Guide to Creating a Competitive CV

In this post, we will learn how to prepare our curriculum vitae, abbreviated as CV, efficiently. This way, we will get past all the recruiters' filters and most likely be called for an interview.

All examples are from my real CV; absolutely everything is based on my personal experience and how I've modified my CV until I found one where no recruiter tells me things I need to change. This is the CV I currently use and honestly, I've always had very good results with it.

Keep in mind that one of the first filters is recruiters or HR people, who, for the most part, do not understand programming. They might know a little about what it’s about, but won’t know technical details. Therefore, the CV must meet both their needs and those of the project manager who will interview us.

This post is aimed at all IT professionals; my template focuses on programming, but with a few tweaks, it can also work for systems roles. The advice ranges from graduate to senior level.

0 - Before Getting Started

DO NOT lie about ANYTHING, absolutely nothing, because if you lie about something, it will come up in the interview and you'll have to prepare for the next one. Personally, I would not even exaggerate. For example, if you have a B1 English level, indicate B1 or say nothing. If you say you have B2, there's a chance that the interviewer will do the interview in English, which could permanently hurt your chances with the company.

Well written. Obviously, your CV has to be well written. It has to get you an interview, so it is a given that it will not contain spelling mistakes, but it also should not contain incoherent sentences. If you are unsure about your CV, hire a professional to review it for you. 

And in the language of the position/company. This may seem silly, but I've seen people send CVs in a different language to what the job requires. The only exception would be if the company requests your CV in a specific language. Needless to say, if the company is French, based in Paris, and you send your CV in Spanish, it will go straight to the trash.

1 - Technical Part of the CV

The technical part of a CV is almost as important, if not more, than the content itself, as it has to look clear, clean, and concise. This is where we must focus to pass the first filter: human resources.

In my experience, I would say the best is a CV with two colors: the white of the paper and the black of the letters. You can and should highlight parts of the CV with bold or underline as that will make the reader focus their attention. 

1.1 - Margins

The margins should be as small as a standard printer allows. What we want throughout the CV is to fit as much information as possible without it looking crowded. Therefore, reducing the margins is key.

We should leave the minimum margin since this CV is going to be printed, and when printed it must look good.

In the ruler at the top and side in Word, set the margins to 0 and 18.5 for Word; if using Google Docs, move the ruler to -1 and 17.5.

1.2 - Handling Texts and Paragraphs

The first point within texts is the font size, which is always a headache for anyone making documents, not just CVs but any document.

Our font size will be 10, and we choose this size because we need space to tell everything we need to, remembering that your CV must get through two filters: HR and the manager, so we must make two CVs in one. The exception: if you just finished your studies and don't have enough content for two or three pages, you can use font size 11.

The font I recommend is Calibri; it’s currently popular and generally liked. Of course, do not use any kind of sans font.

Use single spacing. DO NOT use double spacing, as it wastes space, and space is key for us.

Text should align left and be justified.

In the image, you can see how the profile section takes up 30% more space simply by using double spacing.

1.3 - Number of Pages

 Here we must distinguish between people who have just graduated and juniors, who will find it more challenging and should fill two pages; and mid or senior professionals, who should fill three or four pages if they have a lot of experience. We'll address the content of these later.

Some people will tell you that one page is enough because the CEO of Yahoo! has one page, or because Elon Musk has one page. Well, those people don't need a CV, and technically a single page is enough for them. Also, they very likely have a Wikipedia article with much more information.

The pages must be filled to the end; one and a half pages is not enough; you must fill two full pages, or three or four. Personally, I don't recommend more than four as that's too long. Here is where you can vary between size 10 or 11 font, as if you're at 75% of the last page, increasing the font size by one point will probably fill it, but be careful with formatting as it can get messed up.

Finally, remember that old jobs should attract less attention than the most recent ones, since the job you're applying for usually relates to your most recent experience.

 1.4 - Dividing into Sections

We will divide our CV into sections, and these blocks have to be clear and easily show what they contain.

To do this, put the title in uppercase and bold, a dividing line, and the content.

2 - CV Content

Here's the meat of it, where we have to sell ourselves, starting with your name at the top, centered. This is more of a personal opinion, but it looks clear, clean, and easy to find.

2.1 - Personal Profile

A key point that you should NOT omit, if you want to include your photo in your CV, this is where you should do it.

This section is used as a brief introduction to your CV, highlighting your strengths and your level of involvement in the IT world.

Mention if you code at home, participate regularly in meetups, GitHub, hackathons. How you integrate into teams, if you’re good working in teams or independently, this is the paragraph where you really sell yourself. 

It’s important that this section is understandable for everyone, it's one of the main sections HR will use. Obviously, you can use technical terms since it's a technical CV, but try not to have entire blocks of jargon as it can hurt your result.

2.2 - Work Experience

The next section to include is work experience. If this is your first job, skip this and go straight to the next section, Education and Academic Projects.

This is the core of your CV. It’s the main section both HR and the project manager will look at.

List your experience and avoid irrelevant details, don’t mention things unrelated to your role, because you need to prioritize information. The company you’re applying to doesn’t need to know your old employer was pro-ecology and ran on solar panels; if you want to share that, save it for the in-person interview.

List jobs in reverse order, i.e., most recent first. Since those are the most relevant for the position you seek, if you run out of space, start omitting the least relevant info, such as old jobs or personal projects.

Divide the work experience section into three parts

A - Position

• The position itself, the company’s official title
• The dates you worked there
• The company’s location. 

B - Environment or Technologies

Here, enumerate all the working environments and technologies you’ve used. The person filtering CVs in HR will likely spend their two minutes making sure the technologies they asked for are listed, and will probably mark them with a highlighter.  

C - Main Projects

Finally, list the projects and provide a more or less technical description of what each project involved. This section will be read, less so by HR but more so by the project lead or interviewer, so here you can use more terminology.

2.3 - Education

This section is usually important for recent graduates, but once you’re in the industry, you realize academic qualifications are of limited use. Even so, it’s good to mention them.

 As you can see in the image, it’s a table with three columns: first, the dates; second, the name of the course; and third, the location.

If you currently have an ongoing course, you can include the estimated end date. In the interview, you'll be asked how it helps you for the job you’re applying to, so be ready for that question. If it doesn't benefit you for the job, I’d leave it out, as it won’t add anything positive.

Another common case is taking several years to finish a degree for whatever reason, and you’re embarrassed to show it. You can simply put the end date; if you do, remember to do the same for all your studies, just the end date and nothing else.

Finally, if you have any additional courses, such as programming e-shops with Drupal, you can include them here too.

2.4 - Academic Projects

 This section is optional unless you are a junior or recent graduate, since projects done during studies aren’t usually as important as real ones. Still, a junior or graduate should showcase these projects in the CV.

A junior should outline this section as if it were work experience (see 2.2).

If you have more work experience, mentioning what the project involved and what technologies were used is enough. You can even leave this section out if you need space for more important sections.

2.5 - Personal Projects 

Here, list everything you do in programming that doesn’t belong to any company, websites for friends, or open-source libraries, for example.

Don’t go into too much detail, if the interviewer wants their staff to stay up to date, they’ll ask different questions. A brief description of what each application or library does is enough.

You can include academic projects here if you don’t have space for a separate section.

2.6 - Skills

This section is interesting since it gives an overall picture of all the technologies you’ve worked with. It’s not a common section, but everyone I’ve shown it to likes it. Simply list your skills, don’t rate them, don’t use stars or numbers. Just list them.

2.7 - Personal Interests

We come to the last part of the CV, to which we’ll dedicate just a few lines. Add something personal to show you’re human, say you enjoy cooking in your free time or take salsa classes. Finish with the phrase “references available upon request.”