Many software developers skilled in programming and drafting technical reports often struggle with writing a developer resume when applying for a job. If you're one of them, be patient and stay with us since we will provide you with such valuable tips that you will become as proficient in drafting the resume as you're in developing software applications or programs.
Being in the IT industry or trying to enter, you are already familiar with the evolving technology. So when drafting a developer resume, keep in mind that employers want people who are updated and have the latest skills, knowledge, and experience. If you're able to demonstrate these vital aspects, it will surely help in scheduling an interview. Don't just demonstrate your abilities, but prove them with results. After all, your work will prove how qualified are you for the job.
Tips on how to write a developer resume
Job Description
The way you start a project only after getting a complete understanding of user requirements, similarly, get the knowledge of the company's requirements by reading the job description before you start drafting the resume. Highlight the skills and expertise mentioned, and add them in the resume If you have them. It's also possible that some skills may not be mentioned in the job descriptions that you have. If that is so, feel free to add them. However, don't let the length of the resume go beyond two pages since the recruiters don't have time to read a lengthy resume.
Header Section
A developer resume must have specific header sections that can make easy for the hiring managers to read it. While most of these are the same just like any other resumes, it's still better to be aware of them in order not to miss them. So see that the resume has the following section headers:
These headings will help in demonstrating the trajectory of your career.
Professional Summary
This header section is the opening of the resume where you need to provide the years of experience you hold, show your abilities and expertise for the job, any remarkable achievements in your career, and how your skills and experience combined can meet the company's demand for the job.
In short, the professional summary must show why you're better than other candidates and ideal for the job. Since it's the beginning of the resume, whether the hiring manager will continue or stop reading your resume will depend on how well you've designed it. Look at this impressive professional summary and try to use it.
A proficient and technically-sound software developer with 7 years of experience in gathering, analyzing, and incorporating user requirements into projects, designing, testing, and debugging IT products. Strong expertise in handling software projects from start to finish with minimal supervision. Proven abilities in developing scalable, high-quality, and bug-free software.
Technical Skills (Hard Skills)
In this header section, show all the relevant programming languages, operating systems, and tools you are proficient in working with. Don't include outdated skills and stay relevant. Use the skills from the job descriptions and show how you used them and what were the results. You can segregate your skills with three sub-headings such as:
You can also include headers for your skill level and years of experience to be more precise. Let's say you're expert in Java as you've worked on it for 6 years. So for the programming languages details, use this format:
| Programming Languages | Yeas of experience | Skill level |
|---|---|---|
| Java | 6 | Expert |
| C# | 5 | Expert |
| ASP.NET | 4 | Expert |
For tools and operating systems, make another column below programming languages details.
Soft Skills
The IT industry needs people who not only hold hard skills for the job, but soft skills as well. However, these soft skills need to be relevant to the job since they are important to facilitate and expedite projects.
Here are the soft skills prospective employers prefer to read on a developer resume:
Use any six out of these that you feel important. Also, when listing, add at lease one short sentence to back them up.
Work Experience
The work experience needs to be result-oriented. So don't just include that you have designed a certain project, or debugged an existing software. Rather, show the prospective employers what business value your experience has provided to the clients. Provide real-life results so that the hiring manager can realize what you can do for the company. Try to show results in numbers, and list each in a bullet point as shown below.
By quantifying the results of your work, you can let know the hiring manager that you think about the company and clients.
Education
For any development job in IT industry, the minimum education is a bachelor's degree in computer science. Holding a traditional technical degree will help in gaining an entry into the IT industry.
Certification:
To gain more knowledge and experience, it's necessary for developers to do certain certification programs relevant to the domain. Completing certification programs will not only help in learning different software and hardware, but also help in being different from others.
Don't forget keywords
No IT companies want to spend valuable time in scanning resumes they receive in hundreds of number. To make the job easy, they use automated systems. These systems pick up resumes that have keywords that they understand and can recognize easily. As the logic the Applicant Tracking Systems use is hard to understand, it's better to include keywords from the job descriptions.
Writing a developer resume will be easy for you if you follow these tips. Alternatively, you can also use developer resume samples provided in links in below. We have drafted these resumes for different domains and programming expertise. Use the one identical to your profile, and get set for applying.
Checkout our sample developer resumes below :