Introduction
The goal of a resume is to get them interested enough to start a conversation. From there, it’s on you to speak intelligently about the things you’ve done. So don’t treat the resume as the catch-all repository of your whole life – it’s more of a focused marketing tool designed to make you seem worth taking another look at.
A developer’s resume is an interesting thing because so much of your value is demonstrated from your projects, which live in your GitHub (and are hopefully also deployed somewhere online). Despite this focus on projects, you can’t ignore previous work experience or education. They are both important for showing the social proof that other people have worked with you before and you’ve met their standards for applying.
It’s difficult to come up with (or find on the internet) a standard resume type for a junior developer. Most of the ones out there aren’t particularly inspiring. The keys to remember are the perspective of the hiring manager we talked about before – that person wants to hire a developer who is highly capable and can get shit done (and will add value ASAP).
The hiring manager will determine these criteria in less than 10 seconds at first glance based on where you’ve been educated, who’s hired you before, and if you’ve got any really interesting projects that stand out. The hiring manager rapidly builds a story of who you are based on those headline items of your resume. If you’re lucky, that high level story will seem interesting enough for the hiring manager or HR person to look twice and actually read what you did at each job and then bring you in for an interview.
Knowing that perspective, how can you play to it? It’s difficult if you’re breaking into a new industry so you’ll need to emphasize relevant education, work experience and projects in a way that crafts a story of drive and capability. What have you done that shows you’re highly capable (e.g. your technical chops, any recognition you’ve received, leadership of teams)? And can get shit done (e.g. interesting projects, open source contributions)?
Remember: ONE PAGE.
- This Career Tool Belt article lists 6 free resume builder websites
- Novorésumé also has a free tier with templates available, as an alternate resource
- Formatting could use some work, but here’s an example resume from CareerCup.com
- Another great (totally free) resume builder