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According to Kimberly Blessing, Web developer, author and principle at Kimmie Corp, your resume format should work to highlight your strengths. The chronological resume, perhaps the most traditional format, fails in this regard. A functional resume does a much better job of highlighting your experience in a specific role, but most web developers are good at more than one thing. I suggest mixing aspects of the two formats, organizing them in a way that makes sense for you and your strengths — then you’ll have a resume that stands out.
A special shout to Kimberly and her blog for the interview and the following content.
Here are the general sections found in a great web developer resume. With the exception of the first two, the rest can be ordered and/or further broken out according to your needs.
Objective: If you’re searching for a job, you ought to know what you’re seeking! Customize your objective, as needed, when replying to job postings. (Note: If you’re not actively seeking a job, but still want to have a resume posted online, it’s okay to omit this section.)
Summary of Qualifications: It’s a cheesy headline, perhaps, and all too often the summary is filled with buzzwords — but I have read really compelling summaries that made me want to know more about a candidate. Focus on describing your strengths and what you contribute to an organization.
Skills: This is where the keywords and buzzwords will start showing up. That’s okay: you’ll back them up with evidence in the other sections. You can subdivide this section in any number of ways: Technical vs. Soft Skills, Front-End vs. Back-End Skills, Design vs. Development Skills, etc.
Professional Accomplishments: Here you can include project accomplishments, awards, public speaking engagements, publishing credits, or descriptions of really awesome things you’ve accomplished. Like the Skills section, you can also break these out separately.
Work Experience: If you’ve done any combination of full-time work, freelancing, and volunteering, this is the most generic title you can use for your work history. Some people like to break out their professional experience from other work, but I think that can undermine the importance of having taken on freelance or volunteer work. If you list accomplishments for each job in this section, don’t repeat them elsewhere, and vice versa.
Education: I don’t like to see this section missing from a resume. Haven’t gone to college? That’s okay. Be proud of what schooling you have made it through and list it here. Oh, and that includes training programs, conferences — anything you’ve forked out money for that you’ve learned something from!
Required Information
If your resume were to consist of only two things, it should be these:
Contact Information: You’d think this would be a no-brainer, but I have seen resumes where developers didn’t list a phone number, email address, or personal web site (more on that below). In my opinion, it’s a waste of space to display your full home address, especially if you are looking to relocate. No one’s going to snail-mail you an invitation to interview, so city and state will suffice. HR will collect the rest of your contact information later.
URLs: I wish I could tell you exactly how many of those ~500 resumes didn’t include a single URL… but my gut says that at least half didn’t feature even a personal web site URL. Seriously? If you’re a web developer, you should have some URLs to share. If you’re brand-new to the field, put some of your school projects online. If you’ve only ever done intranet-type work, get permission to copy parts of the code and make it available, or create other projects of your own to demonstrate your skills. If you’re serious about getting a web development job, you need this.
On the flip side, don’t waste space on these bits of information: references (or the phrase, “References available upon request”), GPA, salary requirements, or personal information (except if you have hobbies that would be of interest to another geek and would increase the likelihood of getting invited in for an interview).
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my resume have to fit on to one or two pages? No, I don’t think that it does. However, I think it’s nice if a resume is so well edited and structured that, when printed, it fits to exactly one or two pages (one page if you’re young, recently out of school, or switching careers; otherwise two pages). However, if you truly have so much awesomeness to report, then, by all means, go on! If you’re really that super-duper, I’m sure I’ll want to know all about it.
Does one resume fit all jobs? NO! Don’t be afraid to tweak your resume format or content to the job you’re applying for. In fact, if you have diverse enough skills and interests (design vs. development) you should probably have completely separate resumes for these purposes.
I am graduating soon and don’t have much web development experience. What can I do to beef-up my resume? Use the “Objective” area to make it clear that you’re looking for an entry-level position. Highlight your strengths in the “Summary of Qualifications” area and place the “Education” section next, so it’s clear you’re just coming out of school. List your technical skills, as well as any soft skills that you can support with extra-curricular or volunteer work. If you have been active in a tech community or have attended technical or web conferences, list those.
I’m switching careers. I’ve taken some web design and development courses and done some small projects. How do I reflect all of this in my resume? First, don’t hide the fact that you’re switching careers! Your prior experience, even if in a completely different industry, has (hopefully) taught you how to deal with people and has helped you understand your strengths. Start your resume with an “Objective” statement that spells out your desire to move into web development. Then list your skills, training and experience with the web so far before providing your employment history and other educational details. Highlight any experience that translates across industries, but otherwise keep the non-web details short.
I have been struggling with how to write the best resume. I have used a skills based resume in the past and now use a chronological. I like the idea of mixing the two. Do you have any other resources on this type of resume? It would be very helpful. Thank you.