As a Software Developer, your work is to create systems or applications that can run on a computer or any other device. But do you think possession of the knowledge and skills alone is enough to land you a job?
Well, the fact is you need an impressive software developer resume that can help you communicate your potential to the recruiters.
In this guide, we have listed all the necessary steps you need to take as a software developer to create job-winning resumes that will get you more shortlists and get you closer to your dream job.
Curate an effective professional experience section
Always begin your resume-writing process with the professional experience section as it plays a major role in communicating your past involvement in your field of work to the recruiters.
In this crucial stage of your resume, the entire resume needs to align according to the requirements of the recruiters for the targeted job profile.
Simply frame points in one-liners to state your achievements and contributions to an organization. It is to make sure that the recruiters can easily read your points.
Start every point with a suitable power verb and to make your statements more effective and assertive to create an impact on the recruiter and steer their judgment towards shortlisting your job application.
Then you can create different headings and list down all the similar points under the relevant buckets. This way you can highlight the different aspects of your expertise as a software developer.
Another important factor is to bold the highlights of your career and the achievement figures in your one-liners to make it easy for the recruiters to recognize your potential as a suitable applicant.
Princeton University has advocated action-oriented accomplishment statements which can help you in creating an effective professional experience section.
Frame a separate technical skills section
For a technical resume like that of a Software Developer, you need to optimize your technical skills in a separate section.
Doing so can not only help you organize your skills effectively but have more impact on the recruiters’ judgment in recognizing you as a suitable applicant with the right set of skills required for the targeted job profile.
Most software developer resumes usually give out a long list of their technical proficiency but fail to get shortlisted by the recruiters. And the reason is that they tend to neglect to make it readable for the recruiters, rather they make it incomprehensible by trying too hard to list their skills.
Let us refer to the example that is given below to help you understand how your technical skills can be effectively framed:
- Testing Tools: SQL LoadRunner, iOS Driver, Apache JMeter
- Languages: SQL, UNIX, OOPS Concept, Asp.NET, C#.Net
- OS & Misc.: Windows NT/2000, Linux (Red Hat 5/6), Window 8.1, SVN, GIT, PPT, Word, Excel
- Cloud: Amazon EC2/EBS/VPC, Simple Storage Service, Elastic MapReduce, Amazon Machine Images
As observed from the given example, we can see that listing out your technical skills in the given format can make it easier for the recruiters to recognize your technical software developer skills.
Compose a suitable resume summary
You may or may not be aware of this but the recruiters ideally spend 6 seconds on a resume. So how do you make the recruiters recognize your potential in this limited time-window?
The answer is simple!
Give an overview of your resume wherein you should include the most significant work experience statements from your professional experience section. Additionally, you can also highlight some of your key skills.
This should be composed at the last stage of resume-writing as it is easier to decide what to skip and what to pick.
Unless you have an extensive work experience of more than 10 years, try to limit the resume summary in 3-4 lines to keep it clear and specific.
Always remember that the recruiters will prefer to read a resume that contains a crisp 3-4 line summary detailing your professional experience and highlighting your skills as compared to a lengthy paragraph describing irrelevant details.
Do your research and identify the high-priority needs of the targeted organization so that you can easily address them through your resume summary.
Provide the details of your educational qualifications
Before we get into the details of how to frame your education section, look at the example given below to have a visual idea of how this section should ideally look like:
From the example, we can see that your education details have been effectively listed and it is easier to recognize the important pieces of information.
The ideal details in an education section of a resume should include:
- The name of the school/university you have attended.
- Name of the courses pursued by you.
- The location of your school/university.
- The date of your enrollment and graduation.
Most job profiles for software developers require you to have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering. So you must validate your eligibility for the targeted job profile by providing the details of your educational qualifications.
Use keywords in your resume
Have you ever imagined how the recruiters shortlist applicants when they receive hundreds or thousands of resumes for just one job profile?
Well, the fact is that most recruiters rely on the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to filter through resumes and pick only the most suitable ones.
The ATS is a software that matches the keywords existing in the job description with your resume. But the solution does not lie in loading your resume with every keyword that you come across in the job listing provided by the recruiters.
Keeping all this information in mind you need to pick the right keywords that can help you rank high on the ATS. Because once you get through the ATS, your resume has a higher chance of being shortlisted by the recruiters.
Always remember that the ATS is operated by a human recruiter so you should simply work accordingly.
Key Takeaways
Here is a recap of some important factors that can help you frame a stellar Software Developer Resume:
- Always frame one-liners to communicate your professional experience statements.
- Apply bucketing and bolding in your points to make it easier for the recruiters to read and comprehend.
- Highlight your technical skills in a separate section.
- Compose a resume summary in 3-4 lines to give an overview of your resume.
- Make sure that you provide the details of your education to make the recruiters recognize you as a suitable applicant.
- Rank high on the ATS by using the most significant keywords used by the recruiters in the job listing.
