16/02/2026
How to Stand Out and Get Hired in Tech
Client Server
Discover practical advice from our tech industry experts on landing your first role, showcasing skills, navigating career changes, and boosting employability in 3–6 months, even with limited experience.
How can I stand out to employers when I’m competing with hundreds of candidates for the same role?
“If you manage to secure an interview from your job application, I’d highly recommend trying to be as enthusiastic as you can about the position, company and opportunity overall. Companies with a good working culture are more likely to hire someone who isn’t perhaps hitting every mark from a technical perspective, so long as they come across as enthused, interested and have clearly done the research, over someone who is strong technically, but has a poor attitude.”
A succinct CV will go a long way to securing an interview against multiple other candidates at initial application stage. Showcasing personality in your profile whilst displaying your skills and summarising your work experience within ideally maximum 2-3 pages will help when competing against other CV’s that may be long-winded.”
-Ed Hills, Senior Consultant
What can I do to get hired if I don’t have much formal experience on my CV?
“So I would say, from my experience, I would suggest trying to get as many internships on your profile, a very busy GitHub of side projects that you have worked on or are currently working on (that isn’t from your degree), attending hackathons and paid courses to upskill on. The more you can do to show potential employees that you will be proactive if they decided to pick you over the 100s of other candidates out there in the same position as yourself, the better!”
-David Loubser, Team Lead
How should I showcase transferable and soft skills, so recruiters actually value them?
“To showcase soft / transferable skills try to highlight how you’ve actually used them and not simply list a number of traits. Try to include real world examples that explain what you did, why you did it and the impact it had whilst tailoring those examples to the kind of role you’re aiming for.
Something that is also often overlooked in a CV is personality. Adding a short summary to highlight what you are looking for in a role along with a personal interests section can also help make your profile stand out. It doesn’t all have to be job specific – make sure you mention hobbies, interests, passions and achievements. In short, focus on telling a clear, human story about how you work, what you want to achieve and what you can offer to an employee should they hire you.”
-Charles Sindrey, Team Lead
Is it ever “too late” to transition into a tech career, and how do employers view career changers?
“The short answer is no, but how you proposition the transition – i.e. your CV, online presence, application, and follow ups – is key.
People with successful non-tech careers have lots to offer but thinking about how those skills transition into a tech role and reflecting that in your CV and application is the challenge. Tech roles tend to contain lots of problem solving, analytical thinking, and the ability to communicate effectively, whether that’s writing code, designing intuitive UIs, managing software client accounts, analysis data pipelines, or building products. So, reflecting that in your experience will make a big difference.
From an employer’s perspective, how they view career changers is linked to the nature of their product/service/offering, and where those making a move into tech can add the most value. For engineering positions, businesses in the ‘high’ or ‘deep’ tech space, or those who build systems that deal with confidential or sensitive data, tend to focus on experienced technologists or STEM graduates.
However, companies in the more traditional Digital world – building websites, mobile apps, CSM/CRM products, or offering additional technology support services to clients – are more open to those transitioning.
And in both spaces, the ability to communicate across functions, and particularly translate technical requirements into (‘normal’ 😊) speak can be hugely valuable, so we’ve seen success in roles like Product, Design, Delivery, or Customer Success.
I think in any instance, an employer is always looking for passion, desire, and inquisitiveness from those looking to make a move. Personal projects on Github or a Stack Overflow profile, attending relevant Meet-ups and making connections, building an online profile with LinkedIn (or perhaps blog?) will help people ‘see’ you from afar, and can make a massive difference.”
-Nick Caley, Sales Director
What mistakes do candidates with limited experience commonly make during applications or interviews — and how can they avoid them?
“When it comes to interviews employers prefer less experienced candidates to admit when they don’t know something, especially in an interview. It’s better to acknowledge uncertainty and explain how you would approach finding a solution or doing research, rather than pretending to know the answer.”
“With applications, some of the most common mistakes we see are candidates writing poor, impersonal summaries. With so much competition for roles in the tech space, differentiating yourself with a summary that really outlines a handful of core skills can really help to get noticed. This is also true when writing about personal / side projects – the more detail the better, think about including links to personal projects, GitHub accounts etc.”
-Adam Sutton, Head of Client Server Regional
How to Stand Out and Get Hired in Tech: Expert Tips from Client Server
