How to write an effective developer resume: Advice from a hiring manager

developer resume: Advice from a hiring manager"/>

How to write an effective developer resume: Advice from a hiring manager

Based on reviewing hundreds of resumes per year and researching a book, here are the seven pieces of advice for engineers on writing a resume that represents you as fairly as possible.

根据每年审阅数百份简历和研究一本书，以下是给工程师写简历的七条建议，尽可能公平地代表你。

 

In an ideal world, you wouldn’t need a resume. You’d have a recruiter reach out to you along the lines of: “Your ex-colleague Bob spoke extremely highly of your time working at Stack Overflow. Our company is growing, and we’d love to talk with you. Do you have time to chat with a few members of the team next Wednesday?” 

However, in reality, you will, at some point, find yourself applying at a company where Bob is not there to vouch for you, so you cannot skip through the process of being evaluated before the team will talk to you.

I’ve been a hiring manager for numerous companies and typically go through hundreds of resumes per year. I’ve also researched the topic of writing a developer resume that represents you well while writing the book The Tech Resume Inside Out: What a Good Developer Resume Looks Like. For the book, I ended up talking with two dozen recruiters and hiring managers at the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Transferwise, and other well-known companies.

Based on that experience, here are the seven pieces of advice that I give to engineers on writing a resume that represents you as fairly as possible.

在一个理想的世界里，你不需要简历。你会有一个招聘人员联系你，大致内容是： "你的前同事Bob对你在Stack Overflow的工作给予了极高的评价 我们公司正在成长，我们很想和你谈谈。你下周三有时间和团队的几位成员聊聊吗？" 

然而，在现实中，你会在某些时候发现自己在一家公司应聘时，鲍勃并没有在那里为你担保，所以你不能跳过被评估的过程，然后团队才会与你交谈。

我曾是众多公司的招聘经理，一般每年都要经过数百份简历。在写《技术简历内幕》这本书的时候，我也研究过如何写一份能代表你的开发者简历。What a good Developer Resume Looks Like. 为了这本书，我最后与二十几位招聘人员和招聘经理进行了交流，这些人包括谷歌、Facebook、微软、Transferwise等知名公司。

根据这些经验，以下是我给工程师们写一份尽可能公平地代表你的简历的七条建议。

 

Know what the goal of your resume is

Many engineers assume their resume should just contain highlights of their employment history. They’ve seen other people’s LinkedIn profiles and seen a few resumes. Most of these look like this, and companies must be interested in what you did. Right?

Wrong.

知道自己简历的目标是什么
许多工程师认为他们的简历应该只包含他们就业历史的亮点。他们看过别人的LinkedIn资料，看过一些简历。这些大多是这样的，公司一定对你的工作感兴趣。对不对？

错了。

 

The goal of your resume is to sell you enough to get a recruiter phone call and continue the process. This is a very different goal from telling your entire professional story. Your goal should be to showcase to the company why you’re a good fit for the position they are recruiting for.

This means highlighting parts of your resume that show you being a great match for a specific position. Tuning it to fit the opening  might be as simple as changing the order of things or adding specific details that only this position might find interesting. When you have lots of experience, this might mean cutting less relevant parts short and leaving irrelevant things off.

你的简历的目标是推销你，使你足以获得招聘人员的电话，并继续这个过程。这与讲述你的整个职业故事是截然不同的目标。你的目标应该是向公司展示为什么你很适合他们招聘的职位。

这意味着要突出你简历中能显示你与特定职位非常匹配的部分。调整简历以适应职位空缺，可能只是简单地改变事情的顺序，或者添加只有这个职位才会感兴趣的具体细节。当你有丰富的经验时，这可能意味着要删减不那么相关的部分，留下不相关的东西。

 

Use an easy-to-scan template

Here’s how a typical hiring manager and recruiter will read your resume:

1. Quick scan. They’ll do a short scan of a few seconds, gathering all key information. Your location, years of experience, languages and technologies, position names, company names, and anything else that stands out.

2. Second read. Assuming this first scan matches what they’re looking for, they’ll re-read your resume, top to bottom, reading the content you wrote. However, if, in the quick scan, it didn’t seem that you have what the position needs, there will be no second read.

You should choose a resume format that helps highlight the key information the recruiter or hiring manager looks for in that first scan. A good resume template follows these principles:

• Single column, allowing for easy top-to-bottom reading.
• Dates, position name, and company name are all separated. Dates are easy to scan, top-to-bottom.
• Your location and languages/technologies are easy to find.

使用易于扫描的模板
以下是典型的招聘经理和招聘人员会如何阅读你的简历。

1. 快速扫描。他们会进行几秒钟的短暂扫描，收集所有关键信息。你的位置、工作年限、语言和技术、职位名称、公司名称以及其他任何突出的信息。

2. 第二次阅读。假设这第一次扫描符合他们的需求，他们会重新阅读你的简历，从上到下，阅读你写的内容。但是，如果在快速扫描中，你似乎并不具备这个职位所需要的内容，就不会有第二次阅读。

你应该选择一种有助于突出招聘者或招聘经理在第一次扫描中寻找的关键信息的简历格式。一份好的简历模板要遵循这些原则。

单栏，便于从上到下阅读。
日期、职位名称、公司名称都分开。日期从上到下，便于扫描。
你所在的位置和语言/技术很容易找到。

 

Why bother spending the time finding a good template? The less effort it is for a recruiter to get the key information in the quick scan, the more time they’ll have to look at other parts of your resume. Here’s a resume template you could use—I created this template for the book, and it satisfies all the above requirements. Of course, there are many others to choose from, and you can also design your own.

为什么要花时间去找一个好的模板呢？招聘人员在快速扫描中获取关键信息的努力越少，他们就有更多的时间去看你简历的其他部分。这里有一个你可以使用的简历模板--我为本书制作了这个模板，它满足了上述所有要求。当然，还有很多其他的模板可以选择，你也可以自己设计。

Structure: relevant things first

The recruiter or hiring manager will read your resume top to bottom. You’ll want the most relevant parts to be at the top and less relevant ones towards the bottom. When you have lots of experience, it’s fine to go beyond just one page: just make sure that everything relevant is still on the first page.

结构：相关事物优先
招聘人员或招聘经理会从上到下阅读你的简历。你会希望最相关的部分在顶部，而不太相关的部分在底部。当你有很多经验的时候，超越一页也是可以的：只要确保所有相关的内容都还在第一页。

 

When you’re a new grad or bootcamp grad, hiring managers usually care about experience in this order:

1. Real-world experience, if you have any, including internships.
2. Contribution to real-world projects: e.g., open-source projects.
3. Details about your education.
4. Projects that stand out for a reason or another. Things that go beyond “Hello, world.”
5. Tutoring and leadership positions in student groups.

当你是一个新的毕业生或训练营毕业生时，招聘经理通常会按照这个顺序关心经验。

真实世界的经验，如果你有的话，包括实习。
对现实世界项目的贡献：例如，开源项目。
关于你的教育细节。
因某种原因而脱颖而出的项目。超越 "你好，世界 "的事情。
在学生团体中担任辅导和领导职务。

 

When you have work experience, the way a recruiter reads your resume changes. Here is what will be most relevant:

1. Work experience: current company and title.
2. Languages and technologies that you are proficient with.
3. Education details: these become less relevant over time. With a few years’ experience, they can still be good indicators. After multiple jobs or decades, consider moving this lower down.
4. Extracurricular things like patents, publications, talks, and standout open source contributions.
5. Certifications. This one is interesting. Companies hiring for generalists don’t usually care, especially if it’s not an industry-wide recognized certification. Agencies and more “traditional” companies could give it some weight, though.
6. Personal projects. The more experience you have, the less important these become. Standout contributions, especially to popular projects, could be an exception. Still, they rarely weigh more than your work experience.
7. Interests: these can be a starting point for the conversation on an onsite interview, and they make your resume more personal.

当你有了工作经验，招聘人员阅读你的简历的方式就会发生变化。以下是最相关的内容。

工作经验：目前的公司和职位。
你所精通的语言和技术。
教育细节：随着时间的推移，这些会变得不那么相关。如果有几年的经验，它们仍然可以是很好的指标。多份工作或几十年后，可以考虑把这个往下移。
课外的东西，比如专利、出版物、讲座和突出的开源贡献。
认证。这个很有意思。招聘通才的公司通常不会在意，特别是如果不是全行业认可的认证。但中介机构和更多 "传统 "的公司可能会给予一定的重视。
个人项目。你的经验越多，这些就越不重要。突出的贡献，特别是对热门项目的贡献，可能是个例外。不过，它们很少比你的工作经验更重要。
兴趣：这些可以成为现场面试时谈话的起点，它们让你的简历更有个性。

 

With lots of work experience, you start to stand out from the crowd of applicants. At the same time, you’ll probably have more experience than would fit on a page or two. In this case, a one-page resume is no longer a must-have, but you’ll want to be more concise in your earlier experience: especially when that experience is not as relevant. Here’s the order you could consider structuring your resume:

1. A summary section, briefly describing the standout part of your experience and what the company would get with you. Tailor this one for the job. With more experience, recruiters and hiring managers are far more likely to pay attention to this.
2. Work experience: cut down on the older ones. Aim to tell a story of your career progression. You might even decide to drop old positions when they are not supporting your story.
3. Education: a brief mention, at the end of your resume. You can safely remove all details—such as GPA, extracurricular activities—except for the fact of any degree you might have.

有了大量的工作经验，你就开始从众多的求职者中脱颖而出。同时，你的经验可能会比一两页纸更多。在这种情况下，一页纸的简历不再是必须的，但你要把你早期的经历写得更简洁：尤其是当这些经历的相关性不高时。以下是你可以考虑构建简历的顺序。

摘要部分，简单描述你的经历中突出的部分，以及公司会从你身上得到什么。这个要根据工作的需要来定制。经验多了，招聘人员和招聘经理更容易关注这个。
工作经验：减少老的。旨在讲述你的职业发展的故事。当旧职位不能支持你的故事时，你甚至可以决定放弃它们。
教育：简短的提及，在你的简历的最后。你可以安全地删除所有细节--如GPA，课外活动--除了你可能拥有的任何学位的事实。

 

It can feel painful to cut away some of your experience from your resume. But keep in mind your goal: it’s to have that recruiter call. I collaborated with a systems administrator turned developer who had 20 years of experience. Ten years ago, they went back to college to get a computer science degree. Their original resume had all 20 years of experience listed: non-CS degree, ten years working as a systems admin, CS degree, ten years as a developer. The first ten years did not add much professionally to their resume: they ended up removing this, but still keeping their first, non-CS degree there. The new resume was cleaner, and they saw more callbacks with it.

While you don’t need to remove old positions, you should aim to reduce detail mentions significantly, except if they would add something very valuable for your current job application.

从你的简历中剪掉一些你的经验会感觉很痛苦。但请记住你的目标：是为了让招聘人员打电话过来。我与一位系统管理员转为开发人员合作，他有20年的经验。十年前，他们回到大学攻读计算机科学学位。他们原来的简历把20年的经验都列出来了：非CS学位，十年做系统管理员，CS学位，十年做开发人员。前十年并没有给他们的简历增加多少专业上的内容：他们最后把这个去掉了，但还是把他们的第一个非CS学位保留在那里。新的简历更干净，他们用它看到了更多的回访。

虽然你不需要删除旧的职位，但你应该着眼于大幅减少细节提及，除非它们会给你当前的工作申请增加非常有价值的东西。

 

Keep regional and cultural differences in mind as you craft your resume. For example, in most of the US, a one-page resume is the norm for developers with less than a few years’ experience. Even more senior people aim to fit everything important on the first page. In most of Europe, resumes of two pages are common, and some hiring managers actually prefer to read longer resumes for senior people. Whatever the length, make sure you communicate the relevant parts first. Use the space wisely, elaborating more on your experiences and results that relate to the position you are applying for.

在制作简历时，请记住地区和文化差异。例如，在美国的大部分地区，对于工作经验不到几年的开发人员来说，一页的简历是标准的。即使是更资深的人，也会把所有重要的内容都放在第一页。在大多数欧洲，两页的简历很常见，一些招聘经理实际上更喜欢阅读资深人士的较长的简历。无论长短，一定要先传达相关部分。合理利用空间，多阐述你与应聘职位相关的经历和成果。

 

Languages and technologies: be crisp on what you know

Positions hiring for generalist software engineers will want to see some evidence that you have worked with a few technologies. For these places, it’s a good sign if you’ve mastered multiple technologies. Positions hiring for specific technologies will want to confirm that you did meaningful work with those technologies.

There are a few ways you could make it clear what languages and technologies you are proficient with:

语言和技术：对你所知道的事情要有清晰的认识。
招聘通才软件工程师的岗位会希望看到一些证据，证明你曾经接触过一些技术。对于这些地方来说，如果你掌握了多种技术，那是一个好的迹象。招聘特定技术的职位会希望确认你用这些技术做过有意义的工作。

有几种方法可以让你明确自己精通哪些语言和技术。

 

1. Have a separate section for “languages and technologies” on the first page of your resume.

In this section, list out areas you are proficient with. Don’t bother specifying your expertise level: the hiring manager will assume you know these well enough if you listed them. An example of this approach can look like this:

1. 在简历的第一页有一个单独的 "语言和技术 "部分。

在这个部分，列出你所精通的领域。不要去具体说明你的专业水平：如果你列出了这些，招聘经理会认为你对这些很了解。这种方法的例子可以是这样的。

2. Call out languages and technologies that you used as part of your work experience.

An alternative to the previous approach is to mention the tools you used in each position. This gives more context on when you used these technologies or frameworks and what problems you solved using them. You could just list these out separately at the end of each position like this:

2. 指出你在工作经历中使用的语言和技术。

前一种方法的替代方法是提及你在每个职位上使用的工具。这可以让你更清楚地了解你何时使用了这些技术或框架，以及你使用它们解决了什么问题。你可以像这样在每个职位的最后单独列出这些内容。

However, I recommend “weaving in” the languages and technologies to the description itself. This both reads better, and you can give even more context:

然而，我建议在描述本身中 "编织 "语言和技术。这样既能让人读起来更顺畅，又能提供更多的背景。

 

Standing out: results, impact, and numbers

One thing I wish more resumes had is specifics. The majority of CVs I’ve read tend to list responsibilities, what work was assigned, or have a hand-wavy explanation of the work. Here’s an example of a resume snippet that recruiters and hiring managers see all too commonly:

突出：成果、影响和数字
我希望更多的简历有一点就是具体内容。我读过的大多数简历都倾向于列举责任，分配了什么工作，或者对工作有一个手忙脚乱的解释。下面是一个招聘者和招聘经理经常看到的简历片段的例子。

While the person writing these details probably felt they were showcasing the work they were doing—the hiring manager gets little to no context on the specifics of the work. To stand out, be specific. To be specific, follow this approach:

• Use numbers and quantify whatever you can. Numbers can be the number of users, service load numbers, number of customer support tickets you proactively resolved, and many others.
• Use active language that shows what you have done and how you have been proactive. For example, instead of stating “Fixing various bugs that improve the user experience”, you could use active language and more specifics and write “Reduced user reported defects by 50% after I identified and fixed root causes of the four most common user reports.” The first version reads more passive: “fixing” might be seen as “I was told to be fixing”. In the second version, you make it clear what it was that you did and the results you achieved.
• Mention specific languages and technologies where they make sense. This gives more context and makes your resume details more interesting as well.

虽然写这些细节的人可能觉得他们是在展示自己所做的工作--但招聘经理却几乎得不到工作的具体内容。要想脱颖而出，就要做到具体。要想具体，就按照这个方法来。

用数字和量化你能量化的一切。数字可以是用户数、服务负载数、你主动解决的客户支持票数等等。
使用积极的语言，表明你做了什么，你是如何主动的。例如，你可以用主动的语言和更具体的内容，而不是说 "修复了各种改善用户体验的bug"，你可以写 "在我识别并修复了四个最常见的用户报告的根本原因后，将用户报告的缺陷减少了50%"。第一个版本读起来比较被动："修复 "可能会被看成 "我被告知要修复"。在第二个版本中，你要明确你做的是什么，以及你取得的结果。
在有意义的地方提到具体的语言和技术。这样可以提供更多的背景，让你的简历细节也更有趣。

 

Tailor your resume to the position

Having a “master” resume and tailoring it for every position you apply for is a great strategy. The tailoring doesn’t have to be drastic. However, if you are applying for a company where the job listing lists the stack as React and Node—and you have experience with these, among other languages—moving these up front could be a small change with a big impact. Similarly, if you’ve done work similar to what the position is asking for, having these bullet points listed first are all good ways to grab the attention of the person reading the resume earlier.

One last thing I need to call out, as developers seeking jobs bring it up: the application tracking systems (ATS), and robots “rejecting” your resume. This is false. Your resume will be read by a human. At tech companies, ATSes do not “reject” resumes, and “robot rejection” does not exist in tech. Be wary of any resource that claims this is true: they are probably using the tactic to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt as an incentive for you to buy their service. I’m saying this both as a hiring manager who has worked with ATSes and as an author who interviewed recruiters at all major tech companies. I asked them about robot rejections; they all confirmed that they have not seen or heard of such a practice.

根据职位量身定制你的简历
拥有一份 "大师级 "的简历，并为你申请的每一个职位量身定做是一个很好的策略。剪裁不一定要大刀阔斧。然而，如果你申请的公司的职位列表中列出了堆栈是React和Nod--而你有这些经验，还有其他语言--把这些放在前面可能是一个小的变化，但影响很大。同样，如果你做过与职位要求类似的工作，那么先列出这些要点，都是吸引前面读简历的人注意的好办法。

最后有一点我需要呼吁，因为找工作的开发人员都会提出来：应用跟踪系统（ATS），以及机器人 "拒绝 "你的简历。这是错误的。你的简历会被人类阅读。在科技公司，ATS不会 "拒绝 "简历，"机器人拒绝 "在科技公司不存在。要警惕任何声称这是真的的资源：他们很可能在用这种策略来制造恐惧、不确定性和怀疑，以此来激励你购买他们的服务。我既是作为一个与ATSes合作过的招聘经理，也是作为一个采访过所有主要科技公司招聘人员的作者说的。我问他们关于机器人拒绝的问题；他们都确认没有看到或听说过这种做法。

 

Things that will help you beyond the resume

Applying for a job does not end with having a good resume. A few things can greatly help your job search: referrals, cover letters, LinkedIn, GitHub, and Stack Overflow.

Employee referrals are the best way to increase your chances of hearing back from a company. If you have a strong referral, much of the above becomes less relevant. How do you get a referral? You ask. Ask around in your network to see who is hiring. Ask on public forums where tech professionals gather like Twitter or LinkedIn—potentially even Blind. You can try and reach out for a cold referral: but if you do, add context on why you think you are a great fit for a job and offer an easy way out for the person to not refer you if they do not feel comfortable doing so. 

Cover letters are a coin toss. For larger companies, these places usually either don’t ask for one, or don’t pay much attention to it. At smaller firms and startups, where hiring managers are likely to read resumes and cover letters, it’s a better investment to spend time on this. Keep it short, sweet, and relevant. Don’t repeat your resume: add additional details that make your case stronger as to why you are a good fit for the position you are applying to.

Even if you are not looking for a job today, invest in growing your professional network. The larger your network, the easier you can get referrals from people who know the professional “you.” To grow your network, build genuine relationships with others, help people, and make yourself visible. You don’t have to do this on social media: you can start right now at your workplace, within and outside your team.

LinkedIn, GitHub, and Stack Overflow are all sites where having an up-to-date profile will greatly help your job search. Keep your LinkedIn up to date: it’s a good idea to refresh it as you write your resume. For GitHub, consider creating a GitHub README to present yourself and your key projects more effectively. Make sure projects you mention in your resume or those that you pin to your GitHub profile also have READMEs that share what the project is about. On Stack Overflow, tailor your Developer Story to make it easy for recruiters and hiring managers to find you with relevant opportunities.

简历以外的东西会对你有帮助
申请工作并不是有了一份好的简历就结束了。有几样东西可以极大地帮助你找工作：推荐、求职信、LinkedIn、GitHub和Stack Overflow。

员工推荐是增加你收到公司回信的机会的最好方法。如果你有一个强大的推荐人，上面的很多事情就变得不那么重要了。如何获得推荐人？你去问。在你的网络中询问，看看谁在招聘。在Twitter或LinkedIn等技术专业人士聚集的公共论坛上询问--甚至可能在Blind上询问。你可以尝试着去找一个冷淡的推荐人：但如果你这样做了，要补充说明为什么你认为你很适合一份工作，并提供一个简单的方式让对方不推荐你，如果他们觉得不舒服的话。

求职信是一种掷硬币的方式。对于大公司来说，这些地方通常要么不要求提供，要么就不太重视。在小公司和初创公司，招聘经理很可能会阅读简历和求职信，花时间在这上面是一种更好的投资。保持简短、贴心、相关。不要重复你的简历：添加额外的细节，让你的理由更充分，说明为什么你很适合你所申请的职位。

即使你今天没有在找工作，也要投资发展你的专业网络。你的网络越大，你就越容易从认识专业 "你 "的人那里得到推荐。为了发展你的网络，与他人建立真诚的关系，帮助别人，让自己变得引人注目。你不必在社交媒体上这样做：你可以从现在开始在你的工作场所，在你的团队内部和外部。

LinkedIn、GitHub和Stack Overflow都是拥有最新资料的网站，这些网站对你的求职有很大帮助。让你的LinkedIn保持更新：在你写简历时刷新它是个好主意。对于GitHub，可以考虑创建一个GitHub README来更有效地展示自己和你的关键项目。确保你在简历中提到的项目或你钉在GitHub简介上的项目也有README，分享项目的内容。在Stack Overflow上，定制你的开发者故事，让招聘人员和招聘经理很容易找到你的相关机会。

 

For more advice, tips from recruiters in tech companies, and real-world “before” and “after” resume examples that worked, you can always grab The Tech Resume Inside Out. The book is complimentary for devs currently out of a job.

Good luck with writing your resume!

如果想了解更多的建议，科技公司招聘人员的提示，以及 "前 "和 "后 "行之有效的真实简历案例，你可以随时拿起《技术简历内参》。这本书对目前没有工作的开发人员是免费的。

祝你写好简历!