In recent years, I've worked at Google as a software engineer (previously, I was a development team lead at Microsoft). I've gone through hundreds upon hundreds of resumes, selecting candidates who could proceed to the next step of the interview process. Some resumes left a deep impression on me, while others didn't.

Gradually, more and more friends and family members came to me for advice on how to optimize their resumes, so I collected some of the most common problems I've seen in resumes and gave advice on how to avoid them:

1. Include technical details of your work in your resume: programming languages, your personal achievements and skill level.

Sometimes I see resumes where the job description is just one line, like this:

    * 在一个3人组成的团队里开发一个 e-mail 插件。

When screeners read your resume, they have selection criteria in mind: 1. How challenging the work was, 2. How relevant your work is to our company. So you need to describe your work clearly. A more appropriate way to write it would be like this:

    * 用C++语言实现一个用来执行自动备份的 Outlook e-mail 插件。  
    有三个人一起开发这个任务，其他两个人分别负责编写备份存储服务器和产品的打包、分发给300,000个客户。

2. Don't let mundane things dilute the appeal of your resume.

If you write too many trivial things, it will lower the overall quality of your resume. There's absolutely no need to write "I completed this task on time and met the expected goals." Even if you don't say it, readers will assume it by default, and writing something that isn't an achievement as an achievement will actually weaken your resume.

Sometimes I see a "main job responsibilities" introduction like this:

    实习生, XYZ 公司      
    * 优化ABC组件代码，使其执行效率提高20%。
    * 用C++实现ABC组件的前端程序。
    * 整理文档，做一些行政工作。

If this last item is not as impactful as the first two, then remove it. Even writing just one item is fine—as long as it's engaging information.

3. Reflect your work truthfully; don't exaggerate.

Screeners use their own judgment to assess the nature and value of your work. You should write quantitative measures: awards (internal or external to the company), news coverage, salary increases, and other measurable things. Don't describe things with your own subjective perception. This way you can promote yourself without seeming arrogant.

Don't write "rapidly developed impressive software"; instead write "improved software efficiency by 25% through 3 weeks of effort." Don't write "every time others couldn't handle it, I was called in to save the day"; instead write "I was successively assigned to three projects that were seriously behind schedule and helped each of them get through the difficulties."

Similarly, don't make absurd exaggerations, like the following:

    通过组织了一次冰淇淋Party，让几个团队之间实现了融洽的合作。

4. List in detail all the things that can enhance your image (awards, special projects).

I have a friend named Melody (pseudonym), and I've known her for 10 years. A product she developed made her XXX company earn millions of dollars and won a lot of industry acclaim; this software became their company's flagship software. When I went to Shanghai, I saw a row of billboards for their products next to the highway. However, when I looked at her resume, it only said:

   * 公司产品的技术负责人，此产品为用户执行X任务提供企业级解决方案。

You need to write down the honors and awards you've received!

If you've completed some technically challenging projects in your spare time, or you have a sizable user base (a few hundred people), put these in your resume as well.

5. Don't lie.

This may not seem like it needs a reminder, but several times at hiring review meetings I've seen resumes that said: "Rewrote the backend program of XYZ Company's e-commerce system." But a member of the review committee said, "I worked at XYZ Company; he didn't do that!"

For this reason alone, there is completely sufficient grounds to reject this person.

I hope you can write a good resume! It's a challenging task, but it's also an achievable one.

As I'm about to wrap up, I'd like to give a few examples of resumes that particularly impressed me...

• There was a candidate who used the word "ass" (meaning something like "idiot") in the first sentence of his summary. (Inappropriate, but he was kept. "Google needed a very strong troublemaker programmer to develop the next XXX.")
• Someone wrote in his summary: "I don't have time to write a summary. I'm going to parties and dating girls." (Inappropriate, we didn't hire him!)
• Someone wrote: "Absolutely P=NP." When I interviewed him, he said, "What I meant was N actually equals 1."

Source: http://www.vaikan.com/how-to-write-a-killer-resume-for-software-engineers/