- Ankit Virmani switched his career from consulting to technology.
- After working a full day at Deloitte, he spent hours every night teaching himself how to code.
- The two-page resume that got Mr. Virmani the job at Google was a decision he defends today.
Ankit Virmani had been in consulting for five years when he started looking at moving into technology.
“I always knew in my heart that I wanted more technical depth. I wanted to make things, not sell too many things,” said Virmani, who immigrated to the United States from India to pursue a master's degree. said.
In the first half of 2020, he jumped into it.
After a day at her full-time job at Deloitte, Virmani would spend three to four hours each night practicing coding and another two hours reading about the industry. He also started spending time with people in the field and asking them about real-time scenarios and challenges they face on the job.
“I didn't want answers from them. I wanted to know their thought process, how they navigate these complex challenges at scale,” he told Business Insider. Ta.
It didn't pay off right away. He was rejected by Microsoft and Amazon at various stages of the application process.
Six months after making the move, he accepted a job as a data and machine learning specialist in Google's Seattle office.
This is the resume he used to apply for a job at Google that pays over $300,000 a year. BI confirmed his employment and compensation.
Sacrifice the “one page only” resume rule
Looking back on his resume in four years, Virmani said he would make some changes to the format.
“This resume gives equal weight to everything, and that's what I don't like,” he said. “I would put a hierarchy of importance, with the summary and past accomplishments at the top, followed by professional experience, education, and technical skills.”
But Virmani said he plans to leave some things unchanged, including the length of documents, after gaining a better understanding of what employers like Google value.
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Sacrifice the “one page only” rule for improved readability. Virmani broke the “one page” rule and prioritized keeping his resume organized. “There are very well-structured sections and high-level themes,” he said of using subheadings such as “Data Architecture” and “Cloud Strategy.” His manager at Google later told him that because of this style, he was able to understand his responsibilities without having to decipher the sentences below.
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Highlighting team effort: Virmani said some people overemphasize individual contributions on their resumes. “At least in my experience, that's never the case. It's always teamwork.” That's why he focused part of his resume on team accomplishments. “At Google, we value integrity and humility very highly. That's our culture. We know that individuals can't accomplish great things alone,” he said.
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Save details for interview. Virmani said he was careful not to explain too much about past projects during the interview to increase curiosity and encourage good conversation. He says, “If you write everything on your resume, you won't have anything to talk about in the interview.'' ”
Virmani is not alone in choosing to sacrifice “typical” resume decisions. For Shola West, that comes in the form of breaking down the idea that no resume is required.
West is part of a growing group of Gen Zers who are trying to eliminate the resume gap, or the stigma of periods of unemployment between jobs or education.
West previously told BI that he took a year off at the start of his career to figure out what he really wanted to pursue. She accepted the gap in her resume and now works at an advertising agency and runs her career advice side business.
For Mariana Kobayashi, breaking away from the conventional resume format meant abandoning the written format completely.
Kobayashi landed an account executive role at Google after designing a video about why she should take the role.
Kobayashi previously told BI that she spent 10 hours creating a video resume that she sent directly to hiring managers. Her Google recruiter contacted her after seeing the video, and she eventually landed a job at the tech giant.
Do you work in finance or consulting and have a story to share about your personal resume development journey? Email this reporter at shubhangigoel@insider.com.
On February 28, Axel Springer, the parent company of Business Insider, joined 31 other media groups in filing a $2.3 billion lawsuit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses caused by the company's advertising practices. Ta.
On February 28, Axel Springer, the parent company of Business Insider, joined 31 other media groups in filing a $2.3 billion lawsuit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses caused by the company's advertising practices. Ta.