g.grow.

Career & Growth Lesson 2 of 4

Structuring Your Tech Story & STAR Resume Bullets

16:30 Confidence for Your Tech Career

Transform generic job responsibilities into compelling impact statements using Google's XYZ formula: Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z].

Lesson notes

Recruiters and hiring managers spend an average of 6 seconds reviewing a resume before deciding to advance or pass. If your bullets read like a job description ('Responsible for writing React code'), you blend into the background.

What you'll learn

  • Replace passive verbs with active technical ownership
  • Apply the XYZ formula to all resume bullets and portfolio items
  • Tailor keywords for modern applicant tracking systems (ATS)

1. The Google XYZ Formula

Every resume bullet must answer: What did you accomplish? How was it measured? What specific technique or architectural decision made it happen?

  • Weak: 'Built an API for user authentication.'
  • Strong: 'Engineered stateless OAuth2 & JWT authentication microservice handling 45,000 daily active sessions with 99.98% uptime using Node.js and Redis.'