Writing a Great CV for Your First Technical Role — Part 2
Make Your Projects and Any Type of Previous Experience and Education Stand Out
In the previous article, we learned how to write the beginning of the resume. We discussed the file name & document title, contact details & personal details, introduction paragraph, and the technical skills section.
In this article, we are getting to the nitty-gritty, and starting to discuss the experience you have, even if you never worked in the industry. We will see how to present your projects from academia, hackathons, and side projects. We will also discuss previous work & volunteer experience in fields that are not necessarily related to the role you are applying to.
Remember — you have great skills and abilities, now it is time to learn how to make those things stand out.
So, let’s begin!
Project Experience
So you don’t have prior work experience, but you do bring something to the table. And if you don’t — go work on some side projects and then get back to this guide 🙂
Now, it is time to make your experience stand out.
In this section, we will focus on experience gained on side projects and academic projects. In a later section in this article, we will focus on previous work experience that is not necessarily related to the role you are applying for.
So, how to present in the CV each of the projects you have done?
Project Title
It should be clear and indicative.
Good Examples
- Android App — Memory Game — Gamification Hackathon 2021 <GitHub Hyperlink>
- Ecommerce Website — Side Project — 2021 <website link>, <GitHub Hyperlink>
- Telegram Bot — Academic Project with Excellence Award — 2020 <GitHub Hyperlink>
Adding a link to your repo on GitHub is a nice bonus, but not a must. The GitHub link looks good in the CV and allows the interviewer to assess your coding skills. However, in many cases, the interviewers will review many CVs and won’t get to dig into every project.
Therefore, mentioning a project in your CV will many times be just as good even without a GitHub link.
Bad Examples
- Side Project
- Academic Project
- Having no title at all
Describing the Project
This is one of the most important anchors your potential interviewers (and their automatic scanning systems!) look at when deciding whether to get back to you or not, and you should convince them you are worth their time and effort.
List all the programming languages and frameworks you used, elaborate about the technical skills used in this project, and possibly relevant technical challenges you overcame. Throw here all the relevant buzzwords!
Good Examples
- Developed an application for automatically categorizing chat messages according to discussion subject, by integrating with a Telegram chatbot. Backend written in Python, frontend written in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Used Postgres DB.
- Designed and developed a restaurant’s system enabling users to invite seats before arriving, and ordering dishes from the menu in advance.
Wrote both backend and frontend, while using REST API, Swagger, and Postman. Back-end written in Node.js, frontend written in Vue.js. Used Azure SQL DB. - Maze Solver — developed an automatic solver of randomly generated mazes, while taking into account efficiency in order to find the best route through a graph. Implemented search algorithms such as Breadth-First Search, Best First Search, and A* on a 2D maze, in order to find the best route through a graph.
Bad Examples
- Website — used HTML, CSS, JavaScript
- Simon Android Application — a memory game — the application lights the presented buttons in a specific order, and then the user should click the buttons in the same order. The game is over after 3 mistakes by the player.
- Not elaborating at all — writing only a title
Bad Examples — Analysis
- Example #1 — too short. Not clear what the website presents. No indication of the complexity level of the project.
- Example #2 — explain only what the end result is, from the user’s perspective. No mentioning of the languages and frameworks used for the project
- Example #3 — no elaboration on the project prevents your recruiter from learning all the relevant things about it, and the interviewer is left with no anchors to the complexity level of what you did, as well as of the languages & frameworks you used.
Education — Academic Studies & Online Courses
What to Keep in Mind:
- If you are / were a student — this section should clearly mention your degree’s field, academic institution, and preferably — courses you took that are particularly relevant for your application
- If you are still a student — you can mention the studying years as: 2020 — Present, or mention the expected graduation year
- Mention any sign of excellence — high GPA or high grades in important courses, excellence awards, possible relevant volunteer activities such as Students Council, etc.
- Keep in mind — mentioning your GPA is relevant when it is high. Otherwise — better to omit it
- If you have any relevant academic projects worth mentioning — include them as well. I, personally, advise to include them in the “Experience” section on which we elaborated above, and mention there that it’s an academic project. However, some people prefer writing it in the “Education” section.
- If you were an excellent high school student, and / or excelled in specific courses that are relevant for your application (Math, CS, Physics, etc.) — consider mentioning it. Especially if you graduated high school in the past 3–4 years, and didn’t gain a lot of industry-relevant experience because you engaged in academic studies, traveled around the world, served in the army, or any other reason.
- If you took relevant online courses, for example in Udemy, Pluralsight, etc. — mention them as well. This would show you are working on gaining relevant knowledge and skill-set. Mention the course name, and optionally the relevant skills / languages / frameworks that you learned and practiced when taking this course
Previous Work & Volunteer Experience
Are you applying for your first developer role, and have previous experience in tech support / QA / or as a teenager’s computer science tutor?
Are you applying for an Analyst role and have previous experience as a Math tutor / teaching assistant?
Are you shifting from life science to the high-tech industry, and have previous experience working in labs, and analyzing data?
If so, you have relevant experience that should be presented in your resume.
As you are applying to technical roles — previous experience in positions that require analytical and technical skills would be considered relevant.
How To
- Mention your previous work / volunteer experience, with a clear role title, industry name, and dates
- Elaborate on the relevant technical skills you used and gained, the responsibilities you had, and relevant soft skills that can make you stand out
- Make sure to emphasize the skills that are most relevant for your application. For example — if you are shifting from life science to analytical roles in the high-tech industry — mention your: previous experience working with data, analytical skills, meticulous attitude, and so on
- Emphasize signals of excellence — were you promoted? Did you get an excellence award? Did you receive leadership roles? Have you mentored others? What makes you special, and which added value do you bring to the table?
How Not To
- First, not all kinds of experience are necessarily relevant. Also, be critical of your past experience. If you worked and volunteered in unrelated fields that don’t bring added value (such as excellence awards or leadership roles), consider excluding them from your CV. Especially if you have relevant side projects to mention.
- Some people prefer mentioning unrelated previous work experience, to demonstrate they have some previous experience, or that they can hold a job for more than a short while.
If you choose to do that — keep this section concise and elaborate on other sections that are more relevant. I have seen people briefly mentioning only the titles of their programming projects with no further elaboration, while tediously explaining about previous experience in roles that have no added value for the current application.
Good Examples
Programming Instructor Volunteer — London’s STEM Youth Center — 2018–2020
- Instructed programming courses — introductions to Java and C
- Mentored the students in their final projects
- Helped improving existing tutorials and writing new ones
Math Instructing Assistant — NYU — 2017–2019
- Taught Linear Algebra and Calculus 1 courses for Math and Computer Science undergraduate students
- Participated in writing homework assignments and exams questions
- Received 3rd highest score in NYU teaching-assistants-survey 2019
First Aid Volunteer & National Instructor with Excellence — Portugal’s Red Cross — 2017–2020
- Received excellence award from Portugal’s Red Cross CEO for devotion and professionalism as a courses’ instructor, caretaker, and caretakers coach
- Instructed multiple regional and national first aid courses. Served as the senior instructor in many of those courses
- Coached dozens of new first aid caretakers on their first shifts on the ambulance
Goog Examples — Analysis
Examples #1 and #2 are relevant since the candidates engaged with analytical roles, which serve as proof of their technical skills.
Example #3 is from a completely different field, but the candidate was distinctively excellent.
Moreover, all candidates in the examples above took part in leadership roles, which show they are capable of helping others and therefore think of the greater good.
That’s it for today! In the next and last article for this series — we will discuss the miscellaneous section of the CV which can include your hobbies and foreign languages, go over formatting and appearance tips, and mention some general notes that should be taken into account when writing and editing your resume.
So check out the third article in the series, to become a real CV master. See you there!
