Delete the "About Me" section. It's antiquated and makes you look like you don't know what you're doing for tech jobs. Do you have a CS education? I can't tell, but if that degree is in CS, I'd...
Delete the "About Me" section. It's antiquated and makes you look like you don't know what you're doing for tech jobs.
Do you have a CS education? I can't tell, but if that degree is in CS, I'd put it at the top instead of off in the corner.
Some people have mentioned it, but the bullets for the job experience could be reworded. A lot them are kinda boring. Put yourself in the mind of a recruiter; on average, a recruiter spends no more than 6 seconds on a given resume.
They have a checklist of qualifications their engineering teams want. You want them to read your work experience and think "hm, that sounds like something they'd want".
A nitpick, but the general theme gives... I'm not sure how to best say this, but "newb" vibes? Like it feels like something a high schooler would make for their part time work in word. But that's subjective, just the kneejerk vibe I got from it.
If you're getting interviews, and not passing them, the resume isn't the problem. You should calibrate based off of that. There's no point in spending hours on your resume is you are getting interviews.
Commenting from a straight engineering perspective, not CS, so take this with a grain of salt: to tack onto moving your education front and center, the rest of that little corner you've got right...
Commenting from a straight engineering perspective, not CS, so take this with a grain of salt: to tack onto moving your education front and center, the rest of that little corner you've got right now should be crammed full of any special trainings, certifications, and any professional licensure #s. If you don't have many certs, poke around forums online where you'll usually see some dialogue about what is and isn't worth your time. It's another, rather accessible way to increase confidence in your skill set (as represented on a single sheet of paper, anyways).
Certs are definitely less important in tech than in engineering (though if you've got some, putting them on your resume is good). I can see a cert from something data science or machine learning...
Certs are definitely less important in tech than in engineering (though if you've got some, putting them on your resume is good). I can see a cert from something data science or machine learning focused being a good add to this resume, since it shows evidence of the outside learning OP is doing. But I wouldn't know off the top of my head which courses and certs are actually good and reputable.
I'm in a different stage of a tech career so I'm not sure how applicable my experience will be, but I'm going to dispense some thoughts anyway. First, it's a weird time in the tech employment...
I'm in a different stage of a tech career so I'm not sure how applicable my experience will be, but I'm going to dispense some thoughts anyway.
First, it's a weird time in the tech employment market. Tons of good people got laid off over the last few years, recruiters are using dumb AI bots to filter resumes, it's just a mess all around. That may sound discouraging, but what I think you should take away is that it's not you, it's the situation. With a little persistence you can totally find another job you love.
As far as the resume itself, I notice that while you list C# and Python and full stack experience, most of the specific projects involve front end kinds of things. I hear from recruiters wanting C# and Python way more than I hear from JavaScript recruiters, so if there's a way to emphasize that part of your experience more I think it could help (and if you feel that area is weaker than the others, maybe find some way to get more experience even if it's just personal projects).
The whole app developer section is light on details and heavy on corporate-speak. Collaborating with a cross-functional team is great but I'm left knowing almost nothing about the app. Was it Android or iOS or both? Desktop and web as well? I'm guessing you used Dart and Flutter from your language list, but I shouldn't have to guess that. Those are the kinds of things recruiters and hiring managers are going to look for. I've seen some people add a line like "Technology used: Dart, Flutter, SQLite, Firebase" at the end of each position to answer some of those questions.
It's also not a bad idea to customize your resume for each position you apply for. You don't have to completely rewrite it, but you want to highlight the web things for a web developer position and the app developer things for an app position.
You might also consider telling us approximately where you are located (even generally, like "I'm in Canada" or "I'm in western Europe") because that might help people give you more tailored advice and it might help someone connect you with an opening. Use whatever network you have, even if it's strangers on tildes.net.
Agreed on needing the location here -- I live in Germany and the standards for resumes here are completely different from in the US. There's basically a set format, often people include a photo of...
Agreed on needing the location here -- I live in Germany and the standards for resumes here are completely different from in the US. There's basically a set format, often people include a photo of themselves (although I don't do this on principle), and it's much more excusable to go over one page bc they don't want you leaving things out. What makes a good resume is highly dependent on cultural norms in not just your line of work, but also where you are in the world.
I'm not a developer, so I won't comment on the tech side of things. What you're missing in the majority of your bullets is the "so what." It's easiest to demonstrate with an example. You wrote:...
I'm not a developer, so I won't comment on the tech side of things. What you're missing in the majority of your bullets is the "so what." It's easiest to demonstrate with an example.
You wrote:
Independently engineered a dynamic, bilingual website using React and Tailwind CSS.
Consider instead:
Independently engineered a dynamic, bilingual website which garnered 275% more engagement and increased session duration threefold compared to the legacy website.
You want to make it as easy as possible for hiring managers to understand that you bring impact. Quantitative metrics are great, but even qualitative metrics are better than nothing.
I guess I lied - a brief comment on the tech side of things. Your top line says you're looking to get into machine learning. It's much harder to pivot than to get a new job in the exact same field, which means you and your resume both need to be on your A-games. Not a lot of what's listed on this resume suggests to me that you have experience relevant to ML - are there any pet projects you can highlight, courses you've taken, books you've read, anything that suggests that you're putting in the work to try to become involved in ML? Related to that, rather than list 9 languages, can you demonstrate that no, seriously, you're really good at a smaller number? (preferably, the most relevant language to ML).
Your comment on “impact” is spot on. A lot of the bullet points in the resume feel like fluff; They don’t actually say anything substantial. Readers want to know what you did, but more importantly...
Your comment on “impact” is spot on. A lot of the bullet points in the resume feel like fluff; They don’t actually say anything substantial.
Readers want to know what you did, but more importantly why it was valuable. If you start your sentence with the value, a reader can quickly see what impact you made.
It will look like this:
Full Stack Web Developer
• Boosted user engagement with 20% by …
• Improved response times by 50% through …
• Enhanced accessibility with …
Yeah, if I were looking at this resume for an ML position (I'm a data scientist myself) I would want more evidence that @xavmdev at least knows Python (not to mention other important libraries...
Yeah, if I were looking at this resume for an ML position (I'm a data scientist myself) I would want more evidence that @xavmdev at least knows Python (not to mention other important libraries like numpy and pandas), and the only evidence I see thereof is the one line in the list of languages. We had someone internally pivot from working on the frontend to data science, so it's definitely doable and your experience there can be valuable, but you definitely should emphasize projects where you've actually used Python here.
...Also, why list pytest under frameworks and libraries you know? Pytest is pretty trivial for someone who uses Python to just pick up and use. At least for Python, a section like this should only include libraries that have some significant additional learning curve -- numpy, pandas, big machine learning libraries like pytorch, etc.
As much as it pains me to say it, networking is your biggest friend here. A company looking to hire is WAYYYY more likely to hire someone that comes recommended by someone than a stranger. If you...
As much as it pains me to say it, networking is your biggest friend here. A company looking to hire is WAYYYY more likely to hire someone that comes recommended by someone than a stranger. If you have local developer groups, get involved with them. If your local chamber of commerce has a tech group, get involved there. The more people you know the better. No need to actively ask people if they're looking for people to hire. Actually try to get to know them, engage them in conversation. If they're looking for people, it'll come up naturally.
What matters to employers way more than your knowledge, where you went to school and so forth is your attitude. If you can make an impression on someone that you're motivated, intelligent, and willing to learn, they'll be begging you to work for them, because trust me, most people that apply to jobs are not those things, and that's very very hard to determine from a resume.
OP, this is spot on. I've been in the industry almost 30 years. My best jobs have come from networking: people who knew me from a tech event I ran for 10 years, from conference speaking, or just...
OP, this is spot on.
I've been in the industry almost 30 years. My best jobs have come from networking: people who knew me from a tech event I ran for 10 years, from conference speaking, or just generally being visible at conferences and relevant meetups.
Local meetups are a terrific way to start to build a network. Get a read on the room there. Then choose a topic you're interest in and offer to give a presentation.
Then do it again and again. And then try to branch out into conference talks.
This will help you get referrals for positions. Applying cold, a few years ago, would sometimes get the interview but a referral almost always got the interview.
It is a tough market now. Even referrals get ghosted often. But it's almost always better to be referred by a current employee.
3 out of my 4 jobs since graduating came from referrals. 1st - Used a recruiter back in 2018 when getting hired was relatively easy. Joined a series B startup 2nd - Friend from 1st job quit and...
3 out of my 4 jobs since graduating came from referrals.
1st - Used a recruiter back in 2018 when getting hired was relatively easy. Joined a series B startup
2nd - Friend from 1st job quit and went to a seed stage startup and brought me on as an early hire
3rd - Friend of a friend at Google referred me
4th - Friend from a SF board game group referred me to his friend's just-funded startup
Getting a job with a resume is 100x harder than getting a job through a professional network.
Unfortunately, we're in a major chill in the industry for various economic reasons. Chiefly, high interest rates and a Trump Admin tax code change (effective in 2021) that disincentivizes payroll...
Unfortunately, we're in a major chill in the industry for various economic reasons. Chiefly, high interest rates and a Trump Admin tax code change (effective in 2021) that disincentivizes payroll hours spent on R&D, by requiring that the expense be amortized over several years instead of being in the year it occurred. There have been a lot of layoffs in the past couple of years, so there's a lot more demand for open spots.
A couple of thoughts that stand out:
Move the education section up and make sure the bachelor's degree is at the top. A BSc is the most sought after credential. If the major is computer science, make sure to include that.
Make sure an automated scanner can parse the format it's in. Most CVs are "read" by automated systems that filter candidates before humans ever look at them, these days. I'm not sure of specifics offhand, because it's been awhile since I worried about it, but there are online checkers that will use the same processes Applicant Tracking Systems use to look for keywords. If they can't find important things in the document, they'll likely bounce it.
Where / how do you usually apply for roles? In lieu of networking ability, maybe try the HackerNews job threads. https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#react It won't help with the experience, but if...
Where / how do you usually apply for roles? In lieu of networking ability, maybe try the HackerNews job threads. https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#react It won't help with the experience, but if you're worried about your resume losing people, a lot of the posts seem to have an email that you can use to show that you're like, nice, personable, and can write clear sentences when you drop your resume in.
To echo others, it is truly a weird time in tech. For every position we hire for, and I'm talking about very niche type work, we often get hundreds of applicants. People with PhDs and 10+ years...
To echo others, it is truly a weird time in tech. For every position we hire for, and I'm talking about very niche type work, we often get hundreds of applicants. People with PhDs and 10+ years experience for what in many cases should be entry to mid level work. So as much as you can try to to be easy with yourself and don't let it ding your confidence. It's the market, not you.
My first question is are you tailoring your application to specific jobs? It's a good deal of work, but if you have the bandwidth I would consider highlighting the relevant experience to the position you're applying for. That can be highlighting subject matter expertise, even if it's a hobby level, on the "what" of their product it'll reflect well. Our company works with ecology, which is an odd thing for developers to know about, so if one highlights an interest in it, or even an environmental club/group they were in in college, it lets me know they read the post and are actually interested in the position. I'm not just getting spammed. Remember most people who do the first pass won't be technical. You need to convey you have the skills necessary, are interested enough in the position that if you're given an interview you would be likely to take the job, and bonus if it would be quick to get you up to speed on the subject matter you would be working on.
The other suggestion I would make is to add you git if you have any code or projects they could look over. We're a small company and when I've done my first batch of cuts I send the resumes that have passed my sniff test over to our engineering team to review their git projects. The quality/production level of code, accessibility of read-me, and general layout give us a good idea of what it might be like working with them.
Good luck!
Edit: Also I agree with a few other users, don't bury your degree if it is CS or even relevant to the position.
There aren’t enough details. I have zero idea what your skills actually are. You say you want to get into machine learning but it doesn’t look like you have a single bit of machine learning...
There aren’t enough details. I have zero idea what your skills actually are.
You say you want to get into machine learning but it doesn’t look like you have a single bit of machine learning experience. In particular, your list of technologies that you work with doesn’t include anything remotely related to machine learning. It reads like you want someone to teach you machine learning from the ground up, which is unappealing.
It’s unclear when you actually used any of these technologies. I don’t get any sense of how many years of experience you have with Python, or Ruby/rails because none of the technologies show up in your work history. Listing pytest makes me suspect you don’t have very much — I expect a Python developer to know pytest, it’s like a base requirement. I would just remove that entry entirely.
Really, the only thing I take away from this resume is that you have some experience with JavaScript.
I would try to to build an excellent GitHub profile with some compelling evidence of your skill set. I don’t think there’s likely much chance of massaging the work history into something appealing.
I'm generally pretty happy to hire based on a solid github account. Some points I'd like to see specifically: actually solves a real-world problem, not a toy problem or a code academy "capstone"....
I'm generally pretty happy to hire based on a solid github account.
Some points I'd like to see specifically:
actually solves a real-world problem, not a toy problem or a code academy "capstone". doesn't need to be a serious problem.
quality commits over time with good descriptions, not "made changes"
clean code style, at minimum use black or some other linter/prettifier
github workflows or anything that indicates you automatically test code
coherent directory structures
In the event that you don't have any projects like that, some ideas that are less good but would still be useful:
a personal website that demonstrates you know how to do basic ORM/API/HTML/CSS.
a selection of projects that tackle individual Kaggle challenges, which you should be able to do if you want a job in machine learning anyway
Not the person you asked, but I'm bored and we're sharing constructive criticism here. Your GitHub profile feels, for want of a better word, "busy". You clearly know your way around tech and...
Not the person you asked, but I'm bored and we're sharing constructive criticism here.
Your GitHub profile feels, for want of a better word, "busy". You clearly know your way around tech and GitHub, but it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. I think anyone evaluating your profile would be looking for meaningful contributions and it's hard to tell those apart from automated changes to config files or something.
I'd pick a handful of projects you're really proud of, pin just those, and spend a little time explaining/marketing them. For example, the pinned "library" project seems kind of interesting, but the generic name and one-line description doesn't tell me what makes your library project more interesting than other media cataloging projects, if that makes sense.
(My own GitHub is practically empty since I keep working for companies who either don't use GitHub or keep things locked down on private, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. This is just my unvarnished first impression in an attempt to give a helpful perspective.)
I’d say it’s a bit hard to see what exactly that library project does, but it seems like it does something useful for you and it’s clearly organized. You seem like an enthusiastic developer. I...
I’d say it’s a bit hard to see what exactly that library project does, but it seems like it does something useful for you and it’s clearly organized. You seem like an enthusiastic developer. I would spend some time curating what shows up on the front page — there are a lot of repos but I can’t tell what matters and what doesn’t.
How do those of us in the corporate world have an active github account? I don't code all day and night, and IDK if I can sanitize my work code enough to make it acceptable to post on github,...
How do those of us in the corporate world have an active github account? I don't code all day and night, and IDK if I can sanitize my work code enough to make it acceptable to post on github, codeberg, etc.. Private repositories? Even then, I worry what my employer would think.
I mean if you have a job in the corporate world, you probably have actual work experience to talk about and you don't need a github profile to attract employers.
I mean if you have a job in the corporate world, you probably have actual work experience to talk about and you don't need a github profile to attract employers.
Personally, I don't think there's much wrong with your resume, especially if you're getting interviews. I agree with the comments to make your education stand out more, and I would change your...
Personally, I don't think there's much wrong with your resume, especially if you're getting interviews. I agree with the comments to make your education stand out more, and I would change your "About Me" to more of an objective statement (without a heading). You're already halfway there with your "I'm seeking" sentence, but maybe brag a bit ("I'm seeking... to continue my record of success while learning new technology stacks."). Just an example, and this is something you may want to change depending on the job you're applying for. (That really goes for the entirety of your resume.)
I do want to say that I sympathize with you. I have been looking for a new job for about 4 years now. I have some dev background but would prefer to go into a support role or possibly project management (but the latter seems impossible to break into). I'm currently working on my Bachelor's and hope that will help me once I complete it. But being in a situation where you've been applying to new jobs for so long can really take a toll on your mental health. It's completely normal to think "What the hell am I doing wrong?" And make posts like this one. But I'm a firm believer that getting hired requires being in the right place at the right time (AKA - luck). There's so many senior devs (and other seniors in various positions) still seeking other jobs, some due to layoffs. So companies can currently favor those candidates. But at some point those senior devs will retire, so they'll have to start hiring entry to mid level again and spend money on training them.
The best layout of a resume depends a lot on location, and since I’m not in Canada and don’t know what is expected there. I won’t give any pointers there, but this layout is perfectly acceptable...
The best layout of a resume depends a lot on location, and since I’m not in Canada and don’t know what is expected there. I won’t give any pointers there, but this layout is perfectly acceptable where I live.
The third employment in the list is only one month. That’s a huge red flag. You can’t have done the things you list there at the quality I’d expect from an employee in that timespan. So it sounds like you’re inflating the resume or you think too highly of the work you did in that month. It raises negative questions, so better to just leave it off.
The first in the list is too vague for me to understand if it was really full stack. Since you don’t list the tech stack, I don’t know what you’re most proficient in.
Git is not a language to me. It’s a tool and one I think everyone is using these days, so not noteworthy to mention.
I really like the fact you list SQL, I see a lot of people be very specific about which DB they’ve worked with. Really knowing SQL well gets you a lot further in life as a developer. Watch out though: recruiters can be dumb as rocks and will put your resume aside because “you don’t have MySQL on there”.
Last and most important: tailor your resume to the position you are applying for. Don’t feel you need to rewrite it entirely each time, but make sure you’re naming things that are relevant to the position. Postgres is in the job description? Make sure you explicitly name it in one of the roles you had. Front end position? Put the emphasis on front end work you did.
Oh and I think it’s brave to post this on a social media platform. I wish I was that brave earlier in my career.
One thought I have is that having a one month position listed could potentially look bad. Do you have any non-technical job experience that is still somewhat related? Personally I ran some...
One thought I have is that having a one month position listed could potentially look bad.
Do you have any non-technical job experience that is still somewhat related? Personally I ran some painting businesses in university, and will always include that in some form to highlight planning, leadership, communication, etc.
Are you applying to machine learning roles? Like data scientist, ML engineer, etc.? Because your resume does not stand out if that's your approach. Or are you applying to be a web developer at a...
I’m seeking a new role in machine learning and new technologies.
Are you applying to machine learning roles? Like data scientist, ML engineer, etc.? Because your resume does not stand out if that's your approach. Or are you applying to be a web developer at a more ML-focused company?
I'm currently a web developer (and a sys admin, ML ops, etc.) at an AI company so I might be able to give pointers if that's the kind of thing you're trying to do. But a full career pivot is much harder.
You resume gives off desperate newbie vibes. I suggest you stop trying to look good and be more honest instead. List your previous positions, describe the projects in terms of it's goals in a...
You resume gives off desperate newbie vibes.
I suggest you stop trying to look good and be more honest instead. List your previous positions, describe the projects in terms of it's goals in a single sentence. Add bullets with at most your top 2 contributions and one with your role in the team.
Example:
2022-today, Sex Toys Inc.
Eshop for British and French customers
Designed and implemented new system based on the feature set of their outmoded English-only system from 2005. Full stack.
Implemented mailing and messaging system with basic cohort filtering.
Implemented other minor features requested by the client.
2022, Rate Your Neighbor PBC
Neighbor rating application
Junior team member focused on front-end development
Wrote about 1/2 of the React-based front-end code, including all the map-related components.
Initially proposed and later wrote some of the node.js-based back-end endpoints necessary for the functionality.
Your resume should show growth. Do not be afraid to show you've been a total newbie in the earliest entries. Growth includes managing the client directly. You need to actually grow to have a good resume.
Also, if you want to do anything ML related, build something yourself on your own time. Then mention it in your resume.
It sucks that you have to work outside your job, but that's capitalism for you.
Make it less clean/well designed maybe or build a website resume. I find people with nicer looking designed resumes are usually making up for lack of xp
Make it less clean/well designed maybe or build a website resume. I find people with nicer looking designed resumes are usually making up for lack of xp
I'm in a completely different industry with no leadership experience, so take my words with a grain of salt. I had a quick glance at it, and the first thing that came to my mind was: Too. Much....
I'm in a completely different industry with no leadership experience, so take my words with a grain of salt. I had a quick glance at it, and the first thing that came to my mind was:
Too. Much. Words. Executive. Can't. Process.
Really, the people you are applying to are very busy, or else they wouldn't have an open position. They can't be bothered taking more than 30 seconds reading your CV.
Also, the list of stuff you know is pretty long and unordered. Maybe you'd like to add skill levels there, like 🟡🟡🟡⚪⚪.
EDIT: Another question that comes to my mind reding your: What did you do before 2022?
Start your own company. It doesn't matter if it fails. It doesn't matter if you bootstrap it on a shoe string. It doesn't matter if you half ass it because you are mostly focused on your part time...
Start your own company.
It doesn't matter if it fails.
It doesn't matter if you bootstrap it on a shoe string.
It doesn't matter if you half ass it because you are mostly focused on your part time gig and your hunt for a proper job.
All that matters is it shows initiative, that you learn new things, and it explains your lack of a recent job.
If you need an idea, everyone is building copilots for B2B use cases, just grab an enterprise grade chatbot from IBM, MSFT, GOOGL, ORCL, SAP or SFDC, hook it up to an LLM if it isn't already, RAG out to some relevant data source such as Siesmic or ServiceNow and claim that you solve real business problems with your CoPilot for Sales/Service. Who knows, you might actually get picked for YCombinator or make a sale and accidentally succeed in bootstrapping your own company.
Delete the "About Me" section. It's antiquated and makes you look like you don't know what you're doing for tech jobs.
Do you have a CS education? I can't tell, but if that degree is in CS, I'd put it at the top instead of off in the corner.
Some people have mentioned it, but the bullets for the job experience could be reworded. A lot them are kinda boring. Put yourself in the mind of a recruiter; on average, a recruiter spends no more than 6 seconds on a given resume.
They have a checklist of qualifications their engineering teams want. You want them to read your work experience and think "hm, that sounds like something they'd want".
A nitpick, but the general theme gives... I'm not sure how to best say this, but "newb" vibes? Like it feels like something a high schooler would make for their part time work in word. But that's subjective, just the kneejerk vibe I got from it.
If you're getting interviews, and not passing them, the resume isn't the problem. You should calibrate based off of that. There's no point in spending hours on your resume is you are getting interviews.
Commenting from a straight engineering perspective, not CS, so take this with a grain of salt: to tack onto moving your education front and center, the rest of that little corner you've got right now should be crammed full of any special trainings, certifications, and any professional licensure #s. If you don't have many certs, poke around forums online where you'll usually see some dialogue about what is and isn't worth your time. It's another, rather accessible way to increase confidence in your skill set (as represented on a single sheet of paper, anyways).
Certs are definitely less important in tech than in engineering (though if you've got some, putting them on your resume is good). I can see a cert from something data science or machine learning focused being a good add to this resume, since it shows evidence of the outside learning OP is doing. But I wouldn't know off the top of my head which courses and certs are actually good and reputable.
I'm in a different stage of a tech career so I'm not sure how applicable my experience will be, but I'm going to dispense some thoughts anyway.
First, it's a weird time in the tech employment market. Tons of good people got laid off over the last few years, recruiters are using dumb AI bots to filter resumes, it's just a mess all around. That may sound discouraging, but what I think you should take away is that it's not you, it's the situation. With a little persistence you can totally find another job you love.
As far as the resume itself, I notice that while you list C# and Python and full stack experience, most of the specific projects involve front end kinds of things. I hear from recruiters wanting C# and Python way more than I hear from JavaScript recruiters, so if there's a way to emphasize that part of your experience more I think it could help (and if you feel that area is weaker than the others, maybe find some way to get more experience even if it's just personal projects).
The whole app developer section is light on details and heavy on corporate-speak. Collaborating with a cross-functional team is great but I'm left knowing almost nothing about the app. Was it Android or iOS or both? Desktop and web as well? I'm guessing you used Dart and Flutter from your language list, but I shouldn't have to guess that. Those are the kinds of things recruiters and hiring managers are going to look for. I've seen some people add a line like "Technology used: Dart, Flutter, SQLite, Firebase" at the end of each position to answer some of those questions.
It's also not a bad idea to customize your resume for each position you apply for. You don't have to completely rewrite it, but you want to highlight the web things for a web developer position and the app developer things for an app position.
You might also consider telling us approximately where you are located (even generally, like "I'm in Canada" or "I'm in western Europe") because that might help people give you more tailored advice and it might help someone connect you with an opening. Use whatever network you have, even if it's strangers on tildes.net.
Agreed on needing the location here -- I live in Germany and the standards for resumes here are completely different from in the US. There's basically a set format, often people include a photo of themselves (although I don't do this on principle), and it's much more excusable to go over one page bc they don't want you leaving things out. What makes a good resume is highly dependent on cultural norms in not just your line of work, but also where you are in the world.
I'm not a developer, so I won't comment on the tech side of things. What you're missing in the majority of your bullets is the "so what." It's easiest to demonstrate with an example.
You wrote:
Consider instead:
You want to make it as easy as possible for hiring managers to understand that you bring impact. Quantitative metrics are great, but even qualitative metrics are better than nothing.
I guess I lied - a brief comment on the tech side of things. Your top line says you're looking to get into machine learning. It's much harder to pivot than to get a new job in the exact same field, which means you and your resume both need to be on your A-games. Not a lot of what's listed on this resume suggests to me that you have experience relevant to ML - are there any pet projects you can highlight, courses you've taken, books you've read, anything that suggests that you're putting in the work to try to become involved in ML? Related to that, rather than list 9 languages, can you demonstrate that no, seriously, you're really good at a smaller number? (preferably, the most relevant language to ML).
Your comment on “impact” is spot on. A lot of the bullet points in the resume feel like fluff; They don’t actually say anything substantial.
Readers want to know what you did, but more importantly why it was valuable. If you start your sentence with the value, a reader can quickly see what impact you made.
It will look like this:
Full Stack Web Developer
• Boosted user engagement with 20% by …
• Improved response times by 50% through …
• Enhanced accessibility with …
It’s the same information, presented differently.
Entirely off-topic but your username made me think - is there any chance you were previously a member of a private forum focusing on exercise?
No!
Rats! Ah well.
Yeah, if I were looking at this resume for an ML position (I'm a data scientist myself) I would want more evidence that @xavmdev at least knows Python (not to mention other important libraries like numpy and pandas), and the only evidence I see thereof is the one line in the list of languages. We had someone internally pivot from working on the frontend to data science, so it's definitely doable and your experience there can be valuable, but you definitely should emphasize projects where you've actually used Python here.
...Also, why list pytest under frameworks and libraries you know? Pytest is pretty trivial for someone who uses Python to just pick up and use. At least for Python, a section like this should only include libraries that have some significant additional learning curve -- numpy, pandas, big machine learning libraries like pytorch, etc.
As much as it pains me to say it, networking is your biggest friend here. A company looking to hire is WAYYYY more likely to hire someone that comes recommended by someone than a stranger. If you have local developer groups, get involved with them. If your local chamber of commerce has a tech group, get involved there. The more people you know the better. No need to actively ask people if they're looking for people to hire. Actually try to get to know them, engage them in conversation. If they're looking for people, it'll come up naturally.
What matters to employers way more than your knowledge, where you went to school and so forth is your attitude. If you can make an impression on someone that you're motivated, intelligent, and willing to learn, they'll be begging you to work for them, because trust me, most people that apply to jobs are not those things, and that's very very hard to determine from a resume.
OP, this is spot on.
I've been in the industry almost 30 years. My best jobs have come from networking: people who knew me from a tech event I ran for 10 years, from conference speaking, or just generally being visible at conferences and relevant meetups.
Local meetups are a terrific way to start to build a network. Get a read on the room there. Then choose a topic you're interest in and offer to give a presentation.
Then do it again and again. And then try to branch out into conference talks.
This will help you get referrals for positions. Applying cold, a few years ago, would sometimes get the interview but a referral almost always got the interview.
It is a tough market now. Even referrals get ghosted often. But it's almost always better to be referred by a current employee.
3 out of my 4 jobs since graduating came from referrals.
Getting a job with a resume is 100x harder than getting a job through a professional network.
You're a full-stack web developer, do you have a personal website? Nothing speaks more clearly than a well-designed page to demonstrate your skills.
Unfortunately, we're in a major chill in the industry for various economic reasons. Chiefly, high interest rates and a Trump Admin tax code change (effective in 2021) that disincentivizes payroll hours spent on R&D, by requiring that the expense be amortized over several years instead of being in the year it occurred. There have been a lot of layoffs in the past couple of years, so there's a lot more demand for open spots.
A couple of thoughts that stand out:
Move the education section up and make sure the bachelor's degree is at the top. A BSc is the most sought after credential. If the major is computer science, make sure to include that.
Make sure an automated scanner can parse the format it's in. Most CVs are "read" by automated systems that filter candidates before humans ever look at them, these days. I'm not sure of specifics offhand, because it's been awhile since I worried about it, but there are online checkers that will use the same processes Applicant Tracking Systems use to look for keywords. If they can't find important things in the document, they'll likely bounce it.
Where / how do you usually apply for roles? In lieu of networking ability, maybe try the HackerNews job threads. https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#react It won't help with the experience, but if you're worried about your resume losing people, a lot of the posts seem to have an email that you can use to show that you're like, nice, personable, and can write clear sentences when you drop your resume in.
To echo others, it is truly a weird time in tech. For every position we hire for, and I'm talking about very niche type work, we often get hundreds of applicants. People with PhDs and 10+ years experience for what in many cases should be entry to mid level work. So as much as you can try to to be easy with yourself and don't let it ding your confidence. It's the market, not you.
My first question is are you tailoring your application to specific jobs? It's a good deal of work, but if you have the bandwidth I would consider highlighting the relevant experience to the position you're applying for. That can be highlighting subject matter expertise, even if it's a hobby level, on the "what" of their product it'll reflect well. Our company works with ecology, which is an odd thing for developers to know about, so if one highlights an interest in it, or even an environmental club/group they were in in college, it lets me know they read the post and are actually interested in the position. I'm not just getting spammed. Remember most people who do the first pass won't be technical. You need to convey you have the skills necessary, are interested enough in the position that if you're given an interview you would be likely to take the job, and bonus if it would be quick to get you up to speed on the subject matter you would be working on.
The other suggestion I would make is to add you git if you have any code or projects they could look over. We're a small company and when I've done my first batch of cuts I send the resumes that have passed my sniff test over to our engineering team to review their git projects. The quality/production level of code, accessibility of read-me, and general layout give us a good idea of what it might be like working with them.
Good luck!
Edit: Also I agree with a few other users, don't bury your degree if it is CS or even relevant to the position.
There aren’t enough details. I have zero idea what your skills actually are.
You say you want to get into machine learning but it doesn’t look like you have a single bit of machine learning experience. In particular, your list of technologies that you work with doesn’t include anything remotely related to machine learning. It reads like you want someone to teach you machine learning from the ground up, which is unappealing.
It’s unclear when you actually used any of these technologies. I don’t get any sense of how many years of experience you have with Python, or Ruby/rails because none of the technologies show up in your work history. Listing pytest makes me suspect you don’t have very much — I expect a Python developer to know pytest, it’s like a base requirement. I would just remove that entry entirely.
Really, the only thing I take away from this resume is that you have some experience with JavaScript.
I would try to to build an excellent GitHub profile with some compelling evidence of your skill set. I don’t think there’s likely much chance of massaging the work history into something appealing.
I'm generally pretty happy to hire based on a solid github account.
Some points I'd like to see specifically:
In the event that you don't have any projects like that, some ideas that are less good but would still be useful:
Interesting! If you have the time, what are the most glaring problems with my profile?
https://github.com/chapmanjacobd
Not the person you asked, but I'm bored and we're sharing constructive criticism here.
Your GitHub profile feels, for want of a better word, "busy". You clearly know your way around tech and GitHub, but it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. I think anyone evaluating your profile would be looking for meaningful contributions and it's hard to tell those apart from automated changes to config files or something.
I'd pick a handful of projects you're really proud of, pin just those, and spend a little time explaining/marketing them. For example, the pinned "library" project seems kind of interesting, but the generic name and one-line description doesn't tell me what makes your library project more interesting than other media cataloging projects, if that makes sense.
(My own GitHub is practically empty since I keep working for companies who either don't use GitHub or keep things locked down on private, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. This is just my unvarnished first impression in an attempt to give a helpful perspective.)
I’d say it’s a bit hard to see what exactly that library project does, but it seems like it does something useful for you and it’s clearly organized. You seem like an enthusiastic developer. I would spend some time curating what shows up on the front page — there are a lot of repos but I can’t tell what matters and what doesn’t.
How do those of us in the corporate world have an active github account? I don't code all day and night, and IDK if I can sanitize my work code enough to make it acceptable to post on github, codeberg, etc.. Private repositories? Even then, I worry what my employer would think.
I mean if you have a job in the corporate world, you probably have actual work experience to talk about and you don't need a github profile to attract employers.
Yeh I guess that is true lol.
Personally, I don't think there's much wrong with your resume, especially if you're getting interviews. I agree with the comments to make your education stand out more, and I would change your "About Me" to more of an objective statement (without a heading). You're already halfway there with your "I'm seeking" sentence, but maybe brag a bit ("I'm seeking... to continue my record of success while learning new technology stacks."). Just an example, and this is something you may want to change depending on the job you're applying for. (That really goes for the entirety of your resume.)
I do want to say that I sympathize with you. I have been looking for a new job for about 4 years now. I have some dev background but would prefer to go into a support role or possibly project management (but the latter seems impossible to break into). I'm currently working on my Bachelor's and hope that will help me once I complete it. But being in a situation where you've been applying to new jobs for so long can really take a toll on your mental health. It's completely normal to think "What the hell am I doing wrong?" And make posts like this one. But I'm a firm believer that getting hired requires being in the right place at the right time (AKA - luck). There's so many senior devs (and other seniors in various positions) still seeking other jobs, some due to layoffs. So companies can currently favor those candidates. But at some point those senior devs will retire, so they'll have to start hiring entry to mid level again and spend money on training them.
The best layout of a resume depends a lot on location, and since I’m not in Canada and don’t know what is expected there. I won’t give any pointers there, but this layout is perfectly acceptable where I live.
The third employment in the list is only one month. That’s a huge red flag. You can’t have done the things you list there at the quality I’d expect from an employee in that timespan. So it sounds like you’re inflating the resume or you think too highly of the work you did in that month. It raises negative questions, so better to just leave it off.
The first in the list is too vague for me to understand if it was really full stack. Since you don’t list the tech stack, I don’t know what you’re most proficient in.
Git is not a language to me. It’s a tool and one I think everyone is using these days, so not noteworthy to mention.
I really like the fact you list SQL, I see a lot of people be very specific about which DB they’ve worked with. Really knowing SQL well gets you a lot further in life as a developer. Watch out though: recruiters can be dumb as rocks and will put your resume aside because “you don’t have MySQL on there”.
Last and most important: tailor your resume to the position you are applying for. Don’t feel you need to rewrite it entirely each time, but make sure you’re naming things that are relevant to the position. Postgres is in the job description? Make sure you explicitly name it in one of the roles you had. Front end position? Put the emphasis on front end work you did.
Oh and I think it’s brave to post this on a social media platform. I wish I was that brave earlier in my career.
One thought I have is that having a one month position listed could potentially look bad.
Do you have any non-technical job experience that is still somewhat related? Personally I ran some painting businesses in university, and will always include that in some form to highlight planning, leadership, communication, etc.
Are you applying to machine learning roles? Like data scientist, ML engineer, etc.? Because your resume does not stand out if that's your approach. Or are you applying to be a web developer at a more ML-focused company?
I'm currently a web developer (and a sys admin, ML ops, etc.) at an AI company so I might be able to give pointers if that's the kind of thing you're trying to do. But a full career pivot is much harder.
Nitpick: git isn't a language
You resume gives off desperate newbie vibes.
I suggest you stop trying to look good and be more honest instead. List your previous positions, describe the projects in terms of it's goals in a single sentence. Add bullets with at most your top 2 contributions and one with your role in the team.
Example:
2022-today, Sex Toys Inc.
Eshop for British and French customers
2022, Rate Your Neighbor PBC
Neighbor rating application
Your resume should show growth. Do not be afraid to show you've been a total newbie in the earliest entries. Growth includes managing the client directly. You need to actually grow to have a good resume.
Also, if you want to do anything ML related, build something yourself on your own time. Then mention it in your resume.
It sucks that you have to work outside your job, but that's capitalism for you.
Make it less clean/well designed maybe or build a website resume. I find people with nicer looking designed resumes are usually making up for lack of xp
I'm in a completely different industry with no leadership experience, so take my words with a grain of salt. I had a quick glance at it, and the first thing that came to my mind was:
Too. Much. Words. Executive. Can't. Process.
Really, the people you are applying to are very busy, or else they wouldn't have an open position. They can't be bothered taking more than 30 seconds reading your CV.
Also, the list of stuff you know is pretty long and unordered. Maybe you'd like to add skill levels there, like 🟡🟡🟡⚪⚪.
EDIT: Another question that comes to my mind reding your: What did you do before 2022?
Start your own company.
It doesn't matter if it fails.
It doesn't matter if you bootstrap it on a shoe string.
It doesn't matter if you half ass it because you are mostly focused on your part time gig and your hunt for a proper job.
All that matters is it shows initiative, that you learn new things, and it explains your lack of a recent job.
If you need an idea, everyone is building copilots for B2B use cases, just grab an enterprise grade chatbot from IBM, MSFT, GOOGL, ORCL, SAP or SFDC, hook it up to an LLM if it isn't already, RAG out to some relevant data source such as Siesmic or ServiceNow and claim that you solve real business problems with your CoPilot for Sales/Service. Who knows, you might actually get picked for YCombinator or make a sale and accidentally succeed in bootstrapping your own company.