Not only your career but, possibly, your whole future life directly depends on how you’ve drawn up your CV. Learn more about what you need to know to get a good resume.
“How to prepare an impressive CV?” is a question that worries almost everyone who is in search of work, no matter if you are a graduate or a job shifter. Today we’d like to give an overview of such useful things like how to make a good CV, how to behave in an interview and how to please the HR manager, as well as should you perform a giant test case.
The information is prepared by the specialists of online interactive C# tutorial Codeasy.net which teaches beginners programming and helps entry-level software developers to start their careers in the IT field.
It is a must-read for beginners.
Contents
Which File Format Is The Best For CV?
File format questions may be a painful one for HR specialists who use a different operating system from the one you have. So to avoid formatting, accuracy, and visual look issues, we advise saving your CV in .pdf format.
Forget about .docx, free analogs of Microsoft word unless it’s Google Docs, from where one can safely download .pdf file. Always check and review your CV file before sending it.
PDF file looks the same way on the phone, Windows and Mac OS, even on a smartwatch.
CV Makers Online
Now, let’s move on to the web resources where one can conveniently, quickly and based on the automatic guidelines create a resume, and then download it in .pdf format after that:
Linkedin will give you detailed examples of how to compose every line in your CV.
Services that are not related to job search web sites. There are a vast number of them on the web like CVcenter.com, CVMKR.com, resume.io, zety.com, etc. All these resources tell you how to arrange everything and add information about yourself. Note: on the major of such resources downloading the completed CV for free is possible only with the logo of the website, but you can quickly get the shareable link.
Source: topresume
What Is The Best Way To Outline Your Experience In CV?
The first and a significant hint is that you should isolate your achievements from your experience. Tell me not about what you did, but about what you achieved and what you’ve learned.
Participation in a cool project may also be considered as an achievement – the idea is in its presentation. In the Experience, the section describes not only the projects you participate in but also what exactly you’ve achieved there. Include some complex tasks did you solved and how, what was captivating for you, and what was not, were your solutions beneficial to the project or not, what are you proud of. All these things are much more interesting for the HR specialist then the trite phrases used by all the candidates.
Even if this was a small project, your college graduate final project, or if you are a graduate, still you should be able to estimate your impact, but not only outline the list of technologies you’ve applied.
Level Based Experience
Career starter. This is the most painful group as they have no experience, or it is not relevant to the vacancy. Our general advice is if there is at least some experience, it is better to specify and highlight what you have learned from it. Yes, even the McDonalds checkout may teach you something: stress resistance, for example 🙂
You may attend some training course offline, or complete an online course, like Codeasy.net. Probably you have studied some books, and you have accumulated a portfolio of educational projects and tasks solved. Feel free to specify this experience, give a link to the certificate, Github, the public profile on your favorite learning resource, which shows the progress.
Beginner specialist, team lead. Here it’s time to actively elaborate on our idea of describing the experience through achievements.
Let’s remind your other skills and experience. You have experience in writing technical documentation, or you were leading a team of more than two people? That’s great! We strongly advise you specify all the details: how large was your group, what work scheme did you applied, have you optimized the workflow, any automation tools used. Don’t forget to mention if you were you launching the project from scratch, or you were keenly interested in the company’s life, suggested any changes that attracted new customers. All these activities, the initiative is the additional plus of your profile.
Experience In Other Industries
“I change my profession, do I need to specify the experience in other industries?” – we often hear from our learners, and our answer is – it depends on the total experience.
If you have a total of 10 years of experience, and 6-7 of them in software development, quietly miss out the old experience or leave at the level of the subject area (sales, Economics, lawyer, etc.). For companies with the appropriate specification, this experience can be further disclosed in summary, everyone loves when the developer really understands why he writes code and understands the field.
If you have little experience or you are just moving into programming and really do not have relevant practical experience, it is better to keep the previous experience in your profile. No need to crumble in detail: no one cares what was the CRM, which you used at work as a salesperson. Be laconic, limit yourself up to mentioning the place of work, what you’ve learned there, why do you want to shift to IT now.
Let’s explain why we advise writing about an old and irrelevant experience. Many vacancies for junior staff beginning their careers include “work experience” requirement. It requires work experience as a process: interaction with colleagues and supervisors, understanding the tasks and its fulfillment, deadlines, and penalties when the deadline past, etc. So even a McDonald’s experience makes you stand out among the graduate students, who need to take a step into the office obligations after combining parties and writing a thesis.
Source: topcv
What And Why One Should Write In The “About Me” Section
Q: Why does anyone need information about me? While still, everyone asks during the interview.
Let’s discuss two cases when wisely filled “About me” section will definitely help you interest a recruiter.
Case 1. You’re just starting your career. Among the work experience, you have Macdonald’s and/or training practice, and are applying a position: Junior developer /analyst/quality assurance specialist. Be sure to tell the potential employer more about yourself, just do this in the cover letter or CV. The main thing about it is that it is relevant and, at least in theory, can help you in future work.
Example: the applicant worked in logistics; besides, he has been a raid leader in WoW (World of Warcraft) for 5 years. Raid leader leads a crowd of adventurers (up to 40 users) to win over the legendary monster, get achievement points and awards. So, if he describes how this experience may be applied to the manager’s position (albeit without specifying WoW or even games), it may be a plus.
Case 2. You’re shifting into a new area. The headhunting manager will definitely request all possible explanations of such a choice from you. Don’t be alarmed of the answers, briefly explain in the CV summary or in the cover letter why you left the previous area as well as why you would like to shift to software development.
Q: Finally, who needs to fill the “About me” section and how it can help?
- Career starters. “About me” section helps them to stand out among other beginners.
- Job-shifters. A way to explain the reasons for changing a job, work area, and demonstrate your fit and strengths in the new direction.
- Entry-level specialists (2-3 years). They can add information about the hobby, list the professional literature they’ve read or courses have taken. It is also the right place to show that they haven’t got a lot of experience, but there is a desire to grow in a new field and that they are continually evolving, adopting the best experience in this field.
- Specialists (4-6 years without in-depth experience in management/process and/or architecture design) can specify here their hobby, interests field. The most important thing to include in your endeavors! You’ll ask what for? Here you can directly outline which work direction among hundreds of projects is interesting for you, and you would like to get an offer for such a project. This will help to get rid of the flow of unsuitable proposals. Also, a direct indication of the field of interest for your future development will show you as a motivated candidate.
- Managers (4+ years of experience in one field, experience in design, team/stack selection technologies/project management). “About myself” section is a place to specify a personal website or blog, talk about success and conference presentations participation, show your own cool projects. What for? It is to make a recruiter, who doesn’t know you, say “wow” and make him feel an urge not only to hunt you but also sell you to his customer.
Tip: before including the extensive list of literature read by you, it is strongly recommended actually to read it. Because if you get caught even on such a small lie, it can firmly and permanently brand you.
Final Thoughts
Dear readers, in your CV you must make an impression of responsible and educated people. For this, please reread your final copy of CV, reduce errors, typos, and overflowing water. Use third-party services to check spelling, grammar, formating.
We wish you good luck in your endeavors!
