u/Interesting_Two2977

This one really hits home because I have made this mistake a lott before I figured out how it all works.

Here is what nobody tells you. The first person reading your resume is not a person. It is a bot called ATS and its only job is to match your resume to the job description word for word. Word for word bro.

So if the job description says cross functional collaboration and your resume says worked with different teams, that is a keyword miss. Same meaning, but completely different outcome and YOU"RE GONE

Here is the three layer framework I use for every job description I actually care about. Save it and apply it, cause it took me forever to come up with this system.

Layer 1 is required skills. These are listed under requirements or qualifications. These exact words need to be on your resume, not synonyms, the actual words.

Layer 2 is preferred skills. Most people skip this and that is the mistake. These are the differentiators. For Verizon I had one semester of agile workflows from a class project, used the word agile twice on my resume and got the interview. Everyone else probably left it out thinking it did not matter.

Layer 3 is cultural and soft language. Phrases like fast paced environment, ownership mentality, drives impact. These are not filler, they are telling you exactly how the team thinks. Put them into your bullet points naturally (you can use AI for this, don't know why people are afraid to as long as you read over it. Oh and also use XYZ format)

Then rank your keywords by two rules:
- Frequency - where if a word shows up more than once in the description it matters more.
- Placement - where words in the top third of the job description carry more weight with ATS scoring. Bro science I know

I went from basically zero responses to a 10% response rate just by doing this. If you didnt know, 10% is insane. This includes things like OAs, recruiter screens and full blown interviews. Same experience, same projects, just the right language and the results are insane.

Do this for every application you actually want and you are already ahead of like 90% of people applying for the same role.

If you want a full guide on exactly how I do it step by step, I break it down in this video with cool COD gameplay :)

Let me know if you have any questions but give me your thoughts on this strat too or what you guys do to get more callbacks.

I spent my entire freshman year stressing over every exam, retaking quizzes, grinding problem sets to keep my GPA up.

Then got rejected over and over anyway in sophomore year.

Here is what nobody told me. The students landing Google, Apple, Meta internships? A lot of them have average GPAs. Some have really bad ones. I actually had an intern friend with a 2.2 or 2.5 GPA at Apple

I got into both Apple and Verizon. My GPA was not the reason (trust me)

Here is what recruiters actually look at in about 6 seconds:

Maybeeee school name. Relevant experience and projects for sure. Recognizable company names or keywords 100%. GPA is literally at the bottom of that list (if you put it at all).

Amazon removed their GPA filter years ago. Meta does not list one. Apple does not have one. The companies that do list a cutoff it is usually 3.0. That is it. 3.0 is not insanely difficult to get at most universities if you do the basics.

So what actually matters instead:

Projects that solve real problems - One deployed project that solves a real problem separates you from 80% of applicants. Mine were literally copied from YouTube tutorials with the colors and code changed around. That is genuinely how I started. I would rec this to you as well if you're just getting started.

Fork a project and grind it out. Once you know the basics, build something real users would use and have them use it.

Keywords on your resume. - Your resume goes through software before it reaches a human. That software scans for Python, React, SQL, whatever the job description says. I went from 1 response per 200 applications to roughly 10% response rate just by fixing this.

A recognizable name somewhere on your profile - A company, a program, a hackathon, anything that show you are clutch. My Verizon internship is literally what got me the Apple one. You can resume ad company names on platforms like Forage, Extern, etc.

If your GPA is below 3.5 just remove it from your resume, don't put it there bro

Fix the three things above this week. Your GPA is not going to change but everything else can.

I did a full break down on exactly what steps to take here if you are interested.

Good luck out there, market is rough but this stuff actually works.

I want you to think about the last time you walked into an interview feeling prepared. You knew your resume, you (probably) studied the role/JD, you were ready to talk about your projects.

And then the interview opens with: "Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult teammate".

You just blank out... because nobody ever told you how to package that story in a way that makes an interviewer think "we need to hire this person".

I've been through behavioral rounds at both Verizon and Apple, at Apple I did six rounds back to back of pure behavioral. So I've seen what works and what completely falls apart in the room.

There are 7 questions that kept showing up across every single one of those interviews. Some of them you think you know how to answer. By the third one I'd be willing to bet you realize you've been doing it wrong.

A few notes/patterns I have noticed from my experience:

The "tell me about yourself" answer most people give actively works against them in the first 30 seconds without them realizing it

The conflict question isn't really about conflict. It's a culture fit question in disguise and interviewers know exactly what they're screening for

The failure question eliminates more candidates than almost any other question on the list. Most people either dodge it or oversell the recovery and both versions miss the point

There's one question that only comes up in final rounds with director-level interviewers and generic answers will silently kill your chances

The other thing I'll say is this: interviewers forget general answers the moment you leave the room. They remember specifics: a number, a name, a real result. If your answer doesn't have at least one of those, it won't stick.

Explained all 7 with word for word example answers using the START framework here if you are interested. Promise you'll have more interview success after looking through that.

If you have a behavioral round coming up, watch it tonight and actually write your answers out. The people who get the offers are the ones who do that, not the ones who plan to wing it.

What's the one behavioral question you hate? Personally, the "Tell me your weakness" one gets me everytime cause I have had interviewers say "that's not a weakness" when I tried to spin it off as a positive thing lol.

I've been through enough interviews now to notice a pattern that hurts to watch bro.

People (including me) grind Leetcode for months, get through the technical round and then lose the offer in the behavioral. The frustrating part is it's fixable, yet we overlook it.

Most CS students (including me before I took it seriously) treat behavioral like an afterthought. "It's just talking how hard can it be?" Then they get asked about a conflict or a failure and just blank.

Here's the thing though, behavioral interviews have patterns like leetcode. Once you see=e them, you can prepp for basically any question they throw at you in under a few hours.

By the way, it took me a bunch of interviews to figure this out before I noticed lol. I also use a method called START, tad different from STAR.

There's also a specific framework that most people get almost right but miss the most important part of and that one missing piece is what separates a decent answer from one that actually sticks with the interviewer.

A few other things I wish someone told me earlier:

• There's a right way to handle questions about experiences you genuinely don't have yet and it's not saying "I haven't had that experience". Never say that unless you genuinely don't even know what it is. Instead, you want to spin off another story.
• AI can cut your behavioral prep time dramatically if you use it the right way with the job description. Plug it into Claude, there you do, that is your interviewer.
• Recording yourself is uncomfortable but it's probably the single fastest way to stop sounding robotic and choppy. Recording yourself and analyzing it is sooo valuable because the feedback is instant. A few times doing this and you're SET
• What you eat on the day of actually matters more than people think (Random, I know)

I broke down the full system including the framework (START), how to prep efficiently, and how to make your answers feel like a conversation instead of an interrogation

You can watch the video here if you are interested. Again, it breaks down everything into a granular level in depth

p.s. Another thing I remembered while writing this out that I didn't mention in the video is that you can make up and bs anything on the planet if you sound onfident enough. Just another tactic I picked up on.

This market (as you know) is rough right now. Don't leave an offer on the table over something this fixable and silly. Good Luck. 

So I did a test automation engineer internship last year. When I started applying for full-time roles in that space I was getting interview after interview. Like genuinely back to back. And I kept thinking... why isn't everyone doing this?

As a disclaimer, I've made it to multiple final rounds and always getting beat by some dude with more experience since I am a new grad. So if you have some experience and want to get into Apple, this is your ticket.

Every CS student I know is grinding LeetCode, fighting for the same SWE spots, getting rejected and then just giving up. Meanwhile this whole other door exists and people just aren't walking through it. I debated on whether or not to share this, but tbh I know 99% of you guys won't even check to see what I'm talking about lol.

It's test automation engineering. Falls under QA. I know what you're thinking,  just hear me out.

What the role actually is

You won't sit around clicking buttons on an app looking for bugs. You do write code, just basic. Python, Swift, Objective-C at Apple specifically. I have only used Python and Swift, but I know some teams that do use obj-C.

Building automated testing frameworks, integrating with CI/CD pipelines, writing scripts that run thousands of checks before a release goes out to billions of users. The output is test code instead of product code, that one distinction is what makes people write off the entire field.

The people loudest about looking down on QA are often the same ones getting rejected from every SWE application and not changing anything. Just something to think about.

Why Apple specifically

While Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have been laying off tens of thousands of people over the past two years, Apple has stayed notably disciplined. They hire slower but they cut way less.

And the competition gap is genuinely insane. A SWE role at Apple opens and gets hundreds of thousands of applications within hours. A test automation role at the same company? Fraction of that volume. Same brand. Same compensation tier. Dramatically less competition. That asymmetry is the whole opportunity.

Pay gap between SWE and test automation is roughly 30K from what I've seen. For a new grad offer at Apple I would take that deal every single time. Obviously depends from location to location, but if we measure in same city, then you'll see its not toooo crazy.

You can pivot internally too (from my experience)

Getting in as a test automation engineer and moving to SWE internally is a real. I have seen some of my team members talking about doing this and spoke to a few others who have done it.

Internal transfers are way easier than external apps because you already have the network, the performance reviews, and you've proven you operate at that level. Think of it like an internship, get your foot in the door, perform, build relationships, then strike.

What you actually need

• Python fundamentals: functions, loops, classes, APIs. The LeetCode for these interviews is literally string manipulation, not the hard stuff. Easy (literally) leetcodes btw
• Basic testing concepts: unit tests, integration tests, regression testing. One afternoon of YouTube, not a whole semester. These tests are also common sense as the name gives off what you are testing lol
• One testing framework: Selenium, Pytest, or XCTest for Apple specifically. Build one project, put it on GitHub. Those keywords alone put you ahead of most applicants. XCTests are huge in this space right now, so prioritize that one more but unittests are are also in demand
• A tailored resume: don't send your SWE resume. Pull forward any testing or debugging experience you have, even from class projects. If you don't have any, then create some. Build hella projects that maybe automate something test related.

Go to the Apple careers and search "test automation engineer" or "software quality engineer." Set up alerts. If you're still in school apply through Handshake too.

Most people will read this and go right back to applying for the same SWE roles getting the same results. This market is ROUGH right now, don't be that person.

I am going through a few pipelines myself and I will keep you guys updated on that happens.

If you want a full breakdown of this process and my experience, then you can check out this video here.

Have you thought of doing this? What are pros and cons you see of this vs just targeting traditional swe listings? (I have yet to find any cons from this yet)

Good luck out there

So I used to just have one resume. I would send it everywhere and wonderr why I was getting ghosted even on roles I felt genuinely qualified for (Met at least 85% of the requirements)

Turns out I made it to a final round panel at Apple and got knocked out, the recruiter told me off the record why: my resume was framing me as a test automation engineer when I was applying for a software engineering role. Even though most of my actual experience was SWE, the way it was emphasized made it read differently. That one mismatch cost me the offer.

The role was for early career SWE position... (still mad at myself for not tailoring bruh)

So here’s the system I use now:

Build 3-4 focused resumes, not just one generic one:
Don’t tailor every single application, that’s just not realistic at volume. Instead build a small library. Each resume is focused on a specific track: full stack, data/ML, QA, whatever youre targeting. When a role comes in, you grab the closest match. You’re already 80% tailored before you even touch the job description. I have about 4-5 of these and alternate accordingly. Extra tip: having a PM based one also helps incase you dont like coding all that much)

For most CS students right now I’d prioritize full stack, AI/ML, and data. That covers the majority of what’s actually hiring.

Use a Venn diagram before writing a single bullet:
Pull 10+ job postings for your target role. List out what they keep asking for: required skills, preferred skills and soft skills separately. Then list your own skills and experiences. The overlap is your resume. Anything outside it gets deprioritized or cut.

Takes maybe 30 minutes and completely changes how recruiters read your application. Yet students still don't do this.

Order IS KEY:
If you’re applying for a fronted role and your most recent experience is in data, that’s what they’ll remember. Reorganize so the most relevant stuff leads. Recruiters spend about 5-7 seconds deciding whether to keep reading, what they see first shapes everything.

It has to be relevant to the role. It still should be in reverse chronological order. Also, you can literally spin off almost any experience into the position you are applying for. White lies are fine here, most places do not confirm 100% of your resume. Just make sure not to cap so hard you contradict yourself during the interview...

The Apple situation made that very real for me.

Goodluck out there yall, this market is ROUGH bro.

There’s a full video breakdown of how to build this system from scratch including the Venn diagram process here if you’re interested

Genuinely did not know ATS (applicant tracking system) was a thing until way too late. Basically almost every large company runs your resume through automated software before a recruiter ever touches it. Itt scans for keywords, structure, and formatting.

If your resume has fancy design elements, columns, text boxes, graphics, or weird fonts then the parser gets confused and you get filtered out automatically. Doesn't matter how qualified you are. your resume just never reaches a human. (From reviewing a lot of resumes' I have found out that a lot of you guys put icons next to your linkedin profile for some reason)

This is why people with mid experience land interviews and people who are actually talented hear nothing back. It's not always about skill level. Trust me, otherwise I would not be here where I am lol. It's literally about whether your resume even survives the first filter.

SO here's the actual framework that works:

The template: search "Jake's resume template" on Google. Should be the first link. It's clean, ATS friendly, and it's the standard in software engineering. Use it as your base. no tables, no columns, no graphics, no pictures. just clean readable formatting that parsers prperly.

One page, no exceptions: recruiters spend an average of 7 seconds on an initial scan (found that metric online ngl but seems true). One page forces you to put only what actually matters on there. I don't care how much experience you have. Always keep it to a page.

Section order for early career: education > skills > experience > projects > extracurriculars/affiliations. that's it in that exact order. And this is what I use

The XYZ bullet point format: this is the most important thing on here. every single bullet point should follow this structure: accomplished X by doing Y which resulted in Z. Quantify everything. numbers make recruiters stop and actually read

File stuff people sleep on: always submit as a PDF. name it:
FirstName LastName Resume.pdf.

Not "resume final v3 ACTUAL FINAL.pdf" or some other random BS you be putting. Just clean and professional

Master resume doc - keep one document with every project, experience, and skill you've ever had. when you apply to a specific role, pull from that doc and tailor it to match the job description. saves time and means you never forget what to include

If your GPA is under 3.5 just leave it off. nobody's checking (I do not have it as it is under)

There's a full video walking through all of this with examples of what good vs bad bullet points actually look like here.

Fix the resume first. Everything else comes after.

We need all the advantages we can get in this market bro. Thanks for reading

Hey guys, thank you for being a part of this community! We have hit over 650 members here and at 10 subscribers on YouTube. It may seem like those are small numbers, but they mean a lot to me.

For me, these aren't numbers on the screen, rather the number of real people whose lives could potentially change by helping them in their career.

So this week, I thought I would give back a little. I am doing 10 deep resume reviews.

I will go over your entire resume like grill you hard on it, and tell you exactly how to fix it. I think this will help as I know what it feels like to keep getting rejected over and over. The same annoying emails "Unfortunately..." in your inbox.

To get one, just comment who you are and where you are stuck. I will DM you if I think you really really need a resume review. Must have discord (so I can send a voicenote to you with advice).

This will be active for 24 hours, so we can give everyone a chance to comment. I might do more than 10 reviews depending on time. If I do not get to review your resume, I will reply and give you a direction to go.

Really hoping this helps. I know internship season is winding down, so maybe some of you guys can get a hailmary in. Some of you are looking for fulltime so that window is still open. Others, we can prep up for next season.

Edit: I am loving these! Keep them coming guys. Some of you guys are DMing me, and honestly that's fine too. This is fun for me and its helping you guys.

Also, if you don't have a resume, check this out and then DM me or comment and we can make it better together.

Something nobody tells you before your internship starts: most companies already want to give you the return offer. If they hired you and you perform, bringing you back is just easier than restarting the whole recruiting process. that mindset alone puts you ahead of half the interns walking in on day one who've already decided they probably won't get one.

Now here's what you actually have to do:

Week one: set the foundation before anything else

First thing you do is book 30 minutes to an hour with yourr manager and ask one simple question: what does success look like for this internship? Get that baseline goal clearly defined so you know exactly what you're working toward.

Then schedule individual 1-on-1s with every single person on your team. NOT to talk about work. Just to actually get to know them as people. hobbies, interests, whatever you genuinely have in common. This is the most underrated thing an intern can do and almost nobody does it. Those conversations will carry you further than any project deliverable (from my experience)

Also ask your manager if they'd be comfortable introducing you to their manager (your skip-level). DO NOT reach out directly, that reads as bypassing your chain of command (or hierarchy?). But asking permission signals initiative and gets you on the radar of people who actually influence return offer decisions

Throughout the internship: exceed, don't just meet

Once you have your baseline goal, that becomes the floor not the ceiling. Aim for 20-30% above it minimum. In practice: if you're expected to ship one feature over three months, finish it early and start a second one. Even if you don't finish the second, you've already exceeded expectations. If you finish both and start a third, that's exceptional. Just don't rush the first one to get there PLEASE. Quality still matters.

You just have to move faster. Side tangent but I see other interns move so slowly like waiting for people to show them what to do. Be a damn engineer bro. Lock in and take responsbility. If you don't know something, go learn it. Read the docs. Ask deeper questions.

Use every resource available to you. AI tools, internal docs, and most importantly the experienced engineers on your team who already know exactly how to do what you've been assigned. Ask for help when you need it and offer it back when they need it. That's how real relationships actually form.

Do not just take, take, take. You have to also give give give sometimes.

NOW PAY ATTENTION HERE. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART:

At the halfway point: this is the exact question to ask

Don't ask for the return offer directly. it puts your manager in an uncomfortable spot and can backfire. instead ask this: "what areas do you think i can improve on, and what would make me a strong candidate for a return offer?"

That one question does two things at once, it shows you're thinking about the future and taking your performance seriously, AND it naturally opens the door for your manager to advocate for you without you ever having to make the ask outright. That's literally what i said and my manager's response was just "yeah we want you back".

I realize I am lucky to have a great manager, I am grateful for that. But applying these princples will also open up that door for you.

There's a FULL video going DEEPER into this with more context on how each of these steps actually played out here.

Internships are genuinely designed to convert (most of the time). Most companies want to keep you. Just give them a reason to.

Return offers are your best friend in this market.

p.s. If you don't have an internship yet, then still bookmark this or write it in your notes as it'll help you sometime in the future!

Okay so I used to be the person refreshing LinkedIn and Indeed for internship postings and wondering why every single listing already had 500+ applicants the second it dropped.

Turns out a huge chunk of that is just bots. You're literally competing against automated scripts on those platforms and the one-click apply feature is basically useless. I have never once gotten an interview from a one-click apply on LinkedIn. Not once.

The craziest part of it all was I didn't even get callbacks from long form applications on linkedin as well (the external link clicking ones)

so here's what actually works (not affiliated with any of them, just what I used/use):

Jobright AI - has a matching system that compares your actual resume bullet points against the job description and gives you a match percentage. I personally only applied to 80%+ matches. They also have a master list that's basically a giant database of thousands of fresh postings scraped hourly across software engineering, ML, data, cyber, finance, you name it. 100% free and honestly still my go-to.

GitHub internship list - maintained by a university club (I think s/o to you guys), updated yearly, curated specifically for recognizable companies. less volume but higher prestige. good if you're targeting brand names and want to filter out the noise

Handshake - most slept on one by far. If you go to a university, you almost definitely have access through your student portal. the difference is that companies posting here are specifically looking for students, meaning the competition pool is way smaller than any public job board. Start here first before anything else

The application volume part: spending 5-10 minutes perfecting every single application is not realistic when you're trying to move fast. What actually helps is a free Chrome extension called Simplify Jobs that autofills all your standard info with one click like name, address, phone, resume, all of it.

Pair that with Claude (I have noticed that Claude sounds the most human) for cover letter questions (upload your resume, paste the prompt, tell it to match your tone and skip the em dashes) and you're moving way faster without sacrificing quality. Just actually review what it outputs before submitting. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review it before submitting. Last thing you want to do is sound like a bot.

Order of operations (since we are engineers): Handshake THEN Jobright AI THEN GitHub list.

There's a video breaking down the whole system in more detail including how to actually stay sane while doing this at scale here if you are interested.

Stop one-click applying on LinkedIn. It's not doing anything for you.

Goodluck in this market bro