Frontend Developer Resume Review (from A Senior Developer)

Hi folks, what's up? I from the senior and today we're going to review a front end developer CV with seems like four years experience. And the point of this review is for you to understand, number one, what are the major mistakes software engineers make when building their CVs that stop them from actually getting calls, right? And what is the mindset? What is the right way to think about software engineering CVs? Now, in the last three and a half that I've been coaching and mentoring developers at the senior dev, I must have written myself around 300 CVs and I interacted with all kind of different CVs, all kind of developers with experience, without experience. I've seen a lot of mistakes and ideally you don't have to do all these mistakes. Let's dive straight into the CV. There's a bunch of things that I want to uh to point, right? So I I kind of um blur out the contact data. This is good, but as you can see here, there's an HTTP and my advice is to format links in the right way. It's good to have links, but format them and eliminate the HTTP part. That's only that. Now, no picture, please. Like we do not pictures, especially if you'll be in the know to make a mark, actually, companies will tell you to remove the picture. Why? Because it's a basis for discrimination. And we we don't really need the picture in the CV. Now, um here, this this part, right? This is the contact data that we have here. In my opinion, this is occupying a bit too much. So, I would squeeze this down by distributing this these fields into probably two lines, two lines maximum. And you can distribute this across the the page and what's the point of this? The thing is, we are looking at a four years experience front and engineering CV and this CV has two pages. For me, that's a bit too much. It should be maximum a page and a half and the problem with too much is that people don't have time these days. So, if you give them a long CV that doesn't tell a lot, that doesn't give a lot of information, it's just like giving them a very site that's not optimized, okay? Uh people will bounce. So, it will definitely decrease your results, okay? Now, that's the first thing I would optimize. Let's move on. A front developer with four years experience, that's awesome. I wouldn't even add a headline and especially I wouldn't talk about the business mindset, okay? These business mindset included uh defocuses people, makes you makes people think that you are kind of a business person, that's turning developer, so not a good developer. And what they want is a good developer, right? And the second part it's why put the four year experience, I would actually add it here the experience part and kind of delete it.

you do not need hey like you do not need you can actually put your name and that's it and move it from come up here. Uh so no need for this stuff now. Um I'm a passionate frontend developer with a knack for crafting user friendly interfaces. This told me nothing, so it doesn't really help. In my previous project, I leveraged these skills. What skill? I don't understand what skill you haven't told me to improve user experience and drive business results. What results? Okay, so this is basically you told me nothing, nothing. I learn nothing, this looks like it's GPT written or something. I know, it's just it's it's kind of a waste of time, you don't need it. With a strong foundation in JavaScript, I'm actively expanding my skill set. Come on, people don't speak like that. You do not need this thing, okay? I could have said here, um, front end developer with four years experience in React, TypeScript and now JS. I also have experience with AWS in the cloud. I worked on um CMS integration and um what is this with Sby and Pmic? And I worked for this and that, and that's it, okay? Uh we and and that would have been those two lines, and that's what I would say here. Two lines, we got to make these two lines, you see my my drawing abilities are quite impressive. So you want to boil this down in two lines and you want to be as concise and as descriptive as you can. This these thing, for example, my background is strategy, marketing and business, like what the heck, you are not a product manager. We don't want this is all. You don't need this, you don't need this. Just say you are a frontend developer with four years experience in the technologies you have experience in, say you also have experience with the cloud or additional skills. And then you can talk about, you know, I'm most proud of having delivered this in this application. But keep it short, two to three lines, okay? You have four years experience, not 10, and this is not going to tell us much. Because people are not here for this, they are here for this, this is what you will get hired on. This is the most important, not your education. And even if I also say this, even if you don't have experience, this thing right here is the most important because. What I would do is to, you know, put yourself as a self-employed and talk about the projects in your portfolio, but still, this is your last position. You are employed, even if you are not officially employed, you are self employed, you are working for yourself, you are building projects, okay? So not the education, not anything else. This is the most. And most CVs that I see, it's they do not, like you can see it here, this is the last experience you have and even if it's one year only or one year and a half, it's what people will pay most attention to. And this is why I would actually do this twice bigger. I would do 10 bullet.

two X. And what I'm missing here is the technologies that you worked. Where are the technologies that you worked? So, at the bottom, I would definitely add the technologies. The other thing is, why do we have this order? So, it's it's just very hard for me to read this, right? And this is why dates, usually dates are placed here in the at the end. So, the most important is title first, which should go in the place of the date. Okay, forgive my drawing skills, and then the company that you should place in the middle. Okay, this is a better format. Now, various consulting assignments with a focus on the front end including. I mean, that's okay, you could also say I worked for this and this customer in this in this headline. I like this headline, I would keep it. But other other technologies and here, here, my problem is again, I don't see the technologies like maintaining and developing a user friendly interfaces, improving components, functions. Yes, but what? React? TypeScript? What, CMS? Developing an onboarding app for new employees, including login, updating status, filtering. This is okay, but you still don't tell me, you know, I built this, that, okay? So, you can say developing an onboarding app for our for internal employees, with different views such as login and status and filtering, using technologies like React, Node.js, whatever it what. You need to tell me, I achieved this and that with the tingle pot. Okay? That's the point. You are a builder, you are a maker. A developer is not a sales person, he's not a marketing person, they are makers. So, they need to talk about tools, they need to talk about things they build. Right? That's the first because then people can place you, say, hey, front end developer with this and this technology. And this is very important and after that, you quantify what. Uh this is not you know, implementing a usable and customizable digital annual report, previously purchased as a service, what was this? And I wouldn't mention this. Or if I mention it, you know, this thing was purchased, so we built it internally, so this either gave us better service or saved us some money. And and what was this? A React app? Was it a Node.js app? Was it a Vue.js app? Same here, developing a constant consultant matching portal for registration of consultants. This feels like a project that you've done when you were on the bench. And this is not good. So I would even think about taking this one up. Okay? Cool. Now, I see, okay, just before I see that this Boras company, it's the same as here and the same as here. And if that's the case, I would not split this company. Even if the customer is different, like we have three different customers, Conside, Elos, and uh Y Deco or whatever this is.

would merge these three positions. Why? Because again, it's all about the last positions. If this thing becomes suddenly larger, it proves that you have a lot more experience than showing this thing like split in three. And you could, what you could actually do is to pick up the client that you worked for and just mention the clients. You know, I was working in a consulting company and those are the major clients that I worked for, mostly on the front end but also on the full stack. And then you merge all these three things into one. Now, talking about this voluntary experience, I don't know what this is. But again, this position, it's it's very small because it's fragmented. It should go together with all these these other two, okay? So you should merge this this these positions into one. And this thing, that's a volunteering should go here into other and education or into extra. And by the way, I would avoid the word education, unless it's, you know, university. And I would for sure avoid courses. Actually, I would use the word education here, pardon, I I cut it out, but I would use education. Forget about digital marketing, not relevant for a software engineering CV. And I would keep the bachelor and I would add the full stack boot camp here. Okay? And this is going to be education section. Okay, we keep it. Okay, and this will be called extra, and it should be placed after the education. Okay? So we're going to swap the education up here and these education courses will be called extra. I would take out the full stack boot camp, the full stack boot camp would go into the education section. So goes out of here, and you could keep this if you wanted to, or you could just get rid of altogether if the CV is too long, but this, this volunteering will move into extra. So again, we're going to call we're going to rename this thing in education, we're going to have the bachelor's degree and the boot camp, and then we're going to have a section that's called extra. And we're going to have our web development volunteering. And that will allow us to have this huge, nice piece of cake, which is our last position, which is big and has a lot of experience. And because now the the summary itself was smaller, people will get to this much faster, which is the point here. Okay? And then this experience has to also be expanded. I would say at least three bullet points where we again talk about how you collaborated with other students, uh, how you any any little side project that you built. So I just need more professional experience. Okay? So I would say expand this, merge these three things and you are already, you know, you're going to, you know, make this CV at least 50% better. Okay? Now, there's a lot of red stuff, but

me once these things fall in place you will have a CV where people will, you know, they will line up at to hire you and trust me this is password. You know, the developers we work with, they come to us with messed up CVs because of as a developer you probably do a CV once or twice, and it's just hard to spot the mistakes. But when you fix this, you automatically become better at tank interviews, because if you have a great CV and you know how to pass the the screening calls, then we'll get a lot more interview.

Okay? So, you get a practice to to practice your skills, to practice those single skills, those single interviewing skills. And in the end you get a job much faster instead of staying, you know, six months in an employment, waiting for a job. You can get a job in in a matter of weeks or students. Okay, now we finish this part more or less. Now, let's go to other experiences, not relevant business development now, not relevant for a software engineering CV.

Not relevant. No. Not relevant, okay? This is a software engineering CV. A CV is not your the Git history of the places you've worked and what you've done. A CV is looking at all your experience. And if this is a software engineering, full stack engineering or front engineering CV, it's picking up the ad experience and keeping just that and talking just about that. You are in a safe environment, you are selling yourself.

The the thing you have to understand about says is not more convincing people, but most importantly it's about being relevant. If you're talking to someone that's looking to hire a software engineer, then talk to them about all your software engineering, front engineering. Now, this IT knowledge, IT knowledge makes me think that, you know, that you think in terms of IT that you don't think in terms of software engineering.

So, this is should be called skills, and I would actually call it skills and technologies. And I would keep JavaScript and TypeScript, maybe you have some Python, but this will go out, yeah. So, I would replace this to languages, not marker. And instead of frameworks, I would say tech knowledge and internet knowledge I would actually would have HTML, CSS, React, Next, Nuke, Nax. All this stuff, okay? This I would actually take out not necessary for a front end engineer.

And in terms of project management, this is not project management, this should go into technologies. All this stuff should be merged into technology, okay? GitHub project now, this looks like a, you know, just say GitLab and don't don't mention the project. Now, some things that I miss here for a front end engineer should be interested in things like web performance, front end development, front end design pattern.

I would actually have three sections, like I said, languages, JavaScript and TypeScript, then technologies and frameworks where we add all this stuff. And then the last one is interesting where you add things, like web performance software architecture. Things that you are in this, that show that you have a holistic understanding of software. Now, there's a lot of red here. It will number one, all the information we have here, we can represent it in one page, and I'm telling you, it will get even better results. With that being said, languages, very good. Uh, good to very good. No, just say, just say fluent and just say, you know, basic to intermediate and basic to intermediate. And again, this we don't need because we already have it here, right? I think the LinkedIn and the GitHub were here. So why have them done? No need. Okay, cool. Well, this was it. There's a lot of red here, but for the person that submitted this, congratulations, you are very brave. And this is not a personal criticism, okay? This is a CV, the good news, right? And and I have the good news. He is that this thing can be improved at least two three times. So, if you do the changes. And I hope you do that, you will see the CV probably performing two to three times better. And the other good news is that you have a lot of experience. You just the way this is presented and structured, it's not helping you. And you have four years of experience writing code, and that's really, that should be enough for you to get a position in today's market. More than enough. It's just that the way this thing has been built, it's really not helping you. And I hope you watch this, I hope you implement everything. And I hope you people watching this have seen. How I think about these things. So basically, it's about really breaking the CV you have. And thinking, is this necessary, is this relevant to someone hiring a front-end developer? Uh, is that necessary, then out? Okay? And the second part is from everything I've done, and I bet this person in those four years, in those like at least one year and a half. For example, here, has been doing a lot more than this thing. And you've got to look for those small things that you think everybody has done that, you think they're not important because those things are important. For example, I documented a new deployment pipeline. I contributed, you know, I helped non-technical stakeholders with my front-end knowledge, I consulted them on this new service, etcetera, etcetera. You need to, to number one, get rid of all the clutter. And then look at the experience you've got, even if it's three months, even if it's six months, even if it's one year. You want to have five to seven bullet points where you go in depth in detail. And you don't want in these descriptions and stuff, look, it's good to use chat GPT to give you a base.

is but I would not put anything that's purely ChatGPT generated because people will feel it, right? So who talks like that? Like with a knack for crafting? No, nobody talks like that. Okay, so keep in mind, this is not you're not going to submit the CV to a algorithm. There's going to be a person, there's going to be software engineer, there's going to be a nature person that will rate this. So just keep it short, give them what they need to make the decision and try to stay relevant.

Okay, now if you enjoyed this review, well, you can do two things. Number one, let me know in the comments. I have a bunch of CVs more that I could review like this. And number two, if you want me to review your CV, then uh I will also drop the link to the free community where you can sign up. You have access to Bogdan and I. Um, you know, you have some some amazing free content that we have there that's not on YouTube.

And also from time to time, you can submit your CV for submission. With that being said, it's been a pleasure and I'll see you in the next one. Cheers.