Resume Example

What makes a good resume for a software developer? We have seen thousands of resumes come into us. We have sent thousands of resumes to our clients. There are some best practices and we have put our best examples together in this resume example for a software developer.

Keep in mind this is a resume example for experienced software developers. If you are a new graduate, a senior executive, or not in IT, not all these best practices apply.

Key Principles

  • For technical people, skills are currency. Put them in early and often.
  • Forget the one-page resume. Very few IT people have a one-page resume. It is not expected.
  • Redo Page One. Instead of the one-page resume, focus on putting your most valuable information to an employer in the top half of page one. The second most valuable information is in the bottom half of page one.
  • Page one should mention your most recent employment or project.
  • Do not make the resume reader guess what you are best at. Make it easy and clear for them to know.
  • Resume objectives are optional. For the experienced software developer, your skills are the greatest currency and speak to what you do. If you have been a C#/.NET developer for five years and the resume is full of skills that support that, the employer knows you are looking for a C# developer job. If you are looking for something different, then a resume objective makes sense to have.

The Heading

The Heading

Put the basic contact information here. No need for the full address. City and State are fine. You can always out the full address at the bottom. Your street address does not help sell you to the employer. Include your LinkedIn URL and GitHub URL. The employer will most likely want to see this before talking to you. Make it easy on them.

Summary Section

Summary Section

Include 4-6 bullet points of what you do best and what you know best. This sets the tone with the reader about what you specialize in. As a technical person, this is a chance to point out the skills you excel at. Avoid the temptation to lengthen this to 10+ lines. We often see resumes that stretch the summary to 40+ bullet points that go well into page 2. It loses effectiveness.

Skills Section

Skills are currency to technical people. A good exercise for any IT person to do before starting their resume is to take a skills inventory. Think through past projects and pieces of training. What things did you use? What third-party tools or packages were part of your work? Every time we ask a software developer to do this, they always wind up adding to their list.

Break these skills into groups and list them out. What you have worked with the most or know best, list those first. Again, this is a way to communicate to the employer what you specialize in. If they are looking for .NET Core and microservices and you have that mentioned three times on page one, they have confidence you are a match and will want to talk to you.

Do not list skills in alphabetical order. It leaves the reader guessing what you know best. It may lead them to think you know Access databases better than SQL Server.

Skills Section

Education and Training

We often debate whether to put this on page one or the last page. The answer goes back to the guiding principles – if this sells you to employers then include it on page one. Otherwise, put it on the last page.

If you went to a nationally regarded top 25 school or a big regional school in your area, it makes sense to put it on page one. If you are applying to jobs in Florida and you have a degree from North Dakota State, think about putting your education on the last page.

Certifications are more important to cybersecurity and infrastructure roles than for developers. More employers will be impressed by the skills you have obtained than the Udacity nano-degree.

Education, Certifications and Training

The Work Experience

Finally, we get to the work experience. It is best to summarize the last 2-3 years of your work on page one. 8-12 bullet points for every 3 years is best. For many people, this aligns well with their job history.

If you have worked at a company for 8-12 years, you need to break it out differently. The technology you worked with 12 years ago is hopefully different than what you have done in the last year. You can break it out by projects, job titles or company phases. If you worked with WPF from 2009-2001 and Azure from 2017-present, that needs to be communicated. Do not leave the reader wondering if you have been a windows-based developer if you have not been.

The Work Experience

In this Software Developer Resume Example, we want to help experienced software developer put their best foot forward. A good resume gets you that interview. That interview gets you that new job and probably more money. It is worth your time to use our resume example and spend some time thinking through how to present yourself best. Here is a full WORD version of this sample resume.

Read More: Top Resume Tips for IT Professionals
Read More: Important Things to Put on Your IT Resume
Read More: 10 Things to Keep in Mind with Your IT Resume
Read More: Things to Immediately Change In Your Resume

Need Tech Talent

Are you finding it harder to locate good technical and IT talent? Many companies find themselves in the same situation. There are some better ways to locate and attract the right it and technical people to your company. Contact us to learn more.