3 top things I expect to find in your tech CV as a recruiter

By Ana Farinha

When the time comes to write or re-write your CV, a lot of questions come to mind. Of course, you can google it and find lots of tips: how many pages it should have, what kind of layout you should choose, how to keep it clean, easy to read, and yet unique and appealing.

You can find thousands of examples and some tools that can help you create and design your CV. But that’s not what brings me here, that’s not what I want to discuss with you (although it’s all important!).

When preparing a tech CV, I’m sure that you’ve already asked yourself: “What should I write about?”, “What information is crucial?” “What is more relevant?”. So, I’m here to bring you answers, and this post will be all about the content and the 3 top things that I expect to find in your tech CV as a recruiter.

I bet you were expecting this, right? Well, although it might seem obvious it’s never too much to point this out. As a recruiter, I want to know on your tech cv what you’ve been up to, either you have lots of experience or just got out of college. What kind of projects did you do? What kind of challenges did you face?

• If you’ve just got out of college and don’t have work experience yet, tell us about some projects that were relevant and challenging for you. I know that you probably have lots of them, but choose two or three that made you learn the most and exceed your expectations.
• If you already have some work experience, what have you been doing? Where? And for how long?

In both scenarios, you don’t need to write an essay about it and get in too much detail. A simple line is enough to describe the main goal of the project and leave enough mystery for us to talk about in the interview.

To stand out from another tech CVs, it can be an excellent insight to include your most relevant achievements, showing how your previous work or academic projects made a real impact through technology. For example, many developers might have been working on the same kind of projects but their contributions and outputs were certainly different. Got it?

Another vital information that should be in your tech CV is… your tech expertise. Which technologies did you use and liked the most? Tell us all about your tech skills and know-how.

This point helps us to better understand your expertise as well as the technological areas, technologies, and frameworks that you’ve been investing in.

At Xpand IT, we work with a wide range of technologies in different technological areas, so by addressing this when applying to a job opportunity, we can have an idea of what unit better fits you, tailoring our recruitment process to your tech skills and motivations.

You can use the same template, have the same academic background, and even work at the same companies that other developers do, but this is your CV, and no one else’s. So, make it personal, unique, and outstanding!

Tell us about you. What are you looking for? What motivates you? Have you ever done some individual projects? Have you decided to learn new technology and try it on by yourself? Have you made a complementary course? Do you want to make a change and try something totally new?

In this part, you can also include your hobbies, volunteer work, and other aspects that can make it more unique. Even if it’s not relevant to the job role, it can be a good ice breaker for our first interview.

As a bonus tip: your LinkedIn profile is an awesome complement to your CV so don’t forget to keep it updated! It is really common for recruiters to search for your profile after receiving your application.

So, to sum it up:

1. Tell us about your experience one line at a time
2. Show us your technological stack expertise
3. Tailor it

I hope that you find these 3 tips helpful for you and that you can write your CV with confidence that you’re doing it right. Good luck and feel free to ask me more tips.