How to write a Web Developer résumé that will help you get an interview
There are a lot of jobs out there for web developers, but to get the position you want, you’ll still need to have a stellar résumé. The better your résumé is, the higher the chances are you’ll get hired by a company you actually want to work for. This is your guide to writing a web developer résumé.
Professional summary or career objective?
There’s some disagreement about whether you should include a professional summary or a career objective. A professional summary is designed to give a quick overview of your career. A good summary will encourage the hiring manager to read the rest of your résumé to see what you have to offer.
Generally, you’ll only want to write a career objective if you’re a brand new web developer without experience. A career objective should be about three sentences long and explain your qualifications, your enthusiasm, and what you can bring to the company.
However, neither of these sections should be about you. Remember, you are writing to impress an audience. Use quantifiable data that will specifically show them how you aided your previous companies with your work.
Compare these two examples and see which one strikes you as better:
Any IT recruiter will hire the sender of the second résumé. Why? Because it paints a full picture of what that professional can do for their company instead of being bland and boring like the first summary.
Listing and describing your skills
For technical positions, including web developers, it is to your advantage to create a skills section, rather than simply including them in your summary or objective. It’s important that when you write your skills section, you don’t sacrifice its readability while attempting to make it comprehensive.
Make it easy to follow by organizing your list of technical skills into categories. For example, you could have a category for deployment tools, and include skills such as Docker, Maven, CI/CD, and Jenkins.
Writing your skills section this way makes it much easier for a hiring manager to scan, and that will increase your chances of getting an interview.
However, you should list only the skills that you are exceptional or good at. Just because you once tried working with a language or tool doesn’t mean that you should mention it in your résumé.
Look at the job description to see which skills the employers need. Then you can add a few more skills which you feel are impressive or would complement the skills they require.
What matters is that you are honest and clear about what you know. If you are really that determined to put more skills, specify that you have some experience in those skills.
However it’s best not to give yourself grades or rate yourself on scales. It might seem like a cool feature at first, but the recruiter will get no useful information out of it.
Talking about your experience
“Your professional experience is the most important section in your résumé. The best way to go about crafting this section is to refer back to the job description. Look at the words used and skills requested, and mirror them in your experience section” suggests Lorraine Zimmer, resume writer at BigAssignments.
Write this section to make it obvious you have the ability to solve all the problems the company is going to be dealing with. You may also want to create a master list with all your achievements from every job you’ve had.
Once you’ve got the master list, it’s easy to pull off the most relevant career accomplishments and stick them on a résumé. When it comes to describing your experience, keep it relevant, detail focused, and backed up with numbers whenever possible.
For instance, if you’ve lead a team that created an e-commerce app, don’t just say it — demonstrate what the outcome was. For example, “Spearheaded a team that designed an e-commerce app which increased the company’s sales by 38%”.
This shows the employer that you actually produce results and they can see how you’d make a difference for them.
Your education section
Start off your education by listing the institution name and location, the degree you earned, and the years you attended. When you get into the specifics of your program, how you describe them matters.
Don’t just write that you studied Photoshop, Illustrator, and WordPress. Tell a story, and use plenty of action verbs. Try out phrases like “followed my passion for cloud computing” and “pursued a grant to study software architecture”. Think about some achievements that stood out during your time in post-secondary and describe your education in those terms.
Improve your writing skills before you write your résumé
Before you get started on that résumé, make sure your writing skills are up to the task. Poor writing and editing will end your web developer aspirations before they get off the ground.
Use these resources to improve your writing:
- RésuméService - If you want a good quality résumé then invest some time into improving it with this resource. This service is dedicated to helping people write quality résumés.
- ViaWriting and StudyDemic - Proper grammar matters. Use these grammar tools to make sure everything in your résumé is grammatically correct.
- OXEssays and PhD Writers - Try out these online proofreading tools. They’ve been suggested by UKWritings and are a great way to ensure you’re submitting résumés that don’t have typos and other errors.
- StateofWriting and MyWritingWay - Read over these career blogs. They’re full of ideas from other writers. One of the best ways to improve your writing is by seeing what has worked for other people.
- EssayRoo and BoomEssays - These are editing tools that have been reviewed by Assignment Services. Proper editing is crucial to producing a good quality résumé.
- WritingPopulist and LetsGoandLearn - Use these writing guides to facilitate a simple and straightforward writing process.
Formatting
One of the most challenging parts of creating a résumé is deciding what to include, what to leave out, and what order to put things in.
You’ll need to include your contact info, your summary/objective, skills, experience, and education. If you find you have room, and think they are relevant to the position, you can also include your social media profiles and your interests/hobbies.
There’s more than one way to format your résumé, but for most people, it’s best to stick to the reverse chronological order style. This format lets you put your most recent job experience first and is a better reflection of who you are currently.
Conclusion
Although there are a lot of jobs available for web developers, they are not all necessarily going to be the high-paying, flexible hours job you’re probably looking for.
To get your dream job, you’re going to need a résumé that is effective at demonstrating how qualified and suited you are to the position.
