This episode is a live recording from the Hacker House fireside chat on February 5th, 2025, in the Codédex community, kicking off our “Roast My Resume” February Monthly Challenge. 🔥

We invited Jovanay Carter, Co-Founder of The Dev Difference & ex-Google Technical Recruiter (and former coworker!), who’s reviewed over 20,000+ resumes in her career. She shares insider tips on crafting standout resumes, optimizing LinkedIn profiles, networking strategically, how to get a referal, and everything in between to land more interviews in 2025.

Stick around for the Q&A at the end, where we answered live questions from the community!

Want to see more Boba Talk? Follow us ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@boba_talk⁠⁠⁠⁠ on Twitter! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review — it really helps!

Show Notes:

(0:00) Intro

(1:27) Lightning Round!

(4:39) Becoming a tech recruiter

(6:32) Moving to Google and hiring for Android, OS, Privacy

(7:29) Pivoting to Software Engineering

(9:41) Plug: Roast My Resume Challenge

(9:54) Common pitfalls in resumes

(11:42) Importance of a personal portfolio

(14:26) The Experience Paradox for CS students

(18:41) Skills section on a resume

(22:52) Keywords on a LinkedIn profile

(30:04) Landing a job at the Grace Hopper Conference

(35:28) Advice on talking to a recruiter

(36:56) Finding events via Luma

(42:55) Asking for referals

(44:02) The Dev Difference

(50:26) @Valérie: What are common dealbreakers for recruiters?

(53:03) @juanpabloduqueb: What are some entry-level roles in tech that are open to people without formal industry experience?

(55:23) @AW: What’s the best way to approach a recruiter on LinkedIn without sounding desperate or generic?

(59:54) @Samppiii: How can a CS student build a standout project that will catch the attention of recruiters and hiring managers?

(1:00:39) @CoderBlue10: Which roles should we go for in the age of AI?

(1:04:30) Outro

Episode links:

• 🗣️ The Dev Difference
• 🔥 Roast My Resume
• 🤖 Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
• 📄 Jovanay's Resume
• 👩‍💻 Grace Hopper Celebration
• 🧑🏾‍💻 AfroTech Conference
• 🗓️ Luma
• 💖 WECode Conference

Keep up with Jovanay:

• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jovanay-carter
• Website: The Dev Difference

Boba Talk:

• Host: Sonny Li
• Producer: Jay Yow

Codédex:

The Boba Talk podcast has been brought to you by Codédex. We are a learn to code platform with 300K happy users. Based in Brooklyn, NY.

• Website: codedex.io
• Instagram: @codedex.io
• Twitter: @codedex_io