5 Ways to Make Your Software Developer Resume Standout
What makes a candidates profile stand out to you?
I answered this question on a slack channel today and thought why not pull it out of that walled garden and share here.
This question was in the context of angel.co. Which is the platform I have been using over the past couple of years when hiring developers for Zesty.io. Here are 5 things I thought of that have made potential candidate profiles stand out to me.
Explanation of your position within the industry
Something along the lines of "I am at X role" or "I am working to become X role". This lets me as a hiring manager understand am I hiring for exact fit or someone who will grow with the position.
Experience demonstrating the above
That is, does your experience clearly show you have achieved X position or that you are on a path to X desired position
Accomplishments written in active voice
Start with an action verb, for example;
- Lead application build using ...
- Increased render performance by ...
- Reduced css bundle ...
Online code *you* wrote
YMMV on whether hiring managers are going to look at your code but for me I will every time.
This is especially important for folks new to the industry who don't have supporting experience. After looking at a lot of first time hire candidates I have learned how to recognize school or bootcamp code projects. Having an online repository with a novel project you personal authored is massive. I can't stress how much this standouts out to me. With so many new folks entering the industry you would be suprised by how few actually have novel code they have written that can be shown to a potential employer.
On multiple occasions I have looked into repository commit logs and discovered a potential candidate has passed off projects which they have not contributed any meaingful code too.
Visible photo
There are two main reasons for this.
- Like most online interactions that are designed to become an in person interaction, knowing what someone looks like puts people at ease.
- Unless you're at the most ground floor "move fast break things" startup, teams honestly don't need a coding savant. Knowing that someone can take the time and effort to present themselves is a small but signficant sign of work ethic and how they may conduct themselves in the work place.
Caveats
This is all in the context of hiring for an early stage startup. You'll find the hiring process varies wildly across company size, culture and industry. These are also just things that have got me to notice candidaets while sourcing them. There is a whole other ball game once it candidate moves into the interview process.