This post is a write-up that came out of HackYourFuture soon-to-be graduates asking for tips on their portfolio and CV when applying for their first developer job.

Introduction

Describing oneself in words is not easy. You don’t want to overdescribe because employers have limited time to review job applications. Applying for jobs in a generic way can also end up making your application be easily overlooked. There are no guarantees to even get a reply and there’s a great deal of luck and timing involved in getting the job you applied for. Here I’ll share from my experience of both applying for jobs and also being on the other side and reviewing and interviewing applicants.

GitHub!

First of all, GitHub! GitHub has become THE place for developers and in some way it is a developer’s portfolio. Having a GitHub profile and a few of your own projects to showcase is a great start. The homework HackYourFuture students work on are already in public repos, so that’s visible to future employers, as scary as that may sound. The quicker you become comfortable with working publicly, the better your GitHub profile will become.

Create your own projects

I recommend having 1-2 of your own projects on GitHub and pinned at the top. To stand out I would recommend trying to build something a bit out of the box and avoid the generic to-do list applications. It doesn’t have to be ambitious and take several weeks. Personally I think simple games are fun and creative. If you wanna showcase some backend code, games are not ideal. Instead you could try build something for yourself and publish the code as an added benefit.

Project checklist

The projects you showcase on GitHub, and hope will be of interest for future employers, should be simple enough so it can be examined and understood quickly. It is also important that there is

  • documentation about what the project is about,
  • documentation on how someone could run the project locally,
  • the project is deployed to somewhere like Heroku or Netlify and accessible with a simple click on a link,
  • and that the code is nicely formatted, perhaps with the help of a linting tool.

CV

A CV should include basic information about you: your name, where you live, perhaps your age, etc - you know, the usual stuff.

I would also recommend including details about your education but not highlighting it too much as that is usually not a huge factor for companies looking for software developers.

Work experience is also good to list out but again I wouldn’t highlight it too much if this is the first time you are applying for a developer position.

Mentioning software projects you have worked on should be more highlighted and you should also specify your role and responsibilities in the project. Even greater if you have direct links to the source code on GitHub/GitLab/etc, and perhaps a link to a website to access the project.

Lastly, it could be a good idea to mention the technologies you know about but be careful with listing things you have barely worked with. It is common to indicate some kind of rating but for your first job, I would be careful about that, especially for your first position.

I would try to aim for the CV to be 1 or 2 pages if printed out. Having your CV as a website is also a good idea. The layout and design of your CV is not as important as you might think, so if you have extra time you should use that on your cover letter.

Cover letter

Lastly, there is the cover letter that is specific to the company you are applying to. It is a good idea to look into what the company has worked on and is working on, and then mention this in the cover letter. Be open about your strengths and weaknesses, and also mention personality traits that you feel are relevant for the job. Make sure to proofread both your CV and cover letter, perhaps with the help of someone else.

Try to keep the cover letter around half a page.