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Ask HN: What's a good developer's resume look like?

• russelluresti 10y ago
  So, honestly, my resume is pretty lackluster compared to most. It's simple and factual. I have 4 sections: a summary (a couple of sentences), my experience, my education, and "proficiencies" (coding languages, software, tools I know, etc). You can see it here: http://russelluresti.com/resume/ http://russelluresti.com/resume/ (it prints basically the same way). Most of what you hear in terms of resume rules is kind of nonsense. The whole "one page only" thing I think works fine for the start of your career, but I'm not going to limit myself to it. I also believe that talking about specific metrics, while it can be helpful, is really the opposite of what matters. I believe that what got me my first couple of jobs was my cover letter (or the content of my website - they're usually pretty similar). Resumes don't usually excite people. There are a few extremely clever resumes out there that make you take notice, but the rest are usually a collection of bullet-points, and bullet-points aren't exciting. If you want to to get noticed, don't tell people WHAT you do (every resume does that), tell people WHY you do it; this is what will make you stand out and has a much better chance of creating excitement. Specifically, talk about ethos. If you and your potential hiring company align there - on your beliefs and motivations - they're going to be excited for you. This generally goes against the normal advice people give for cover letters where they tell you to focus on talking about what you can do for the company and how you can be an asset. That advice is bad advice for this community (development, design, anything at all in the creative field). Instead, convince them that you care about the same things; that the passion that drives them as an organization is the passion that drives you as an individual. That's how you stand apart from your competition. And if you can't, with a straight face, say how your values align with the values of the company you're applying to, you're applying to the wrong company. Note: I originally started communicating this way on my own material after watching this - https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_insp...
  • citizens 10y ago
    There's a typo in the last section (HMLT)
• gumernatorial 10y ago
  Willing to share if you share your email. Wouldn't say it's great but I've been around the block and it's landed me multiple offers.
  • rachel-ftw 10y ago
    awesome, thanks! ... this is my first time interacting with HN, is it a smart idea to share emails in comments? ...?
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• bottler_of_bees 10y ago
  If you've had no commercial work experience, it's a little tough to craft a "good developer's" resume I'd say, so I would focus on things you've created while self-learning with demonstrable websites, as well as clearly list all the community sites/forums/lists and whatnot you're involved with and any contributions made. In a cover letter I'd stress how well you can pick up new technologies and become useful to the client/business very quickly, how passionate you are about keeping up to date with technologies, and somehow indicate you're not a Machiavellian-ego-consumed prima donna that won't shrink when your logic/work is challenged or when the stress hits. Employers it seems to me these days are asking much more than they would of any other profession i.e. do electricians get asked to trot out a list of sites they've worked on in the past, or are expected to work after hours on open source projects they can demonstrate when they next go to a job? It's tough for recruiters to understand what you're good at, so it becomes a bit of an art to actually letting people know you're good at such-and-such. I haven't had any problems being self-taught in the development area - once you've got a few engagements under your belt and referees. Getting that first one is the tough bit, if you can prove yourself after that, things get easier and easier.
  • rachel-ftw 10y ago
    yah, I think after the first job things will roll out much easier. It's always getting your foot in the door that's most challenging. I've got commercial work experience as a designer and web project manager, but this is the first time I'm going after a technical position. So I kind of have experience. I am just completing an apprenticeship, so I do have some production projects with users, which I hope will set me apart from other green jr. dev's
  • MichaelBurge 10y ago
    > Do electricians get asked to trot out a list of sites they've worked on in the past, or are expected to work after hours on open source projects they can demonstrate when they next go to a job? They're licensed, bonded, and insured. If you agreed to let the government and insurance companies do your approval, I'm sure many companies would let up a bit on their requirements.
• Yaggo 10y ago
  Keep it short, use plain text, include urls for your public work (repos).
  • cauterized 10y ago
    Do not use plain text in the sense of .txt or even .md. Do use plain text in the sense that the text should be formatted but there should be no graphics except (optionally) the occasional horizontal rule or (if you have a strong enough graphic design background) a vertical rule dividing a sidebar. Do distribute as PDF instead of MS Word or equivalent.
    • rachel-ftw 10y ago
      I have a background as a visual designer, so this is good advice. I used to have very visual resumes because it fit the field, but I'm realizing that would be not such a great thing in engineering.
    • Yaggo 10y ago
      Use plain text email, not attachments.
• pbiggar 10y ago
  My best advice is to have a personality shine through. It will lose you some interviews, but gain you others, As a new engineer you really want to focus on strongly appealing to a smaller number of people, than to slightly appeal to many.
  • seer 10y ago
    I must confess I'm a bit biased because I work in that space (Enhancv cv builder) but what we've seen time and time again is that people who put not only their personal achievements, but their personality as well, land jobs that they are a lot more happy with. This varies from industry to industry and country to country of course, but I do think there is a general trend there.
    • spicytunacone 10y ago
      Do you notice if people with such resumes take any longer in finding their place? Do you also have any examples/patterns you could provide? I'm curious if it takes a certain kind of person to have a resume with personality that stands out positively.
      • seer 10y ago
        Its more of aligning of values between the applicant and the reviewer - if you have some of your personality showing through from your resume, the reviewer can have a "gut feeling" about you.
        • rachel-ftw 10y ago
          I love this advice because culture fit is one of my biggest concerns. As a queer woman entering the field (if it's possible) I'd want to avoid being somewhere that has toxic culture. I think that advice is really on point: don't sanitize yourself out of your personal brand so that companies that don't fit you will self select out. Again, if possible. :<
• JTxt 10y ago
  I suggest looking at "Who wants to be hired?" posts for ideas. https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring
  • rachel-ftw 10y ago
    yasss high five
• debatem1 10y ago
  One page. One page. One page. Only one page. No more pages. Don't do it. Only. One. Remember that when I'm reading your resume I'm reading. Write it to tell the story of who you are and who you want to be as well as you are able. Cut out things that don't fit that story-- you can always pleasantly surprise them later with the extra skills. Unless you've worked on something that got put on a billboard near my house, I don't know what your project's codename was. "Developed key metrics for Project Hazel" translates to "measured brown thing" in my mind. Many engineers find it distasteful to describe their contributions in glowing terms. But that's the game and because I can't tell you're being demure I'm going to turn the brightness down two notches on your resume same as everyone else's. So amp it up until it feels gross (and not much further).
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • hectormalot 10y ago
    Can't agree more on the one page part. Depending on the background / culture of candidates I've had resumes up to 12 pages long. A bit of formatting also helps, a professional looking resume will frame your accomplishments better. Something many readers are sensitive for. And show impact. "Developed key metrics for project hazel" reads different than: "rewrote metrics engine resulting in real time view on all client transactions, leading to $10M in new marketing opportunities". And finally, if you're really interested in a job. Adapt your CV to show the most relevant information for that job first (and word it in the best possible way, e.g. look for the language the employer uses to describe the job)
  • lucb1e 10y ago
    I typed a proper comment but my mobile browser messed up and deleted it, so here's the short of it: more than one page is fine, but I get that it's an opinion, just please don't give bad advice without mentioning it's a preference. Recruiters asked me why I am squeezing it into two when I mention I'm having trouble keeping it at two. Three is common as well. Might be personal, regional, but if I took your advice my résumé would be worse off.
• thewhitetulip 10y ago
  Does it matter if I have written a somewhat famous tutorial on web development and started a YouTube channel which has decent views? I have got +ve response on both
  • Insanity 10y ago
    That might depend on the person doing the interview, and perhaps how you put it on your CV. If you list some hobbies on your CV, and you put something akin to "Maintaining youtube channel" or "Writing tutorials" then I would know that you seem to have some passion for the field outside of work. I am not saying that everyone _needs_ to do something related to programming in their free time, after all it is their choice if they do or not and they can be great engineers without doing so. Yet for me, it shows at least an interest or a passion. Furthermore what you are doing is communicating ideas about software development. That's a plus in my book as well, as communicating ideas clearly is important. It'd also show you are willing to teach coworkers in a positive way. But it might depend on the interviewer.
    • thewhitetulip 10y ago
      Thank you for your thoughts! I agree that more than what we do, it matters how we represent them.
• aprdm 10y ago
  Keep it short. One to two paragraphs with summary / goals / why you want to work there in the email body or in a cover letter helps as well. In the CV itself, max two pages, bullet points with relevant technologies, most recent/relevant work experiences, URLs for Linkedin / github / projects.
• gaius 10y ago
  Just remember what a CV really is - it's a sales brochure to get you an interview. Nothing more, nothing less. Once you understand this what to include and what to leave off becomes obvious.
  • morgante 10y ago
    A CV is not a resume and mistaking the two is a fatal mistake that I see far too frequently. You might just be using it as shorthand, but I've seen far too many friends who thought sending in their 5-page CV for industry job applications was normal.
    • matthewmacleod 10y ago
      Worth noting that this can be a regional difference. In the UK, the terms are synonymous, (though CV is much more common), and the CV is much more in line with the US idea of a résumé.
      • robert_tweed 10y ago
        This is wrong. Both terms are used in exactly the same way in the UK but the expectations are different. In the US, a resume is expected. In the UK, a CV is expected. People who use the terms interchangeably are wrong in either case, but that wrongness may vary. If someone in the UK says resume they might mean CV, whereas if someone in the US says CV they might mean resume. No matter where you are the rules are the same. A resume is usually one page and is a summary. A CV is usually about 3 pages (this is more variable) and contains a full work history. Where there is often some confusion about them being the same thing is that CVs can be "tailored" and indeed it's usual to compress large chunks of work history if it's not relevant to a particular application. That doesn't make it a resume however. I'm less certain about CVs in the US, but I believe they simply leave out what would normally go in a resume, which would is often what the first page of a UK CV looks like.
• GoToRO 10y ago
  A perfect resume looks exactly like the resume of the person that is doing the hiring. So they would go like "Aha... aha... you're hired!"
  • rachel-ftw 10y ago
    yeah, doing the thinking through who will be looking at it and tailoring it to their imagined tastes is a great thought.
  • sreejithr 10y ago
    I couldn't agree more. Being a dev who sifts through resumes in a company without a designated HR, I find myself subconsciously search for people who closely resemble me (Not in terms of knowledge/experience. I like to work with people who're better than me) in terms of approach, philosophy and influences.
• general_ai 10y ago
  I just export my LinkedIn profile as PDF, references and all. Have no trouble whatsoever landing great jobs.
  • DonCullen 10y ago
    It's a pity LinkedIn labs killed that.
    • general_ai 10y ago
      What do you mean "killed that"? The option is still there, it's just not easy to find. Click on the triangle next to "View Profile As" button.
• sbassi 10y ago
  Exploring Argentina data and there are people who speaks French and English (as native tongue) is very unlikely, also Language: indigenous and Religion: Protestant, is odd
• solipsism 10y ago
  I'm a newly self taught full stack web developer I daresay the only role of your resume should be to convince someone to click on a link that shows the amazing work you've done. Nothing you write is going to mean anything, comparatively.
  • rachel-ftw 10y ago
    That's a good point. It's just enough to get them to click through to the github/portfolio.
• dotancohen 10y ago
  > WTF do I put on my resume? Start by changing that to "What do I put on my resume?". Your resume does not end at the bottom of an A4 or Letter page. Your resume includes how you present yourself, and ill-placed vulgarities are far more telling than "HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP" are on a few lines of ink.
  • rachel-ftw 10y ago
    That's a good point. I've never been agains making well placed swearing part of a professional brand. It tends to communicate honesty* and takes people's walls down. Though I'll admit that particular WTF doesn't add anything, and was mostly an expression of the frustration of embarking upon converting my existing marketing/design resume to reflect my current skill set. *source: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/frankly-we-do-give-damn-relationship-between-profanity-honesty https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/f...
• ubersoldat2k7 10y ago
  One of the things recruiters seem to like about mine is a cloud tag of the technologies.
  • rachel-ftw 10y ago
    That's a great idea, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks!
• kenrick95 10y ago
  For people that are about to write their first resume ever, I recommend to look at the advise and sample resume here: https://careercup.com/resume https://careercup.com/resume
• olalonde 10y ago
  Not a direct answer to the question but a common mistake I see in resumes is including a "grocery list" of technologies. You don't need to enumerate every single technology you have ever used, better to keep it short and focused. If I'm hiring a React developer, I'm more likely to pay attention to the resume that lists "JavaScript, React.js, HTML/CSS" than the one that lists "OS X, Subversion, Git, MS Excel, Linux, MongoDB, React.js, Ruby, HTML, XHTML, HTML5, CSS 2/3, PowerPoint, ASP.net, MySQL, Agile (Scrum/XP), PHP, Heroku, Bash, Node.js".
  • another-dave 10y ago
    I disagree, though like with everything it needs to be easily scanned & laid out well. I've had a few where people have put them in categories — Expert: A, B, C; Intermediate: …; Learning: … — which personally I've liked. Without the list — if you don't have at least familiarity with, e.g. Bash/Git, it's a big minus & I'd prefer to know that before the interview stage. Sometimes people go for concise & hit sparse, which is definitely worse :) Even on a two-page CV, you could fit in a version of this if you remove a "Personal Statement" or "References available on request" (I'd hope this is a truism!)
    • rachel-ftw 10y ago
      It seems like there's a balance somewhere. Enough to communicate versatility and proficiency, but not enough to loose the signal in the noise. I like the leveling idea (expert/intermediate/learning). I'm all about taking out things that feel superfluous like the personal statement (isn't that the cover letter?) and references upon request (if they ask for references of course I'll give them, who isn't going to give references upon request?).
• skylark 10y ago
  The top answers are giving good advice, but I don't think they answer the real question: "How do you write a resume when you have no professional work experience or CS degree?" DO Talk about your projects - they should have a short description stating what it was, the technologies used, and any cool things you implemented (say, some special algorithm to do XYZ thing.) It should have bullet points in the same way you'd treat a past job you had. I've seen one page resumes that were 80% projects and 20% everything else. Use your graphic design background to help you. The easiest way into a development position would probably be to find a place that will let you implement your designs in HTML/CSS. Then you can sneak your way onto the development team. All you need is a foot in the door. DON'T Go into too much detail about anything unrelated to the job you're trying to get. Generally speaking every single line of your resume should scream "hire me" - anything that's lukewarm should be cut. MAYBE If you can get into a top coding bootcamp, you might be able to accelerate your career by a few years. It's really difficult to get your first job, and chances are you won't be paid that much for the privilege. If you're paid 15-20k more per year from the start, that alone pays for the cost of an expensive bootcamp.
• deleted 10y ago
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• koonsolo 10y ago
  Here is some advice that works for writing a resume, but can be applied to anything. 1) Put yourself in the shoes of the one reviewing your resume. What does he want do read? What doesn't he want to read? What is he looking for? How does he select candidates based on all the resumes he gets? 2) See how your education and experience can help the company that reviews your resume. Don't think about yourself, think about the value that you can offer, and make it clear. I once had experience in both Java and C++, about equal. I had 2 resumes, both correct. But on one the Java part was more obvious, and on the other the C++ part. So it depended on what the company was looking for whether I would send the one or the other.
  • rachel-ftw 10y ago
    That's a good idea, different resume's tailored to different types of jobs. And the empathy piece of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. I'm finding it challenging to do that. I know tech leads as friends, but this is the first technical job I'm going after, so what does that person want?
• DrNuke 10y ago
  One page is more than enough to say who you are, what you did in the past, list your main present skills and give a couple of best references.
• sssilver 10y ago
  Two points. 1. I don't understand people who say "I don't have time to read two pages, so please send one". Why not just read the first page then and only move on to the second page if you're intrigued and want more details? 2. Legibility has a myriad of variables. I wouldn't rather read a CV that shaves off some whitespace that'd otherwise make it more delightful and easier to go through, in order to artificially shove in necessary content into the dimensions of Letter/A4.
  • rachel-ftw 10y ago
    +1 for managing white space for legibility/easy scanning
• probinso 10y ago
  Your resume architecture will change dramatically with every stage in your career. It is not critical for a resume these days to be only one page, but it would be silly for you to include an entire detailed education on a resume for an industry developer of several years. Your content should be increasingly selective with every position you get, and every award you get, and every a commendation. It should be very easy for employers to identify what conversation pieces you are ready for. This can be provided in the form of a side project list, a neat contributions list comma a extracurricular, or presentations you provided. Anything on your resume should be something that you can talk about in great detail. For every interview that I've had, I re-read through code Snippets of all projects I have listed. When Review Time becomes greater than necessary, I delete projects from my resume. You should also update your resume monthly, you often don't understand or remember what new things should be added to your resume unless you do this as a rolling task. This can accumulate until you are finally applying for jobs, where you would then remove things you no longer find interesting or that are irrelevant. This will give you the opportunity to add non technical, yet important things to your resume.
• JamesBarney 10y ago
  1. Include relevant skills and keywords because many resumes will be processed by H.R./machine doing simple keyword matching. 2. Try to keep it short(1 page). Resumes are usually not read but skimmed. Most hiring managers are given 20-50 resumes and very little time to decide who to pick for a phone screen.(typically 3-5 minutes or less) 3. Don't be afraid to use an interesting conversational writing style. So 80% of resumes read like a badly translated instructions manual from a 1970s VCR. 4. Structure your resume to put your best qualities first. If you went to a good school or got a good GPA put that on top. If you kicked but at your last job and got promoted a lot put that at the top.