Jobs & employment blog

If you are a software engineering graduate or young professional, then you are probably aware of the competitive nature of this specialist job market. If you are a software engineer in Hong Kong, then you are definitely aware. Even though there are lots of opportunities out there, other candidates are aiming to take them just as much as you.

To get the edge over your rivals, you need to stand out and get noticed by the hiring manager. One way to do this is with a well-structured, up to date, and relevant curriculum vitae, or resume as it is more commonly known. In the following guide, we are going to look at how to write a resume for software engineers.

Software Engineer Resume Example

The idea of a good example of a well-structured and organised resume depends on four simple areas.

The first of 4 software engineer resume tips is how to present your personal projects and professional experience in a way that appeals to both HR and technological colleagues.

You must also provide an accurate skills section that is relevant to the position you are applying for. This guide will help you with this extremely important part of the resume.

Modern IT companies use Applicant Tracking Systems to filter out applications. These ATS utilise keyword detection and matching to help select the more appropriate candidates. This guide will also go into more detail about the formatting needed to increase a resume’s chances of success.

The final area this guide will look at is how to customise your resume depending on the position you are hoping to land.

Presenting Personal Information

This should feature prominently at the top of the page. You should include your name, age, professional title, telephone number, email address, and residential address. The professional title should reflect the job that is being applied for. If you have a personal website or a LinkedIn page, then you should include these too. It should look something like this.

Education

Whether you need to include more or less educational information in your resume will depend on the level of seniority of the position. If you are a recent graduate, then you will obviously have to include more education details. Whatever the case, everyone should state the university they attended, the year they graduated and the degree they studied.

If you are an entry-level applicant, you will want to highlight all the course subjects and projects that are relevant to the job. For example, if you took a databases course and attended a short A.I. programming bootcamp where you further honed your skills, it is imperative to include it in on resume.

Work Experience

This is the most important section of your resume, and you should highlight every achievement from past positions. It is essential to be specific about the work you did and what that accomplished within a team environment. Try to quantify the value you added to any of the projects you worked on as that can make you stand out from the crowd and lead to employers taking a keener interest in you. If you are a recent graduate, then you should include internships and any work experience.

The key here is to talk about the specific role you played in generating a positive impact in the projects you took part in. You can be much more general about the overall effect your project may have had, but you should precisely state the input you had in it and how it helped improve your skills.

Software Engineer Projects

If you are a more junior software engineer, then you will want to make this longer and keep the work experience section shorter. Talk about your projects in the same way as your work experience, and provide in-depth insights into how it benefited your skills and overall progression.

Use the situation, action, result when writing about projects. What was the issue, how did you action a change, and what was the result. Include a bullet point for one or two technical details associated with each project.

Skills Section

This section is important in any software engineer’s resume and will make or break you at the first ATS phase. It is essential to be honest and not embellish any aspect of the skills you possess. Separate the programming languages from the frameworks, tools and databases that you have knowledge of. Do not pretend to know everything as this is a recipe for disaster.

Include everything that you would be happy to answer questions about. If you want to show different levels of competence, you could include categories like Expert versus Basic Knowledge.

Software Engineer Resume Formatting

A simple rule of thumb when it comes to formatting is to keep everything to one page of A4. At maximum, it should fit on two sides of the same piece of A4 paper. Use bullet points as complete standalone ideas to talk about your skills and past achievements.

Customised Resume

One final piece of advice, adapt your resume to each job description by changing bullet points to reflect the role. It is impossible to use the same resume over and over again because different positions have varying requirements, so make sure you conduct a diligent check to ensure your resume includes everything that is pertinent to the position you are applying for.

Ready to begin your journey or take the next step in your software engineer career, get in touch with us at Hays and our Hong Kong team will go above and beyond to help you find your dream job.