What does it take to make a ‘good’ developer resume?

http://veerasundar.com/blog/2009/12/what-does-it-take-to-make-a-good-developer-resume/

by Veera • 17 years ago

21 14 17 years ago

My gut reaction to this question is the old saw about any writing: show, don't tell. You need the target audience of your resume to see why you'd be valuable to them. Instead of listing a bunch of buzzwords, explain relevant projects you worked on, including the relevant technologies. I always list skills first, then under my work experience I detail the projects that developed/took advantage of those skills.

edw5192• 17 years ago

Do you prefer a single page resume or multi-page? If multi, then how many pages of resume you think is good enough to sell you?

Single page. If I absolutely, positively have more to say, I occasionally attach a one page Appendix, "Sample of Project Particulars," which includes 5 or 6 quick stories about major projects I completed that are relevant to the company and position I'm submitting to.

Do you elaborate on your work experience (like, job description, responsibilities, etc.) or you want to keep it short?

Yes, but I wouldn't say "elaborate". More like "itemize". Forget about things like "experience", "job description", or "responsibilities". Focus on one thing only: results. What I did, who it was for, why they needed it, and what they accomplished with it. "Built an AJAX e-commerce site that enabled a $10 million catalog distributor to double sales in 6 months." Show that I understand the forest in which I'm planting trees. Short, sweet, and to the point. If it catches their attention, they'll ask you more about it. If it doesn't, then you probably don't want to work for them, anyway.

Do you have more than one resume, like a master one with all details and one page resume targeted to a particular position?

Just a custom one pager specially made for each company. I show them the same level of special attention that I expect in return.

In what order you present information in the resume: Objective, Experience, Skills, Education, Summary?

1. Very short summary (with embedded skills) that pretty much says it all, "AJAX programmer, expert level in e-commerce, 100 projects completed, ready for next long term challenge in Big City, USA."

2. Applicable accomplishments in reverse chronological sequence. (Emphasis on "accomplishments".)

3. Degrees.

Do you really think the resume layout matters more than the content itself?

No.

Which font do you use for your resume? Arial? Verdana? Webdings?

Who cares.

Do you prefer to maintain an online version of your resume?

No. I'll contact them. I don't want anyone contacting me.

euroclydon• 17 years ago

edw519, What do those numbers in your profile mean?

edw5192• 17 years ago

My name, available only to those who can translate ascii.

azanar• 17 years ago

Focus on one thing only: results. What I did, who it was for, why they needed it, and what they accomplished with it.

What of the developer who works on something ambitious that ultimately flops and becomes a total write-off for the company or client? What of the developer who coasted along doing nothing on a team of people who built some billion dollar product? What of the developer who can't really itemize their contribution in dollar amounts because they don't have the foggiest idea how much in dollar amounts they contributed, apart from how much they charged for their time?

Failure on a project is not a communicable disease that spreads to other projects through developers; success is likewise. Failure is so common that a developer without decades of work experience runs a non-negligible risk of not having a big success. And having a big success does not predict with a high degree of certainty future successes.

To add to the trickiness of this problem, we can't just tell people "sniff out projects that smell of failure, and avoid." How would they know? Developers are not clairvoyant, so the solution to this is to use heuristics. Some of these heuristics are unique to one individual who got burned in some particular way. Some are as ubiquious as development best practices. Either way, they can be wrong for a particular context, or sometimes wrong in general but kept in peoples' minds by inertia and repetition.

This is a harder problem than just quoting dollar amounts, and assuming that zero net dollars means zero talent. I can't help but think that when someone can put on their resume "Built a site that made $x million dollars," it may be as much a reflection on their luck of being at the right place at the right time as it is on their ability to execute after finding themselves there.

jcapote• 17 years ago

GitHub url, big and center.

timr2• 17 years ago

Yes. Because the best way to screen for an experienced developer is to make sure they're using the latest hotness in a tiny corner of the tech universe.

r00k• 17 years ago

I think you could easily substitute 'a public repository of your code and open-source contributions' for 'Github' here, but the former is shorter and conveys the same idea.

You also seem to imply that experienced developers [i]wouldn't[/i] be using a cutting-edge tool to share code. Why wouldn't they? Does 'experienced' have to mean 'curmudgeonly'?

ideamonk• 17 years ago

Java, web and web design! have you any idea on how to do web surveys in a smart way? You could've written a survey app using those 3, or used existing ones to save your visitors from thinking and writing for questions that could've been fairly objective. And then maybe you could apply some statistics on the data and do something better with it :) At least I wont like writing something more than this

randliu• 17 years ago

Computer Modern.

djcapelis• 17 years ago

Along those lines, the moderncv package is excellent.

gprisament• 17 years ago

Sometimes it helps to look at examples of bad resumes. Some real gems here: http://resumedoctor.com/WorstResumes.asp.

cmars232• 17 years ago

Be real, don't be redundant. When I used to interview contractors, I got so tired of reading "enterprise Java developer experienced with all aspects of the SDLC" blah blah blah followed by globs of alphabet soup.

Just highlight the most relevant points of past projects, related to the position for which you're applying.

What does it take to make a ‘good’ developer resume?

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