CV Advice

Ensuring your CV is up to date is the first step in any job search, particularly in the tech sector. The key to a good tech CV is one that is clear and concise while focusing on your achievements.

The following is a simple template for structuring your CV.

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.

• 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.

• College / University / Course
• Subject
• Grade achieved

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.)

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).