A strong, well-structured CV is the foundation of every successful job search. It’s your opportunity to show employers not just what you’ve done, but what you can deliver.

Our team review thousands of CVs every year from software engineers, data scientists, DevOps specialists, cybersecurity experts, and more. The most successful CVs are always the same: clear, concise, achievement-focused, and tailored to the technology role you want.

Whether you’re an experienced developer or taking your first step in tech, this guide will help you build a CV that stands out.

Structuring Your Tech CV

Your CV doesn’t need to be long; it needs to be strategic. Here’s how to build a clear and impactful structure that hiring managers will love:

1. Your tech CV Intro

Under your name at the top, state clearly what you are. i.e. C# Developer. Fullstack. Native JavaScript specialist. SQL. Don’t list too many. Just a high-level titles that state clearly the terms that define you.

Start with a technology overview, including:

• Programming languages
• Operating system
• Frameworks or libraries used
• Show how many years’ experience in your key skills and if you want you can score your strength in the key skills out of 5.

2. Education / Courses

• College / University / Course
• Subject
• Grade achieved

3. Achievements / Project Summary

This should be 4 to 6 bullet points giving a list of achievements and / or notable projects you have worked on, that demonstrate your value, ability and what you are able to deliver. These could include projects that:

• Won awards
• Were high profile or are currently ‘fashionable’
• Business critical
• Saved the company money
• Made the company money
• As well as any technical challenges you came up against (performance, threading, memory issues etc.)

4. Employment History

Each role you have had needs to demonstrate easily what the challenge was, what you did and what you delivered, It needs to start with the big picture and then layer by layer get into the detail. Structure each role as follows:

• Company name, dates worked between, job title, name of project of department worked in (all in bold to give a clear indication of where each job ends and the next one begins)
• Key technologies used in the role (again, bold these)
• One or two lines on what the company does
• One or two lines on the project or division you were working in and what it does
• Detail your key responsibilities and targeted outcomes
• What you achieved / delivered
• Any challenges you faced
• Daily duties (don’t list all of them, only the main ones).

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