I know there have been some posts in the past where people critique resumes, but I haven't seen one for a while. Are there any long-time devs out there willing to check out my resume and give some tips? Thanks!
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Top comments (36)
Photo in your Résumé
If you want to include a photo may I suggest you flip it on the horizontal access so that you are facing inward instead of outwards. Facing outward makes it look like you're leaving the page.
I would suggest not to include a photo since the inclusion of a photo may make the employer feel you may put them in a position of direct discrimination which could be an issue for local, provisional and federal compliance laws they must follow when hiring. (EU résumés are standardized with headshots but they don't get creative with their photos.)
Title
Picking a title to help employers determine your fit:
You appear to have cross-domain skills in Math and Tech, so you could lead with:
Secondary School Math Instructor + Junior Full Stack Developer
Goal
Do you want to be a math teacher that wants to do part time side projects? Do you want to stop being a math teacher and enter the education tech scene? Do you want to develop online course curriculums as technical/math content writer?
Terminology
This is small, but you say "Website" instead of "Web Application" which diminishes the project's technical value.
Social Links
There's no Linked In. It's 2019, you need a Linked In. I hate Linked In but you need a Linked In.
Document Format
The PDF you have is unconventional and when you are combing through 100s of resumés or you have a program that needs to extract out the text to process resumés in bulk the format of this resumé becomes problematic.
If this was a website résumé and you had a Linked In filled in, and a downloadable résumé in a simple plain format than that would make it easier to include your résumé instead of excluding it.
Thanks Andrew! A lot of good points. One follow-up question I have is, do you have an idea as to how I could make it more clear that I want a position that is not education related? I have been a teacher for years, but I'm really looking for a career change. I would be open to something education related, but ultimately I am looking to move more towards being a full-time developer.
Condense the math experience
You can summarize all your past math experience into one line item and keep it under experience or remove all of it from under experience and mention in your goal/mission you were a math teacher for the last decade looking to switch careers.
You will be then left with lots of space which is good as you can expand on your projects
Structure your Projects as Experience
Give them a timeframe in which you did them, provide yourself a title eg. Full Stack Developer.
React Considerations
React is in demand and is the easiet way to enter the web-dev industry full time at good pay. I do consider React a dead-end in terms of career and salary progression but you need to get in somewhere with good pay its where I'd suggest to start.
I would suggest you to create a varation of your resume where you are a "React Frontend Developer". The problem with React is that it highly varies in terms of configuration which makes it hard for companies to hire juniors because they are never trained on that variation. If you can show you can work with any technical pairings you be overwhelmed with full time jobs offers.
So you would need to demostrate you can:
React + Typescript + Redux
React + No Redux + ES6
React + Rails + Webpacker
React + Laravel + Webpack
Showing lots of variation, and in a short time you could take on the label as Senior React Developer. Put a large emphasis on how fast you can get started on any project without being hand-held and you'll be in good shape.
Full Stack Considerations
The majority of startups use Relational Databases and a common growing pain is perfomance of queries which means that they eventually have to start writing raw queries. Demostrating you can write raw complex queries both in MySQL and Postgres (and I would suggest an emphasis on the latter) is a clear signal you are experienced.
MongoDB has its uses but as primary database it is a mistake. Many startups eventually figure that out when they run into growing pains and make the switch to relational. MongoDB is the mark of an inexperienced developer. Why do so many juniors use MongoDB? Bad online tutorials and no real-experiece at succesfull startup to know better. When NodeJS became a thing MongoDB was the fad database at the time. The first NodeJS frameworks only had MongoDB adapaters and there were a wave of tutorials using MongoDB which is the cause of this problem.
DEV.to Contributor
My number one recommendation is open-source contributions and the best project to do so is DEV.to itself which is open-source. If you can knock out a few medium size tickets on DEV.to in a timely manner than I would consider you hireable. I talk to recruiters and the number one thing they say to me that their clients want to see is open-source contributions.
Thanks for all your feedback and follow up. I think I'll definitely be condensing my past experience so I can expand on the current projects I have going on and focus more on that.
I greatly disagree. If those projects did not hold you accountable like a job does, you do not pretend they are such to inflate things. You'll have background checks wanting to know who your manger was at this "Github" thing or reference requests for how you manged time and requirements on what was a hobby project. Be true to what happened -- if it was a project, keep it listed as such in its own section. I'd only consider projects experience if it happened while at work with formal expectations for how it would get done.
Not suggesting he passes them off as working at Github. I have small windows of time to contribute comments on DEV.to so I would hope readers would give me the benefit the doubt.
For personal projects, timelines help you understand how fresh and how long work has been invested in a project
Providing a title can help understand the role in the project.
If the goal says he's switching careers and working on multiple open-source projects to showcase his self-learned experience there is no deception here and in-honest it's not hard to infer they are hobby projects. The github project links are a dead give away.
Initially misread it -- yeah, having things formatted consistently would absolutely help the readability of this (though I more noticed education seemed copy-pasted from an old resume). I thought the advice was to consolidate things into one section, which my corporate work has shown that would be a nightmare.
You could mention that in the paragraph at the top of your CV, I think that is the ideal place to summarize what you are looking for. Just make it clear that you have experience teaching and want to jump into a developer position.
I think PDF is a good format for a developer's CV. You can control the layout, which gets mangled with things like word-processed documents, for a start.
The only time you'd care about having the text extracted in the real world is if you submitted your document to a recruitment agency through one of the big job portals, and to be perfectly honest, you're way less likely to get a job through one of those than you are targeting specific companies anyway.
I agree with avoiding the picture. Add that lovely picture of you and your family to your spiffy new LinkedIn account, because unless you're applying for a modeling gig the manager doesn't need to see your face at this point.
(If you'd like more of a push to create or update your LinkedIn account, I literally just wrote this post a few hours ago: Why You Should Update LinkedIn Regularly)
1 page. You did it! Keep it that way, FOREVER! I don't care how much experience you have, keep it to one page.
I see you used the Pages template. Make it stand out a little more. Use blocks of color, not font color to stand out more.
I disagree with the gentlemen who says this format is unconventional. This format is extremely human readable. To make it machine readable, export it to Microsoft Word first and always have a copy that is formatted for Word. Programs that parse the resume largely depend on Microsoft Word, not plain text.
The photo should just be of you. No photo is OK too. I suggest going to a studio and asking for the school photo look.
You need an objective. Your three keywords at the beginning is description enough.
Web developer, not just "developer". Full stack web developer, all the better... just more in terms of SEO here. "learner" 👍 "teacher" 👍.
I am a teacher. I put it on my resume. It's not confusing to people. The omission of an objective makes it unclear in this resume.
What works well for me is swapping out the objective and even the experience per submission.
If you said you built web sites, I wouldn't hire you. Someone else would. Are you looking for a team that builds software or landing pages? Its up to you. The world is your oyster.
Your projects need a lot of work. I'm less interested in what the application does, but instead want to know exactly what you contributed to the project.
P.S. whoever hires you is lucky to have someone who can't stop, won't stop learning.
The thing about keeping it under one page might be good for candidates in the USA (and I'm aware that's where @ryanmdoyle is from...) but elsewhere it's not really the thing.
In the UK for example, we don't really have "résumés", we have CVs, which are usually two pages. I've seen longer, but when I've been expecting CVs, and something lands on my desk that's a single page, I think to myself, "they haven't done much, have they?"
Outside formal layouts (like the EU standard), I think it's a bit of a trap to think that there are rules for these sorts of things. Give the company relevant information in an easy-to-read manner, and don't worry about things like word- or page-count.
FWIW in the states a one page resume can be seen in the same light. People expect multiple pages. Easy to read is key! I totally agree.
Thanks for the feedback. I have a lot of tweaks to make! I see your point in using the Pages template. Long ago I used InDesign but I don't have that anymore so I think I need to make it less template-y for sure. Thank you for the tips on Word parsing and refining my "objective" as well. I think I need to go back to everything I've ever written, making sure I don't say "websites." I don't want to be making landing pages!
I disagree on the one-page resume. This leads to people selling themselves short by cutting out good information or using super tiny font to get it to one page.
Restructure the resume to promote the important bits on the first page.
My resume is only 1 page and I’ve been developing since the 90s. It has 11pt font, so I see your point but far from illegible. Engineering managers have thanked me before for making it one page. I’ve had recruiters ask me to reformat it before to look like everyone else’s. I respectfully decline. Then they watch me get a callback faster than other candidates or get an offer after 1 round. No one wants to read a book. Last big job search I ended up with 4 offers so I must be doing something right.
It’s hard for someone starting out to get a job. The more unconventional the resume the better so they can stand out.
One of my friends in college went down to the local police station and got the blank paperwork for filing a warrant for a fugitive. He made his resume look like a police dossier. It looked like the real thing, but I think he embellished it to say WANTED. Quite brilliant really. Josh got an amazing job right out of college at a company with a household name.
If I were just starting out today I think I might try something drastic like that. You’ve got to stand out somehow no matter the experience. Page length doesn’t matter. Making a statement does.
Well, you started off your comment by saying your resume is "only 1-page", then ended by saying "page length doesn't matter". So I'm not sure what point you're making. :)
In any case, my advice comes from several job hunting experts. Ultimately, it really depends on the person and their experience. I agree, differentiation is important. The point is to sell yourself and your accomplishments, in order to get an interview. (A resume alone doesn't get someone a job.) If someone can sell themselves in 1-page, great. But don't cut out relevant accomplishments to your own detriment.
For sure. We totally agree! Relevancy is key, but you don't need to push the irrelevant items to second or third pages. You can omit them entirely.
The point I am trying to make by saying "page length doesn't matter" is pretty much what you are saying. It comes down to personality, being able to stand out. Maybe it's a great idea to make the resume a 1000 pages long so when someone goes to print 1000 pages spit out of the printer that read "HIRE RYAN", "HIRE RYAN", "HIRE RYAN" , or maybe its something more clever like if you were to piece them together it says a message. That is if anyone even prints these resumes anymore.
FWIW I've probably interviewed with over 100 companies throughout my career. I've listened to the advice of "experts" and proven them wrong time and again.
Sure, everyone should do what works best for them. Listen to experts, but of course YMMV. I personally am not out to prove experts wrong, but to apply what's relevant for me.
IMO, it's too wordy. You have to imagine you're a manager hiring or HR employee sifting through resumes. Imagine how many you get per day (I've been in these shoes, you can easily get hundreds per day). Most of them are crap. Perhaps not because the employee is crap, but because their resume is inefficient, poorly written, 5 pages long, provided in some obscure format, etc., etc.
When you're hiring you need to be able to quickly scan through a resume so you can short list the potential candidates. So the more concise you can make it, the better. Organisation is key, bullet point everything! Think about what your employer would want to see. In our field it's usually skillset followed by experience.
Have a look at my old (wow, 4 years old now) online resume: getreworked.com/#/cv
If you were a hiring manager, could you get a good idea of my skillset and experience within 1 minute?
Additionally, you may be tempted to print the resume. So, it's important this page is print friendly - part of the skillset you're trying to show off ;)
As for your experience, keep it to what's relevant to the field you want to work in. Changing careers is never easy and you do want to highlight that you do have work experience, but because it isn't related to the field, it should probably take a bit of a back seat. If you have anything that is related to the field, highlight it. E.g. "Freelance developer 2017 - Current". Maybe that just means you've done a project or 2 on the side, but it might just help you get your foot in the door somewhere.
Also, I agree with the comment about the photo.
Finally, let your initial email be your cover letter. i.e. remove it from your resume. This way you can special tailor it to each employer you send an email to. 9/10 times I get an application, I'll read through their resume IF their cover letter is solid and straight to the point. That means keeping it concise and only a few sentences max with a link to their portfolio - I don't want to have to search through a PDF to manually copy and past your portfolio link.
Example:
Hello, I'm a full stack junior developer with a passion for the web. I have X year of experience as a developer with a further X years as a math educator. Because of this, I think I would be a great candidate for the XYZ position at COMPANY NAME. Please have a look at my resume at doylecodes.com/resume and consider me for the open position.
All the best,
Ryan Doyle
Full Stack Developer
555-555-5555
It could be embellished a bit more to add some of your own personality, but like I said, keep it short and to the point.
Hope that helps. Good luck!
So much goodness here. Thank you so much. I think I will be re-working my past experience a lot and toning down on the wording to highlight actual current work. It's a good point to add freelance developer as I have actually been doing that. I'll give imposter syndrome the credit for that. Thanks for your example CV as well!
Convention thoughts
Personal opinions
Position, Company, Location, tab tab tab, yearswhile your education is more likeCompany; Location -- Position, Yearand your projects arePosition, tab tab tab, link. For what it's worth, I likedPosition, Company, Location, tab tab tab, yearsthe best but you do you.Awesome things
Ahhh thank you so much! I love the nitpicking. I feel like the moment I had the idea to post it here was because I was right at the point where I was starting to nitpick everything myself, but figured...I don't actually hire people so what am I even nitpicking?!
It's really super helpful that everyone is giving tips like, "you're a white dude in CA get rid of the photo," (should have been obvious if I think about it) while also giving super specific personal opinions because it helps with seeing how people process these things. Obviously I can't take all the advice and make every change, but there is a lot of consensus with certain suggestions and also a great deal to learn from how people perceive what you put forward. Thanks again!
I'd drop the photo, it gives the viewer a chance to judge you off the bat. I think it's risky. This is all opinion so do what you think is right.
As a side not please also prepare a standard word doc and pdf equivalent all black and white. Some employers (in the HR department) won't accept anything else.
The photo seems to be the point of agreement among everyone. Looks like it's getting cut!
As a Designer I can point out some tips. Someone here mention that the resume must be print friendly. That advice is gold. Try to print it and see how it looks.
Don't be afraid of black and white. Black text is your friend. Just use different font sizes and Styles (Bold, italics ...) to create an information hierarchy to help the reader. This is related to the use of grey. Grey tones look pretty, but it's a common trend (and a common mistake) in new designers that goes against Accessibility. And this is important: grey tones have very low contrast in a white screen (paper), so they are very hard to read. Like I said they look pretty and it's like everyone agrees that i's okey using these kind of tones over light backgrounds, but trust me: It's a mistake.
Also, the first block of information, with your name, contact and photo is enormous. Try to reduce it. It will give you more white space. Also try to fit it within the paragraph margin.
Finally, You did a great job! Designing Resumes is harder than people think, that's why templates exists. So don't worry and try to keep it simple!
Thanks for the feedback. I think the first block is too big in contrast the rest of the rest of the doc/font size (looking at it all a day later). Some great points on accessibility. Thinking about printing with the grey makes my head spin just thinking about it!
I think it's very good all around. The only thing I'd change would be the photo: Use one without other people. Maybe invest a little bit in a professional portrait/headshot.
An active GitHub and your listed experiences are big pluses, well done!
Photos in CVs are a no (normally).
Colourful CVs are hated by some industries (maybe not dev)
You can use hyperlinks to hyperlink your social media (most cvs are read as pdf)
You should have a section for "achievements" - things you've done that are cool
Nice education section, i like how short it is. what does "multiple subject teaching credential" mean?
The format can be hard to read by an applicant tracking system (ATS), which are used heavily in the dev industry
I have no idea if you are a experienced dev or unexperienced.
Slight bias, I wrote a 34,000 word blog post on careers. Chapter 1 is all about CVs (called Resumes in some places). Might be helpful to you :)
skerritt.blog/employability-skills/
Some great points here. I'm not sure why anyone would know what a multiple subject teaching credential is unless you were in that field. (Not a single teacher I know knows what React, Vue, Angular, etc are...). I'm definitely beefing up/making more clear the projects and achievements I am doing. I also want to make more clear I have experience...although on the flip side I'm glad my resume doesn't scream "NO EXPERIENCE!" Thanks for the feedback and the link to your blog post!
I like it that your resume is concise and clean. As many commentators have already said, I'd drop out the photo and added a link to your LinkedIn profile.
As I understand, you don't want to pursue a career in education anymore. So, it's cool that you concentrate on your skills and projects, not your previous experience. However, I'd make this resume clearer by adding a specific job title to the first paragraph. That shouldn't be a huge 'Objective' section, but a recruiter should understand your goals from the first glance.
As for the projects' descriptions, I'd recommend you to concentrate on your accomplishments, not the applications' functionality. Recruiters love numbers. E.g. 'Made the loading [X] times faster by implementing [Y]' might be a good eye-catcher for any recruiter. You can list your achievements for each project in short bullet-points.
In general, your resume is quite good to find a decent job. Good luck!
I've been working on a blog post specifically around resumes, based on the advice I've received after attending several seminars from job hunting experts on how to write resumes to get an interview.
I'll summarize their advice, as it applies to your resume:
Photo is inappropriate, especially in the US. Use your photo on LinkedIn, but your wife and daughter are not appropriate. If you want to use this photo, you can use it on your own website.
Your projects do not have dates. Overall, I'm not sure what this section is. Is this experience? If so, it should go into experience and it should be tied to a job title.
Include a job title, include keywords, re-write your summary to describe the job you want, not the job you had. Match to the job you're applying to.
The way you described your accomplishments as a math teacher is better than the way you describe your accomplishments in your projects as a ????. You're using very few past-tense verbs to describe what you did. It reads as though you're describing what the project is about, not what you did. Check out this list of verbs to help you describe your accomplishments: livecareer.com/career/advice/jobs/...
Put your full list of skills at the end, after Education.
You might want to look into a "functional" resume format. It might work better for you. Don't sell yourself short trying to keep your resume to 1-page.
I also agree with the people who said LinkedIn, black and white, and reducing your name for space. If someone prints this out, they'll use black ink, not purple.