This post was published 2 years 8 months 28 days ago and as such probably does not reflect my current opinions, knowledge or ability.My updated CV is now online. Before I link to it elsewhere, I’d really appreciate some feedback, so if you have any comments or suggestions please let me know in a comment on email.
Also, feel free to use this thread for a bit of self promotion and link to your own CV – I’d be happy to return the favour and read over it.
Edit:
Updated the CV version.
Again.
I am not an employer, or in any such position, so I cannot say what they look for, but I know what I’d look for and most of it is there.
I guess what I feel lacking is some sort of indication that you have come in contact with stuff like version control and issue tracking.
Does that make sense?
/Patrik
I have included “Using Design, Development and Source Control Tools” under skills, so maybe if I rephrase that a little to give a better impression of what I’m actually experienced with?
Thanks for the feedback.
In my (humble) opinion this gives a better impression (some of my class mates at the university still couldn’t, after three years of studies, see the value in source control and the likes… so I’d make sure to distinguish myself from that type of developer)
One could of course argue that any successful project with more than three people (rough estimate) involved in it must have made use of some development tools for version control and issue tracking.
But expressly giving them room in the CV, I believe, could only be interpreted as a sign that one value those kinds of tools enough to mention them, and those are good types of tools to value
You are very welcome, pleasure is all mine
Thanks again.
I see what you are saying about version control/development tools. I use source control even on small personal projects but saying saying simply that I have used it doesn’t give that impression.
As such, I am adding the following to the end of my skills section:
“Using a Range Of Design and Development Tools
For Example: Using version control on all recent projects; working with issue tracking tools and UML diagram authoring software.”
Although I’m not altogether sure about that semi colon…
I think the CV is looking pretty nice now
(at least I find nothing more to bring input on 
)
About the semi colon, for what little it may be worth, Swedish writing rules seem to say that a semi colon may be used when a period is too strong a separator, and a comma is too weak, and is most often used between parts with some strong connections between them.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_overvw.html
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/writing/semi-colon
and
http://www.libraryonline.com/default.asp?pID=32
seem to at least somewhat agree with me
As for this actual semi colon, I’d say it probably works
Thanks again for your input.
In terms of the semi colon, the issue I was having was that each clause should be able to function as an independent sentence. In my CV this wouldn’t be the case but since I haven’t used complete sentences for the other Example Project: parts I think what I have written makes sense. Or at least seems to read correctly.
I guess I’m happy with it until I pick up some new skills to write about
Happy to help. Glad you found my comments useful
“prize for being a particularly helpful sort of person” – this made me smile. I think a touch of humour never does any harm.
Hazel,
I think you’ve got an excellent resume and have a lot of good skills on there. I feel that this will be the most important part of your resume, as an employer will be able to quickly scan this section to get an idea of what you can do, and more importantly if you are a good fit for the position that they are considering you for.
That being said, they will most likely be evaluating several resume’s at an initial glance before forwarding them on to a more rigorous review. This way they screen out a large number of resume’s quickly and only evaluate in depth the ones they deem promising. Now I believe your resume will stand up bar none to a thorough review, however I feel that during the initial screening there may be too much going on to accurately discern your skill set quickly.
Perhaps you could do something to make the individual skills you have listed stand out more so they will be easier to discern on quick glance. I think in the case of skills, bullet points or bolding my be appropriate. Another suggestion is maybe instead of the small white lines separating each of the sections or items, you could use black lines so that there is an easy separation between each. Looking at a couple of the sections, they appear almost as large blocks of text instead of individual list items.
I think you’ve got a fantastic resume, I just feel maybe you could put a little work into making it friendlier to someone looking to scan your resume to discern the vital information quickly. Also…Great Work! You have a huge number of impressive achievements and extremely varied skill set. I am positive that you will be able to land any job you desire.
-Bryan
Hi Bryan.
As you can probably guess, when I first wrote the CV I thought it was important to qualify the skills I was listing with example projects. The advice from employers on CVs tended to have been that simple lists of technologies and languages didn’t really give them enough information and sometimes lead them to believe a candidate was simply listing buzz-words.
Now that you mention it though, I can completely understand what you mean about being unable to get much useful information from the skills section simply at a glance; there’s no use going into depth if no-one reads that far. I’m going to try and look over the whole CV and see if some writing and formatting changes can make the key points more obvious, while keeping the additional information in case someone should read further.
Thanks a lot!
Reviving an old post here, but I’m lazy and sometimes go to ground for ages.
Heres my less than expert advice on CVs, despite the fact you’re probably rewriting it. I like it, particularly the personal statement. Nice font, good layout, the blue looks good without being overpowering and seem to print nice as grayscale. I’d maybe recommend doing a doc or rtf version, probably an HTML one also.
Mine seems plain by comparison, it probably won’t be useful as I’m not really aiming for programming jobs but here it is:
http://www.krisdavidson.org/cv/Kris_Davidson_CV.pdf
Still not finished, so much conflicting advice on CVs in my opinion.
Hey Kris – don’t worry about the post being out of date. Some of the older stuff on this site is complete nonsense but this is definitely something I still appreciate help with.
I’m not actively working on this CV right now, but I certainly would alter it before sending it off to anyone. Actually, currently I’m looking at how to write a more academic oriented CV as it’s a required part of the application process for some MSc courses. Even more confusing stuff.
You’re right about the file formats – I should probably have more than one available here. I also need to create a plain text version as some employers require this (I guess so they can be read automatically).
The one thing I did notice about your CV is the two lines in which you mention your high school. I omitted pre-university education from mine entirely, but I wasn’t sure whether this was acceptable. I certainly don’t want to dedicate much space to it, so I may opt for a similar approach to you.
Thanks,
Hazel.
Right, I wasn’t too sure about the high school stuff in general, its there on mine for two reasons. Its a reference to my age, I had a few years of professional experience and was paranoid people may assume I’m an older guy. I was also worried people would think I screwed up in high school; I’d list individual grades if I had space, the CertHE is mentioned for the similar reasons. My CVs crammed on to two pages right now, I’d like the option of removing some education and previous jobs in the future but it may look like a gap, if I get a Masters I’d have trouble inserting it, I considered removing the profile as it takes up space and makes me sound like a dick but it seems to be required. I can’t really style it too much for similar reasons. I’d have no problem reading 3 or 4 page CVs but 2 seems to be the standard.
I looked at Academic CVs a while back, they seem pretty similar to standard ones but with sections for journal articles and research.
Ah, makes sense. I’m still unsure whether skipping high school information from my CV is acceptable but I really fail to see its relevance, so I’ll leave it off for now.
As for academic CVs, things seem to be a little more formal and fixed in terms of their structure and layout, so I’ll have to modify that. I’m also pretty lacking in the publications and research departments which is a little awkward.