may spend only a couple of minutes on each, so a handful of well-chosen projects fills all the attention a stranger gives.
From the lesson Choosing portfolio projects that prove skills
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Where should the choice of portfolio projects start?
From the must-haves of the postings you want, not from the projects you already have. Each project earns its place by the must-haves it proves, and one that none of them proves is the next thing to build.
From the lesson Choosing portfolio projects that prove skills
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Does a must-have that no project proves always need a new project?
Often not. It can be a feature added to a project you already have, such as running an existing app in a container to prove Docker.
From the lesson Choosing portfolio projects that prove skills
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What are the five rungs of the scope ladder, and from which rung can a reader check a project?
An exercise, a working feature, tested and deployed, used by someone, and maintained. From the third rung the demo opens and the tests run, so a reader can check the claim in the couple of minutes they have.
From the lesson Choosing portfolio projects that prove skills
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What should you cut when the weeks before applications are short?
Features, never rungs. Get a tested, deployed first version out within about the first two weeks of real work, then add one feature at a time.
From the lesson Choosing portfolio projects that prove skills
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What makes a portfolio project hard to fake?
Someone who used it, and data from a real source. A tool a club or a shop used for a month gives numbers and a story no tutorial clone has, and openly licensed data gives figures anyone can recompute, used on the licence's terms.
From the lesson Choosing portfolio projects that prove skills
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When does GitHub Pages allow a copy of an existing website?
Only as a learning exercise where you write the code yourself, the site collects no user data, and a prominent disclaimer says it is not associated with the original and was made for educational purposes.
From the lesson Choosing portfolio projects that prove skills
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What do a project you own and a contribution to someone else's project each prove?
Your own project shows that you can build and finish something; a reader checks its README, demo and tests. A contribution shows that you can work in other people's code by their rules; link the pull request and say whether it was merged.
From the lesson Choosing portfolio projects that prove skills
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How does a project's case study differ from its README?
The README tells a visitor how to use the project: what it does and how to install, start and test it. The case study tells someone deciding whether to interview you why it was built that way and what it changed.
From the lesson Writing a project case study
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What are the seven parts of a case study, in order?
A summary line, the problem, the constraints, the approach, the trade-offs, the results and the next steps, in about 400 to 900 words.
From the lesson Writing a project case study
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What should the trade-offs and results parts of a case study answer?
Trade-offs: which choices were made, against which alternatives, and at what cost. Results: what changed, against what baseline, and in which unit.
From the lesson Writing a project case study
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Which four things go with the parts of a case study?
Alt text on every image saying what it shows; credits naming each teammate's part, the libraries used and any AI help; general terms and ranges for work you cannot show; and a link to the code at the end.
From the lesson Writing a project case study
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What are the three layers of a case study, and how long is each?
A summary line of at most 30 words with the result; a card of up to 120 words with the problem, your part, the result and the link; and the full case study, 400 to 900 words, for readers who stay.
From the lesson Writing a project case study
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How much of a case study does a reader who gives it two minutes read?
About 400 words at 200 words a minute. The result belongs in the summary line, and the problem and approach before the detail, because a result kept for the last paragraph may never be seen.
From the lesson Writing a project case study
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What decides where a portfolio demo can be hosted?
What the demo needs in order to run. Static files fit almost any host; an app that needs a server, such as Flask with SQLite, rules out GitHub Pages; a machine-learning demo points to Hugging Face Spaces or Streamlit Community Cloud.
From the lesson Hosting project demos without paying
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How does hosting a static site differ from hosting an app that needs a server?
A static site is files the host sends as they are, so nothing has to wake up. A server app runs code for each request, so the host keeps a process for it, and an idle one may be asleep at the first request.
From the lesson Hosting project demos without paying
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What does GitHub Pages serve, and what does it require on GitHub Free?
Static HTML, CSS and JavaScript from a repository, which on GitHub Free must be public. It cannot run a server such as a Flask app.
From the lesson Hosting project demos without paying
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When do idle demos on Render and on Streamlit Community Cloud go to sleep?
A web service on Render's Free instance type spins down after 15 minutes without traffic; a Streamlit Community Cloud app sleeps after 12 hours without traffic.
From the lesson Hosting project demos without paying
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Which plans in the hosting lesson rule out paid client work?
Vercel's Hobby plan, limited to personal use that is not commercial, and Render's Free instances.
From the lesson Hosting project demos without paying
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Does a notebook demo need a host?
No. GitHub renders a notebook as static HTML, though without its interactive JavaScript plots, so the README should state the results in words.
From the lesson Hosting project demos without paying
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How do you stop a sleeping host from hiding your project from a reader?
Put a short recording or screenshots in the README so the project is seen working within seconds, link the repository first and the live demo second, and note beside the link that the demo may take a minute to wake.
From the lesson Hosting project demos without paying
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What data belongs in a public demo?
Only invented data, or data whose licence lets you publish it. Any stranger can open a demo, so no real person's name, number or record belongs in it.
From the lesson Hosting project demos without paying
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What makes up the first screen of a repository that a reader judges?
The About box, the file list and the README shown under it. If they say what the project is, how to run it and how it is tested, the reader spends the rest of their time on the code.
From the lesson Making a repository easy to review
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Which three About-box details does GitHub's tutorial say help a hiring manager?
A short description, a link to a site where the project runs, and topic tags, all edited from the gear icon beside About on the repository's main page.
From the lesson Making a repository easy to review
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Which four parts should a project's README have?
The key features, how to set up and run the project, an example or a demo, and how to test it.
From the lesson Making a repository easy to review
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What rules do GitHub repository topics follow?
Lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens only, up to 50 characters per topic and no more than 20 topics, so neither “Flask” nor “college project” can be added as written.
From the lesson Making a repository easy to review
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Which seven signals can a repository show before anyone reads its code?
The three About details (a description, a website and topics), a README in four parts, tests, a workflow that runs them, which is continuous integration, and a licence.
From the lesson Making a repository easy to review
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How much code did the canteen tracker's repository clean-up change?
None. It went from one signal of seven to all seven by adding a sentence, a link, five topics, a README, a workflow file and a licence.
From the lesson Making a repository easy to review
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Why is a README that only lists install commands not enough?
A reader who cannot tell what the project does will not install it. Say what it does, how to run it, where the demo is and how to run the tests, in that order.
From the lesson Making a repository easy to review
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How long can a GitHub bio be, and what should it say?
160 characters at most. Say who you are, the work you want and one result a reader can check, rather than a list of technologies your pinned work would then have to prove one by one.
From the lesson GitHub profile: bio, pins and settings
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Why is a city enough for the location on a GitHub profile?
Every GitHub user, in every country, can see a public profile, even where saying who you are carries risk. A street address never belongs there.
From the lesson GitHub profile: bio, pins and settings
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What can and cannot be pinned on a GitHub profile?
Up to six items in all: public repositories you own or contributed to within the last year, and public gists you own. A fork you don't own cannot be pinned, because commits to forks don't count as contributions.
From the lesson GitHub profile: bio, pins and settings
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How many items should you pin, and in what order?
Three to five, strongest first, since a reader starts at the first. Mix projects you built with contributions to other people's projects, and pin only work you could walk an interviewer through.
From the lesson GitHub profile: bio, pins and settings
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What does turning on private contributions show other people?
How many contributions you made each day in private repositories, never what they were. It helps when most of your work is in a course's or an employer's private repositories.
From the lesson GitHub profile: bio, pins and settings
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Why should you commit with GitHub's noreply address?
Each commit carries an e-mail address that anyone with a copy of the repository can read. Commits made with the noreply address still count on your graph but never show your personal one, and GitHub can refuse pushes that would expose it.
From the lesson GitHub profile: bio, pins and settings
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How do you tell recruiters on GitHub that you are looking for a job?
Select “Available for hire” under “Jobs profile” in Settings. A status beside your picture can say so too, and a status with no organisation chosen is public.
From the lesson GitHub profile: bio, pins and settings
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You leave a job but keep the same GitHub account. What comes first?
Make your personal e-mail the primary address before the company mailbox closes, so sign-in and recovery messages still reach you. Then tidy up organisations and repositories, and keep employer code out of personal repositories from day one.
From the lesson GitHub profile: bio, pins and settings
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Which README does GitHub show at the top of your profile?
The README.md at the root of a public repository named exactly like your username, for as long as that file has content.
From the lesson Writing a GitHub profile README
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Your profile README does not appear. What do you check, in order?
A typing slip in the repository's name, a private repository, a README inside a folder instead of the root, or an empty file. An older repository with that name may only need “Share to profile”.
From the lesson Writing a GitHub profile README
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What may a profile README hold, according to GitHub's tutorial for job seekers?
An introduction, your skills, professional experience, some of your best projects, and achievements or awards, in an order you choose.
From the lesson Writing a GitHub profile README
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What should a reader meet in the first 100 words of a profile README?
Your focus and the work you want, one project with a result, and a way to reach you. Meera's final version had all three within 31 words, while her draft made readers get through greetings and images first.
From the lesson Writing a GitHub profile README
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Which rules make a profile README work with a screen reader?
Link text that names where each link goes, alt text on every image, one top-level heading without skipped levels, lists marked up as lists rather than lines that start with emoji, and few emoji, never several in a row, since a screen reader reads out each one's full name.
From the lesson Writing a GitHub profile README
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What are badges, stats cards and automated sections in a profile README?
Badges and stats cards are images that other servers draw, loaded every time the profile opens; an automated section is a part of the README that a scheduled workflow rewrites.
From the lesson Writing a GitHub profile README
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Besides commits, which activities can count on a GitHub contribution graph?
Opening an issue, proposing or reviewing a pull request, and opening or answering a discussion, when done in a standalone repository rather than a fork. Creating or forking a repository always counts.
From the lesson Contribution graphs and stars: what they prove
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Which four conditions must a commit meet to count on your graph?
It uses an e-mail address linked to your account or your noreply address; it sits in a standalone repository, not a fork; it is on the default branch or gh-pages; and you have a tie to the repository: you own or collaborate on it, belong to its organisation, have forked it, or have opened an issue or pull request in it.
From the lesson Contribution graphs and stars: what they prove
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How can you fix a commit that is missing from your contribution graph?
Add its e-mail address to your account, merge its branch into the default branch, or open a pull request from the fork into the original repository. A new commit can also take up to 24 hours to appear.
From the lesson Contribution graphs and stars: what they prove
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What can a contribution graph not show?
What any counted event actually was, private work beyond the daily counts you may choose to show, and work on other hosts. Most professional work happens in private repositories or elsewhere, so the graph misses it.
From the lesson Contribution graphs and stars: what they prove
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Which two dates does every Git commit carry, and which one does a GitHub profile use?
The author date records when the change was originally made; the commit date changes whenever a rebase or an amend rewrites the commit. The profile places commits by the author date, which an option can set to any day, while the repository's history shows the commit date.
From the lesson Contribution graphs and stars: what they prove
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What did the StarScout study find about stars on GitHub?
Scanning more than five years of GitHub's public events, it marked about 6.0 million stars as suspected fakes, 3.81 million after a stricter filter, and fake stars lifted promotion for under two months before becoming a liability.
From the lesson Contribution graphs and stars: what they prove
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What do GitHub's Acceptable Use Policies forbid about stars and activity?
Fake accounts, automated inauthentic activity, rank abuse (automated starring or following, for example) and secondary markets for inauthentic activity. A bought star breaks those rules and proves nothing.
From the lesson Contribution graphs and stars: what they prove
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What proves more than a contribution graph or a star count?
Work a reader can open, such as a merged pull request: the change, its discussion and a maintainer's decision, presented with one sentence on what changed and one on its proof.
From the lesson Contribution graphs and stars: what they prove
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Which five jobs must a developer portfolio site do?
A home page that says who you are and sends the reader to proof, a case study per project, an about page, the resume as a web page and a PDF, and a safe way to make contact. A student's one-page site can do them as five sections.
From the lesson Planning a developer portfolio website
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What must the home page of a portfolio hold?
Who you are and the work you want, two or three featured case studies with a result each, and a link to contact you. A blog may stay on the site, but it should not take the case studies' place.
From the lesson Planning a developer portfolio website
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What should a portfolio's hero say, and in about how many words?
Who you are, the work you want, what you build and one result, in about 40 words, so the featured case studies still fit on a phone's first screen. A greeting spends the reader's first seconds on nothing.
From the lesson Planning a developer portfolio website
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How does a GitHub Pages user site differ from a project site?
A user site is published from the account's one repository called <owner>.github.io, all in lower case, and is served at that address. Any other repository can publish a project site at <owner>.github.io/<repository>/.
From the lesson Planning a developer portfolio website
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When should a portfolio on GitHub Pages get a custom domain, and how do you protect it?
Only if you will keep renewing it. GitHub recommends a www subdomain and verifying the domain before adding it, since a disabled site whose domain still points at GitHub is open to a domain takeover.
From the lesson Planning a developer portfolio website
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What are GitHub Pages' main limits for a portfolio?
Published sites of up to 1 GB, soft limits of 100 GB of monthly bandwidth and 10 builds an hour unless your own Actions workflow builds the site. GitHub does not intend it for an online business or for sensitive data such as passwords and card numbers.
From the lesson Planning a developer portfolio website
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Which contact details belong on a public portfolio site?
An address used only for job mail, or a form service, plus your city and perhaps a LinkedIn link. Keep your personal phone number and home address for the resumes you send, and give the site's PDF resume the same contact block.
From the lesson Planning a developer portfolio website
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What does GitHub record about visitors to a GitHub Pages site?
The IP address of each visitor, kept for security reasons, signed-in GitHub user or not. Say so on the site, along with anything you add yourself, such as an analytics script.
From the lesson Planning a developer portfolio website
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Which WCAG level is the usual target for a website?
Level AA. WCAG 2.2 sorts its testable success criteria into levels A, AA and AAA.
From the lesson Portfolio checks: accessibility, speed, SEO
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What contrast does WCAG 2.2 level AA require for text?
At least 4.5:1 between text and its background, or 3:1 for large text, meaning 18 point, or 14 point when bold (criterion 1.4.3).
From the lesson Portfolio checks: accessibility, speed, SEO
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How is a contrast ratio worked out?
As (L1 + 0.05) / (L2 + 0.05), with L1 the relative luminance of the lighter colour and L2 that of the darker. It runs from 1:1, a colour on itself, to 21:1, black on white.
From the lesson Portfolio checks: accessibility, speed, SEO
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What are the good thresholds for the three Core Web Vitals?
Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 ms or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less, each judged at the 75th percentile of page loads, on mobile and desktop separately.
From the lesson Portfolio checks: accessibility, speed, SEO
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Besides contrast, which WCAG 2.2 level AA checks does a portfolio need?
A text alternative for every image (1.1.1), everything usable from a keyboard (2.1.1), visible focus (2.4.7), and a focused control never entirely hidden by content the author added, such as a sticky header (2.4.11).
From the lesson Portfolio checks: accessibility, speed, SEO
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Which accessibility problem can only a keyboard test find?
Focus that is invisible or hidden. An audit of the HTML catches missing alt text, skipped headings, vague link text and images without sizes, but it cannot see where the focus goes.
From the lesson Portfolio checks: accessibility, speed, SEO
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A link colour reaches 3.29:1 on white. Does it pass?
Not for links in body text, which are normal-sized and need 4.5:1. It would pass only as large text, which needs 3:1.
From the lesson Portfolio checks: accessibility, speed, SEO
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Why compute contrast instead of judging it by eye?
A colour can look fine on a bright screen and still fail: Farah's caption grey measured 2.64:1 on white, and a darker grey of the same hue reached 6.05:1.
From the lesson Portfolio checks: accessibility, speed, SEO
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Which three parts make a strong LinkedIn headline?
Where you are now, the work you want with the tools it needs, in its postings' words, and one result from your resume with its number.
From the lesson LinkedIn profile: headline, About and skills
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Why rewrite the headline LinkedIn builds from your positions?
It names a job you held and a company, with no proof. Someone who sees only your name and that line should learn the role you are after and one piece of evidence that you can do it.
From the lesson LinkedIn profile: headline, About and skills
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How should a LinkedIn About section be built?
In one or two short paragraphs taken from your resume: who you are and your strongest proof first, then what you want next and where a reader can see more. LinkedIn says bullet points are fine too.
From the lesson LinkedIn profile: headline, About and skills
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Why should a headline never use bold or italic letters from a text generator?
They are Unicode's Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols, different characters to software, so a search for “analyst”, even one that ignores case, misses them. Only software applying a normalisation such as NFKC folds them back.
From the lesson LinkedIn profile: headline, About and skills
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How should a LinkedIn profile's facts compare with your resume's?
They match exactly: the titles on your offer letters or certificates, the organisations' names, and the start and end months. The profile may say more where it has room, but never something different.
From the lesson LinkedIn profile: headline, About and skills
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Which skills belong on a LinkedIn profile?
Only skills that some entry shows in use. LinkedIn allows up to 100 and asks where you used each one; a listed skill with nothing behind it is a claim without evidence.
From the lesson LinkedIn profile: headline, About and skills
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What are the rules for a LinkedIn custom public profile URL?
First come, first served, one at a time, 3 to 100 characters with no spaces, symbols or the word LinkedIn, and up to five changes in six months. Claim one early and use it in your resume's contact block.
From the lesson LinkedIn profile: headline, About and skills
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How should you read LinkedIn's claim of “up to 2X more profile views” with a photo?
As a self-reported figure: no method, sample or period is given, and “up to” sets a maximum, not a typical result. People who add photos may differ in other ways too, so treat it as LinkedIn's claim, not a forecast for you.
From the lesson LinkedIn profile: headline, About and skills
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What are the three visibility settings of LinkedIn's Open to Work?
All LinkedIn members: an #OpenToWork photo frame, seen by your current colleagues too. Recruiters only: shown to people using LinkedIn Recruiter. Visible only to you: nothing is shared, and only the suggested jobs change.
From the lesson Open to Work, job portals and staying safe
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How does the recruiters-only setting hide your search from your own company, and how reliable is it?
LinkedIn hides your career interests from Recruiter users at your company by matching its Company ID, but says it cannot guarantee complete privacy.
From the lesson Open to Work, job portals and staying safe
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When may LinkedIn switch Open to Work off by itself?
If you stop answering recruiters' InMails and do not confirm, when it asks, that you are still looking.
From the lesson Open to Work, job portals and staying safe
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Which extra Open to Work fields does LinkedIn offer in India, and who sees them?
Your notice period or when you can join, and your expected annual salary. Recruiters see them whatever visibility you pick, so enter the notice period your contract states and a figure you would accept from any recruiter.
From the lesson Open to Work, job portals and staying safe
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How do you keep several job-portal profiles from contradicting each other?
Fill every portal from one base resume, your complete and current resume, and copy facts from it rather than from another portal. Each mismatch in a title, a month or a notice period becomes a question in a screening call.
From the lesson Open to Work, job portals and staying safe
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What size should a resume file you upload to a portal stay under, and why?
Under 2.5 MB. Greenhouse Recruiting documents that it cannot parse a resume larger than that, so MySmartCoPilot's guidance keeps every upload below it.
From the lesson Open to Work, job portals and staying safe
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What should you share while applying, what only after a legitimate offer, and what never?
While applying: your resume, profile link, general location, salary expectations and availability. After an offer: ID numbers, bank or card details and copies of documents. Never: a payment of any kind, or your passwords.
From the lesson Open to Work, job portals and staying safe
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What does a verification badge on a LinkedIn job post mean?
That LinkedIn verified the company's page and that the person posting works there. It does not make you more likely to be hired, so still check the role on the company's own careers page, and treat any request for payment as a scam.
From the lesson Open to Work, job portals and staying safe
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What role does Harvard's career office give generative AI in writing a resume?
An editing aid for brainstorming revisions, working in keywords from a posting or improving what you wrote, but not the main author, partly because its output tends to be generic.
From the lesson Using AI on your resume without backfiring
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In what order should your facts, your draft and an AI edit come?
Your facts first, your own draft second, the tool's edit third, and a check of every claim against your records before anything is sent.
From the lesson Using AI on your resume without backfiring
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Which kind of request to an AI tool invites inventions, and which gets a real edit?
“Make this more impressive” invites inventions, because the tool cannot see your records. “Tighten this bullet without changing any number, tool or title” states a limit and leaves it nothing to invent.
From the lesson Using AI on your resume without backfiring
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What do you check an AI-edited bullet against?
Your facts sheet: every number, tool, title word and verb of leadership must be something you can prove. A checker can list what was added, but only you can tell whether a reworded verb, such as “built” for “maintained”, is still true.
From the lesson Using AI on your resume without backfiring
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What does the UK Civil Service's guide for candidates allow and forbid in using AI?
It allows refining your ideas, researching the organisation, checking spelling and clarity, mock interview practice and structuring examples you wrote. It forbids inventing or inflating experience, pasting generic answers, completing assessments and answering during interviews.
From the lesson Using AI on your resume without backfiring
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What happens to keywords or instructions hidden in white or tiny text?
Extraction reads them like any other text, so they reach everyone who reads the parsed profile. OWASP counts hidden prompts in a resume among its prompt injection scenarios, and a check of text colour and size finds them.
From the lesson Using AI on your resume without backfiring
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Why read the extracted text of a template you downloaded?
It may carry text you never typed, such as a block of keywords in white. Read its extracted text or run a colour-and-size check, and delete in the source anything you did not see on the page.
From the lesson Using AI on your resume without backfiring
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What should you take out of a resume before pasting it into an AI tool?
Your name, phone, e-mail, address, date of birth and identity numbers such as Aadhaar or PAN, each replaced by a label. Check that every number of your work survived, and put your details back yourself in your own copy.
From the lesson Using AI on your resume without backfiring
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What does a public resume or profile need, and what never goes on it?
Your name, your city, one or two ways to reach you and links to your work. Never identity numbers or copies of documents, a date of birth, a full home address or bank details.
From the lesson What not to publish: privacy for job seekers
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Why keep identity numbers and a date of birth off anything public?
Identity numbers and document copies are what an impersonator needs, and a date of birth together with your name identifies you to strangers. Employers who need them ask through their own forms after an offer.
From the lesson What not to publish: privacy for job seekers
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What can a PDF tell a recipient about itself that its page does not show?
Its metadata: a title, an author, the software that made it and when it was made and changed, sometimes twice, in the document information and in an XMP packet. A resume built on an old employer's template can still name that employer as its author.
From the lesson What not to publish: privacy for job seekers
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What can a phone photo carry that you never typed?
Exif data, including the GPS position of the place it was taken when location is switched on. Strip it before you publish or send the photo.
From the lesson What not to publish: privacy for job seekers
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Why does changing your commit e-mail address leave old commits as they were?
The address is part of each commit, and commits made before the change stay tied to the old one. Commit with GitHub's noreply address from the start, and turn on blocking pushes that would expose your private address.
From the lesson What not to publish: privacy for job seekers
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A key reached a public commit. What should you do?
Treat it as exposed and revoke it at once, as OWASP's guidance says, and keep .env files out of Git so that it cannot happen again.
From the lesson What not to publish: privacy for job seekers
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How do you get your phone number or address out of Google's results?
Google's “Results about you” finds results that show your home address, phone number or e-mail address and lets you ask for their removal from Search. The details stay on the source page, so ask that site's owner to remove them there too.
From the lesson What not to publish: privacy for job seekers
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What may a background check cover, and what must a US employer get first?
The US Federal Trade Commission lists employment history, education, criminal or other public records and credit history, and says the employer needs your written permission before a background reporting company runs a check.
From the lesson Honesty, background checks and credit
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Which job title belongs on your resume: the one you felt you had, or the one in your records?
The one on your offer letter or appointment record. Show the real scope of the work in the bullets beneath it, which survives a check where an inflated title does not.
From the lesson Honesty, background checks and credit
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How should you work out how long you held a role?
From the start and end months on your documents, not from memory. A draft's “4 years” for a role that the offer letter makes 39 months adds 9 months your own records contradict.
From the lesson Honesty, background checks and credit
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Why not stretch a role's dates to close a gap?
An honest gap with a line of explanation is a question; a stretched date is a discrepancy that a check will find.
From the lesson Honesty, background checks and credit
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What is India's National Skills Registry?
A NASSCOM initiative run by NDML that keeps a fact sheet, with background check results, on people working or hoping to work in IT and ITeS. Companies other than your current employer see it only with your authorisation.
From the lesson Honesty, background checks and credit
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How should a resume and a case study give credit for team work?
Say what you did yourself, such as “designed the schema”, rather than what the team did, and name each teammate and their part in the project's credits.
From the lesson Honesty, background checks and credit
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May you copy code you found that has no licence?
Generally not. By default a work stays under its author's exclusive copyright, so unlicensed code grants you no right to use, change or share it. A licence grants permission on its own terms.
From the lesson Honesty, background checks and credit
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When should you credit AI help in your work?
Wherever an employer or a course asks how you worked. Never present generated work as your own in an assessment, and keep every credit in a credits section of the README.
From the lesson Honesty, background checks and credit
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Why ask a reviewer to use a rubric and quote lines?
Feedback such as “looks good, maybe add more numbers” cannot be acted on. A rubric scores each item from 0 to 2, and a quoted line behind every score says exactly which line to fix.
From the lesson Resume reviews and tracking your applications
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Which six items does the track's review rubric score?
Relevance to the posting, evidence of a result in each bullet, clarity, a format whose text survives extraction, consistency of names, dates and titles, and privacy.
From the lesson Resume reviews and tracking your applications
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In what order should a resume review happen, and what is fixed first?
Review it yourself first with the posting and the rubric, then ask a second reader, as the UK and Canadian guides advise. The items that scored zero are fixed first.
From the lesson Resume reviews and tracking your applications
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What does a spell checker miss in a resume?
Consistency, since it judges each word alone: a name written two ways, or months as numbers in one entry and as words in another. Add your tools' names to its personal dictionary instead of changing them.
From the lesson Resume reviews and tracking your applications
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How should you treat what a proofreading tool flags?
As candidates, not verdicts. Read each flag in its line first: a lower-case name inside a web address, or a passive that hides nobody's part, may be right as written.
From the lesson Resume reviews and tracking your applications
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What counts as a response when you track applications?
Any invitation to a next step, such as a test, a call or an interview; an automatic acknowledgement or a rejection does not. The response rate is responses divided by applications.
From the lesson Resume reviews and tracking your applications
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Why can't you trust a response rate from 5 or 12 applications?
Each reply moves it by a big step, 20 points in a group of 5 and about 8 in a group of 12, and luck alone opens wide gaps between equal versions. Compare groups of at least 10 that differ in one thing only.
From the lesson Resume reviews and tracking your applications
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Meera's second resume got 6 responses from 20 and her first 2 from 20. Why can she not credit the new resume?
Her second version's weeks also held most of her referrals and the campus drive's replies, while on job portals alone the first version did slightly better. Luck alone opens a gap like hers about one search in six.
From the lesson Resume reviews and tracking your applications
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Into which three parts does resume as code split a resume?
Data that says what is true (names, dates, lines of work), a template that sets how it looks, and checks that every copy must pass. A date changed once in the data changes in every copy built from it.
From the lesson Resume as code: JSON Resume, Typst and CI
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What is JSON Resume?
An open format that keeps a resume in one JSON file with sections such as basics, work, education, skills and projects, described by a JSON Schema the project publishes under the MIT licence.
From the lesson Resume as code: JSON Resume, Typst and CI
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What do Typst and continuous integration each do in a resume pipeline?
Typst's compiler reads a template and the JSON data and writes a PDF, tagged by default. CI runs the steps on every push and stops at the first that fails, so a broken resume never becomes a PDF.
From the lesson Resume as code: JSON Resume, Typst and CI
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Which shapes does the JSON Resume schema check?
That highlights is a list of strings, an email looks like an e-mail address, a profile url is a full address, and each date is written as a year, a year and month, or a full year-month-day.
From the lesson Resume as code: JSON Resume, Typst and CI
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Does a resume.json that passes the schema check hold correct data?
Not necessarily. Valid only means that every value the schema has a rule for has the right shape; a misspelt key, an impossible month and an inflated claim all pass.
From the lesson Resume as code: JSON Resume, Typst and CI
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Which two mistakes does the JSON Resume schema let through?
Keys it does not define, at any level, so a misspelt “hightlights” is just an extra key the template never reads, and month digits up to 19, so a sixteenth month passes. Add checks of your own for both.
From the lesson Resume as code: JSON Resume, Typst and CI
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Which other tools fit the same resume pipeline?
RenderCV, an MIT-licensed Python tool that turns a resume written in YAML into a PDF, an HTML page printed to PDF, or LaTeX built with latexmk. Whatever makes the PDF, check its extracted text.
From the lesson Resume as code: JSON Resume, Typst and CI