A Resume Template for Software Developers to Help You Land the Job

Creating a concise, yet impactful, resume is very important in landing your first, or next, developer job. Here's a look at my own, personal resume template for software developers and how I use it.

There are hundreds of resume templates out there to download, from fancy to basic.

Whatever you choose, you want your words to count. You want to fit the most relevant info you can muster onto one page.

When I went through my recent job search I came up with a pretty basic template for a resume that I used for all applications.

On one page I was able to summarize:

Who I was and what I am passionate about
What value I could bring to the company
My past education
Contact details (including my Github repo)
My online presence
Hard Skills
Soft Skills
A professional photo
My location

I felt this was sufficient to create a well-rounded, yet brief, resume template for Software Developers to land the job, including myself.

Here's an overview of what it looked like (and yes I've made some of the data fictititous):

Below I'll provide a link to my resume template so you can open it up and replace it with your own data, but let me briefly explain what each section aims to do:

Main Section

About Me

This section should only be about 2-3 paragraphs and should include:

Who you are and what you do
What value you would bring to the company
A desire for further discussion about the job

Work History

Only post relevant jobs. If you were a developer in a past or current role, then put that at the top. If you worked a non-developer job, but there are skills there that apply positively to this job, include it.

If you worked a job that is totally unrelated and not valuable in landing this job, don't include it.

Education

Be sure to include relevant education. If you graduated from college, no matter the degree, include it. Also be sure to include "unaccredited" online coding bootcamps, certificates, and pursuits as these are almost equally important these days.

Online

Be sure to provide a Twitter and LinkedIn feed if you have them, especially if you are active in the coding community. If you don't include it, they will find it anyway. Better to save them some time.

Sidebar Section

Contact Details

Include your:

Primary phone number (probably your cell phone)
Some type of video-conferencing platform like Skype
A primary email address
Your GitHub repo

Hard Skills

Here's where you dish out your coding abilities, the languages you know, and coding related talents.

Be sure to only list skills you can back up.

Soft Skills

This is where you can shine in "non-coding but job-related" soft skills. Many of us are trying to land that first developer job and have had only non-developer jobs in the past.

Well, the skills you picked up there are still very valuable. Skills like problem-solving, teamwork, leadership, punctuality, etc. can all be listed here. But try to tie them into the position you are pursuing.