How to get your resume shortlisted at Google and Amazon

To get your resume shortlisted at Google or Amazon, you need a one-page, plainly formatted resume where every bullet shows a measurable result, tailored to one specific job post. Both companies say this in their own hiring guidance. There is no secret template and no keyword trick. There are a handful of choices that big-tech recruiters reward, and most rejected resumes miss them.

This guide is for software engineers, students applying through careers pages or referrals, and anyone moving from a service company to a product company. Everything below comes from what Google and Amazon publish themselves, plus how their application systems work, with links so you can check.

What Google and Amazon actually say they want

Amazon is unusually direct. Its recruiters describe the resumes they look for as "well-organized, use straightforward language, highlight measurable data, and are streamlined for maximum readability", and say your experience should show scope, complexity, recency and relevancy. The same page says Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles are "the framework of how we evaluate potential candidates", and that you can usually tell from the job description which ones matter for a role.

Google's best-known resume advice comes from Laszlo Bock, its former head of People Operations, who in 2014 shared a formula for every accomplishment on a resume: "Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z]." The point is specificity: what you achieved, the number that proves it, and how you did it. We cover it in depth in our guide to the Google XYZ formula.

Google also limits how often you can apply. Its careers help page says you can apply to up to three jobs in a rolling 30-day window. That changes strategy: you can't spray applications, so each one should be a resume written for that job.

Microsoft doesn't publish a resume formula like these. The same principles apply there, and at almost every product company: clarity, measurable impact, and relevance to the role.

The format big-tech recruiters move through fastest

You don't need a special "FAANG template". You need a layout a recruiter can scan in seconds and software can parse cleanly:

• One page if you have under about five years of experience. Recruiters decide in seconds whether to keep reading (an eye-tracking study by Ladders put the first skim at about 7.4 seconds), so your best work has to be on the first page anyway.
• One column, standard headings (Experience, Projects, Education, Skills) and real text, with no skill bars, icons or photos.
• Experience before education once you have a full-time job; education first if you're a student or fresher.
• A PDF, unless the form asks for something else.

This is why so many engineers applying to big tech use plain LaTeX templates like Jake's Resume: it is one column, dense without being cluttered, and extracts as clean text. If you're unsure whether yours parses, run the two-minute test in Is a LaTeX resume ATS-friendly?.

Bullets that pass the "so what?" test

Big-tech reviewers read for impact. A bullet that only describes a duty fails the question every reviewer asks: so what?

Each strong version names the system, a number, and what you did. That mirrors both Google's formula and Amazon's "measurable data" ask.

Two rules make this honest and interview-proof:

1. Use numbers you can explain. Big-tech interviews dig into your bullets. If you can't say how you measured something, describe the scope instead ("used by the 40-person support team").
2. Write "I", not "we", in your head. The bullet should describe what you did. Amazon's interview guidance stresses your own actions over your team's, and the resume sets that up.

Tailor to the job post, line by line

Google job posts split requirements into Minimum qualifications and Preferred qualifications. Amazon posts use Basic and Preferred qualifications. Treat these as a checklist:

1. Every minimum or basic qualification should be visibly proven somewhere on your resume, ideally in a bullet, not just the skills line.
2. Use their words where they're true. If the post says "distributed systems" and you built a sharded queue, say "distributed systems" in that bullet.
3. Order by relevance. Move the most relevant role, project and bullets to the top of each section.
4. Cut what doesn't serve this job. One focused page beats two pages of everything.

Recruiters can search applicant systems by keyword and then read the matches, so wording matters, but only when a real bullet backs it up. Our step-by-step guide to tailoring a resume to a job description walks through it, and the free resume and job description checker shows which required skills and keywords your resume is missing.

Map your bullets to Amazon's Leadership Principles

You don't write Leadership Principles on your resume, and stuffing their names in reads badly. But each bullet can show one. Pick the principles the job description emphasises and make sure some bullets demonstrate them:

These bullets do double duty: they get you shortlisted, and they become your STAR stories in the interview.

Moving from a service company to a product company

Many engineers in India apply to Google, Amazon and other product companies from service companies. The work is often good; the resume usually undersells it. Common fixes:

• Describe the product, not the client contract. "Built the claims-processing API for a US insurer's mobile app (2M users)" beats "Worked for a leading insurance client".
• Show engineering decisions. Designs you chose, performance you improved, incidents you fixed, not only tickets completed.
• Add proof outside work if your job doesn't show depth yet: a serious side project, open-source contributions, or strong competitive programming ratings.
• Drop generic lines like "Worked in an Agile environment" and "Good communication skills". Every product-company resume claims them.

Referrals help, but the resume still decides

A referral usually gets your resume read by a person sooner, but the reviewer uses the same bar. Ask for referrals for roles you're genuinely qualified for, send the referrer your tailored resume and the job link, and make sure the first three bullets match the job's minimum qualifications.

A quick checklist before you apply

• One page, one column, PDF, standard headings.
• Every bullet: system or task + number + how.
• Every minimum qualification in the job post is proven on the page.
• Links that help: GitHub, a portfolio or a live project. Some Google posts, such as UX roles, ask for a portfolio link in the resume.
• No photo, date of birth, or "objective" that says nothing.
• At Google, you've chosen this role as one of your three applications this month.

Want to start from a format that already meets this bar? Open the builder with Jake's Resume, or see role samples such as the backend engineer and SDE intern resumes.

Frequently asked questions

What resume format does Google prefer?

Google doesn't require a template. A one-page, single-column PDF with clear headings and bullets written as accomplishments with numbers, in the spirit of its "Accomplished X as measured by Y by doing Z" advice, is what recruiters move through fastest.

How many jobs can I apply to at Google at once?

Google's careers help page says you can apply to up to three jobs within a rolling 30-day window, so choose the roles that best match your experience and tailor each resume.

Should I mention Amazon's Leadership Principles on my resume?

Don't list them by name. Write bullets that show them through results, such as ownership of a system or a deep investigation that fixed a bug, and save the explicit stories for the interview.

Is a one-page resume necessary for FAANG?

For students and engineers with under about five years of experience, yes in practice: it forces your strongest, most relevant work to the top. Senior engineers with long, relevant histories sometimes use two pages.

Can a service-company engineer get shortlisted at a product company?

Yes. Describe the product and users you built for, the engineering decisions you made and their measurable results, and add strong side projects or open-source work if your job doesn't show depth yet.