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CV Tips from Someone Who Actually Reads Them

Our team was recently looking for a new developer, and I was tasked with reviewing CVs and conducting technical interviews. I’ve done technical interviews before, but this time I first had to go through around 100 CVs and pick the most promising ones.

As we are working with fairly unknown technology (a domain-specific language called AL), we were open to candidates of all levels. In candidates, we look for general backend knowledge and motivation to work on ERP software. Since our search was broad, we got a wide selection of CVs from people with different experiences. However, I noticed “mistakes” that people make no matter if they have 10 years of experience or no experience (most mistakes come from candidates with no experience).

All following (counter) examples are from real CVs.

Things you should do

Use PDF

There is a percentage of candidates (albeit very small) that send Word files. A year ago, I heard about one case where the CV was an Excel file. Microsoft Word is perfectly fine for creating CVs but you should always export it to PDF.

Use a word processor (or learn about typography)

Around 50% of CVs are created with Canva. But Canva is not a word processor. It is a graphic design tool that gives you the ability to make many design mistakes.

For this position, I don’t care at all about design mistakes in your CV. But if I were looking for a frontend developer, things like bad list alignment, inconsistent spacing, or low contrast would be red flags.

Name your PDF properly

LinkedIn retains the original filename of uploaded documents, so don’t name your CV file cv.pdf or document.pdf. Definitely don’t name it 666.pdf or javascriptmaster.pdf. Instead, name it name_surname.pdf, name_surname_cv.pdf, or something similar. You will appear more professional and reduce the chance of your CV getting lost in someone’s Downloads folder.

Match creativity with the role

I received a CV entirely formatted as a JSON object inside PDF. While undeniably creative, it is not readable and goes against the purpose of a CV. If a non-technical person screens this CV, they will likely reject it. A technical person will probably like this CV, but what are the odds that this CV will get to them?

Try not to reduce your chances of getting to the interview just because you have a confusing CV. If you decide to be creative, give your CV to multiple people to judge it before using it for applications.

Put dates on previous jobs

You should put the start and end dates on every previous experience you have listed in your CV. Also, the list should be sorted from most recent to oldest.

If you have any links in your CV, they should be clickable. Make sure the websites you link to still exist and that the content is appropriate. If not, it’s better to leave the link out.

Things you maybe want to do

Fix profile photo

If you want to put your photo in the CV, make sure it looks professional. That doesn’t mean it has to be a photo of you wearing a suit and crossing your arms. It means it should have good lighting, a simple background, and not be blurred. If you like your passport photo, put that photo. You definitely should not put a selfie from the couch or a New Year’s party photo (with deer antlers).

I understand that many people don’t like the idea of putting their face photo on a CV, but a photo will make the CV more memorable. The same thing holds for putting a profile photo on hiring portals like LinkedIn. Like it or not, a face photo makes your profile more interesting for recruiters.

Fix GitHub profile

If a candidate puts a GitHub profile in the CV, I will always look into it. The majority of the time I find a GitHub profile with no activity and with one or two repositories which I’m not sure what they are about.

I know that most people are not open-source contributors, but if you share your GitHub profile, I do expect that you have at least one presentable repository: a repository with a well-written README which demonstrates that you know how to use Git (I saw a repository that consisted just of zip uploads).

As we are speaking about profiles, there is no need for Instagram or Facebook links on your CV.

Things about the interview

Read the job description

We are not FAANG and I don’t expect a candidate to be euphoric about the position. However, I expect the candidate to be familiar with the job ad.

Read the job description before you apply. Read it once again before interview. Look into products that company is making.

Prepare technically for the technical interview

For remote interviews, make sure you have working headphones with a microphone, your laptop battery is charged, and your phone is on mute. Let your housemates know not to interrupt. These are all problems that can unnecessarily waste your time and concentration.

If the interview includes a live coding part, make sure you’re using a keyboard you’re comfortable with.

Good luck out there

I know it is hard today to land a new job in IT. And it is frustrating to hear many different pieces of advice on what you should write in your CV, what technology you should learn, what LeetCode problems you should practice, etc. That is why I have given here only advice that I think will be easy to follow and can’t do any harm. These tips won’t land you a job by themselves, but they can increase chances of you getting a call for a interview.