Writing Your Developer CV

The Developer CV

A CV (curriculum vitae) — also called a resume in North America — is a document summarising your skills, experience, and projects for a potential employer. For a junior frontend developer, a strong CV combined with a portfolio can open doors even without formal work experience.

CV Structure

Structure your CV in this order:

1. Contact Information

• Full name (prominent, top of page)
• Professional email address
• GitHub profile URL
• Portfolio website URL
• LinkedIn URL
• Location (city, country — no need for full address)
• Phone number (optional for initial applications)

2. Professional Summary (2-3 sentences) A concise statement of who you are and what you bring. Write this last, after everything else.

3. Technical Skills A scannable list of your technologies, grouped by category.

4. Projects (most important for juniors with limited work experience) Your portfolio projects with clear descriptions of what you built and the impact.

5. Experience (paid, voluntary, freelance) Even non-tech experience shows reliability and soft skills.

6. Education Degrees, bootcamps, and relevant certifications. Include CareerEx if it represents meaningful training.

ATS Optimisation

ATS (Applicant Tracking System) software scans CVs for keywords before a human reads them. To pass the filter:

• Use keywords directly from the job description (e.g., if they say "React.js", include "React.js")
• Avoid tables, columns, headers, footers, and images — ATS often cannot parse them
• Save as PDF to preserve formatting
• Use standard section headings: "Experience", "Skills", "Education" (not creative alternatives)
• Spell out acronyms once: "React.js (JavaScript library)" on first mention

Action Verbs

Start every bullet point with a strong action verb:

Good verbs: Built, Developed, Designed, Implemented, Improved, Reduced, Increased, Launched, Delivered, Optimised, Integrated, Automated, Refactored, Deployed

Quantifying Achievements

Numbers make claims credible and memorable:

Weak:  "Improved the website's performance"
Strong: "Improved Lighthouse performance score from 62 to 94 by implementing lazy loading and code splitting"

Weak:  "Built a weather app"
Strong: "Built a weather dashboard used by 200+ users that fetches from the OpenWeather API and supports 5 saved locations"

Weak:  "Reduced load time"
Strong: "Reduced initial bundle size by 40% using React.lazy and dynamic imports"

CV Length

Juniors: one page only. You have not been in the industry long enough to fill two pages with genuinely relevant content. A one-page CV that is tight and focused is more impressive than a two-page CV padded with irrelevant information.

Common CV Mistakes

• Including a photo (not standard in the UK, US, or most tech companies)
• Listing every technology you have ever heard of (only list what you can discuss confidently)
• Using a generic objective statement ("Looking for an exciting opportunity...")
• Including references ("References available on request" — employers know this)
• Spelling and grammar errors (proofread three times; have someone else read it)
• Using a small font to squeeze in more content (minimum 11pt body text)
• Not tailoring the CV for each specific role

Tailoring Your CV

Generic CVs get generic results. For each application:

1. Read the job description carefully
2. Identify the top 3-5 skills and technologies they emphasise
3. Ensure those keywords appear naturally in your CV
4. Reorder your skills list so the most relevant skills appear first
5. Adjust your professional summary to reference the role type

Key Takeaways

• Structure your CV: Contact, Summary, Skills, Projects, Experience, Education — one page only for juniors
• ATS systems filter by keywords — use the same terminology as the job description
• Start every bullet point with an action verb and quantify achievements with numbers and metrics
• Only list technologies you can confidently discuss in an interview
• Tailor your CV for each application by adjusting keywords and ordering to match the job description
• Proofread carefully — spelling errors signal lack of attention to detail, which is fatal for a developer role

Practice Exercise

Using the starter code React CV template:

1. Replace the placeholder data with your real information
2. Write a two-to-three sentence professional summary that positions you as a frontend developer
3. Add your three best projects with quantified descriptions where possible
4. Add your actual technical skills in order of proficiency
5. Export your CV as a PDF and check that the formatting is clean