Using the third person
Your CV should be written in a 3rd person impersonal tone, not in 1st person (“I am”) or with your name (“Nick is”). Aim for a 3rd person impersonal tone, for example:
An experienced front end web developer who takes pride in creating accessible sites using a variety of tools. Experience of working in a dynamic project environment using agile methodologies and tools including Adobe studio and React. Now looking for a new challenging position in a young dynamic organisation to build and consolidate skills.
Removing the “I am / I have” makes it sound a little less boastful and more factual and this way you can say more about yourself. It’s easy to write “I am / I have” in the first draft, then delete them later.
Give the reader context and be specific
You should aim to give the reader the context they need to understand your experience without them having to look in other places to understand it. For this reason it is good to write a single line describing what each company you worked for did. Working at a large bank is very different to working at a small start up which is equally very different to working in an academic institution. Therefore giving a short explanation of the company saves the reader having to go and google the company themselves. Similarly, when you mention projects that you have worked on, try and give detail in a specific and concise way. For example,
Comprehensive research project addressing complex engineering challenges.
This gives no detail as to what your project was about or the type of challenges you may have faced.
Machine learning research project using Python to improve models to detect fraudulent credit card transactions.
This is a similar length sentence but gives a much clearer view of what you did, and the fact that is a complex is implied.
Explaining your contribution rather than your role
When describing your educational and employment experience, make sure you describe your personal contribution rather than the job role. For example
Developed features and wrote tests
Just tells the reader that you had a job as a developer and nothing more.
Extended the RESTful search API to include pagination.
Gives a concrete example of a feature that you built, and gives the hiring managers a clearer picture of the sort of tasks you completed, what your technical experience looks like, and makes it easier for them to ask you questions. It is informing the reader of which technologies you used in which scenarios which helps paint a better picture of your experience, than just a long list of languages at the end without context. However someone still may read that and say, it includes pagination, so what?!
Emphasising achievements and outcomes
Going a step further with the previous example, as well as explaining what you did, it is important to explain the impact of what you did, linking it to business outcomes. You don’t need to do this for every single line on your CV but it should be a regular theme as it shows you are connected to the business goals.
Extended the RESTful search API to include pagination, decreasing the response times on the product listings page.
Metrics
As well as explaining the qualitative impact of what you have done, it is useful to include quantitative metrics that you made a difference to. For example
Extended the RESTful search API to include pagination, decreasing the response times on the product listings page from 3s to 1s.
Make sure that if you are going to use metrics you can back them up with how it was measured and how you implemented the improvement. If you say something vague like Improved accuracy by 50%. but can’t back it up with an explanation when asked in an interview, it will look like you are making up metrics for the sake of it.
Here are some further examples of CV statements enhanced by outcomes and metrics. In each pair, the first just describes what was done, and doesn’t say why it was useful. The second shows value and is much more compelling.
- “Rewrote core logic in TypeScript”
- “Rewrote core logic in TypeScript, reducing bugs shipped to production by 30%”
- “Automated manual tasks”
- “Automated manual tasks, saving 3 hours of paperwork per week”
- “Built feature to better target potential customers”
- “Built features to better target potential customers, increasing sales by 10%”
- “Mentored an intern”
- “Mentored an intern, helping them successfully deliver their project on time, leading to a job offer at the end of their internship”
Repetition
Don’t repeat your responsibilities and try not to repeat particular words or phrases. Even if you had 2 jobs or experiences that were very similar, try to frame it in different ways. If the hiring manager sees the same line copied and pasted between jobs or the word you saying a word like “team player” again and again it is just going to look lazy on your part and frustrate the hiring manager that they are wasting time reading the same information again and again.
Embedding links
In order to make your CV as user friendly as possible, add links in the place they are most relevant. If you are referencing projects or portfolios on Github then add a link to each project in the section where you are talking about them, rather than leaving the hiring manager to go searching for them on your Github themselves. Make sure your Github projects also have Readmes so any hiring manager looking at them can see what they are about and how to run them without having to trawl through the code.