10-08-2019
How To Write Your Developer Resume/CV (Example Resume Included)
Imagine if you could make a few small tweaks to your resume/CV writing, and instantly see more companies interested in hiring you. Or even better: What if you could just restructure your resume/CV PDF and instantly see the benefits? Lucky for you, that’s exactly what I’m going to outline with you in this post. This free resume/CV template is perfect for web developers, java developers, react native developers, angular developers, PHP developers, JavaScript developers, mobile application developers, laravel developers, python developers and freelance software developers. I think you get the point. Oh, and it’s great for a graduate software developer, junior software developer, senior software developer and experienced software developer (and everything in between). You can also watch a video on how to write the perfect developer resume/CV here: But, first: I'm going to share with you one of the biggest frustrations I have as a recruiter. The best developers have the worst resume/CVs. It’s true. And I get it; if you're really good at your job, you don't need a resume/CV to get a new job. Probably, you got your last job through a referral, your old boss hired you again, you were recommended, you've got good testimonials, you might have good code samples. But, having a bad resume/CV is just an unnecessary problem, writing a good resume/CV is easy! You can do it in 15 minutes. The biggest frustration I have is I'm not the best person to communicate your skills and experience; that's you! So do it. 15 minutes, I'm going to give you a quick rundown on my laptop right now of what a good resume/CV looks like, and what a bad resume/CV looks like. Let's get into it: Don't overlook your personal statement. Of course, you've got to start with all your contact information (that goes without saying I hope). Then it's on to the personal statement. Keep it short and use it to communicate either something personal about you or something that's interesting. Or, even better: Communicating your coding ethics, or your coding attitude is more valuable in your personal statement. If you are somebody that is driven by quality, talk about when you've improved test coverage. Or talk about when you've scaled a system without sacrificing quality (and how you did it). I like to see someone’s educational history at the top of their profile, but this bit doesn't really matter (you can put that at the top or you can put that at the bottom). And now we've got to spoken languages. This could be a game-changer. If you speak fluent German (or any other second language), I would have that at the top. And if you've got any other language skills, it's pretty useful, so put that at the top of your resume/CV. And we don't stop there: You should also have some kind of technical skills summary. That's just a snapshot of the different programming languages and all the frameworks and tools that you've used. Most people do this anyway, whether that goes at the start or the end doesn't matter. The biggest gripe I have is this section: The employment history is the most important part. I can't stress this enough: This is the most important part. So often people will just list either technologies that they've used, or they'll talk about the company that they worked for and put their job title in. This simply isn't enough. You need to use this to communicate exactly what you've done, what tools you used to achieve your project or achieve your objectives. And a summary of what your responsibilities are. That's what we're interested in (both hiring managers and recruiters). So this is how I like to see the employment section of resume/CV written: Name of the employer, the dates that you worked there, month to month, not year to year and definitely not day to day. Your exact job title, and if you want, the location of where that business was based. Keep the introduction of who that business is short - it's interesting, but it's not you! So we don't care too much. One line: "eCommerce company, biggest in the world" whatever it might be. The next paragraph is the important part. This is a paragraph where you're going to be explaining: your core duties, your core responsibilities, what projects you worked on, what was your objective in that role your daily duties, what did a normal day look like for you? Are you coding all day long, or are you involved in code reviews, scrum meetings, requirement gatherings etc. Is there anything else that you did on a daily basis, or a weekly basis, that would be useful to another company? And then I also really like to see some kind of achievement or a proud moment in your employment history where you can say: "I worked for that company, I was there for 2 years and when I left, they were in a much better shape than when I joined them because..." And, finally a short technology summary, and this is useful because in your technical skill summary, in another part of your resume/CV I can start to see exactly where you applied that experience. So, if I see ReactJS in your skill summary, but you've only applied in 1 position that you worked at for 3 months, it helps me or a hiring manager evaluate how competent you might be in that particular tool. Now, I know these frameworks, they're just tools, they're all suitable for different kinds of jobs, but from a resume/CV, we still want to see where you've applied them and how. I would do that for every single employment entry you have. If you're a freelancer, with 100 projects on your resume/CV, maybe only do that for your most recent, but if you're a permanent employee, with maybe 5 or 6 employment entries, that much information in every single one is useful. That's what you should have in there, it doesn't need to be long, you can keep it short, and ideally, your resume/CV will still only finish a 2, maybe 3 pages long. Get your free CV/resume template. I've got a template that I use for anyone that's creating a new resume/CV and I'm happy to distribute that to anybody that wants it, so if you just send me a connection request on LinkedIn, send me an InMail and I'll send it back to you too, either way is good for me. WATCH A VIDEO ON HOW TO WRITE THE PERFECT DEVELOPER RESUME/CV HERE:
