How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

Ultimately this is why I don't take any of my side projects seriously anymore, and if there's something I want to learn, I'll find a way to get paid for it. That way I can figure out where it fits in the ecosystem of working with other professionals to deliver production code that fits specs and actual business needs. I still have side projects, I just use them to scratch an itch rather than to try to conjure something truly useful to someone out of thin air.

1) Like all things it's a balance. Developers are valuable resources and I'm not going to dump 100 CVs on them when I can reduce that number. Aside from anything else they'd hate me if I did but also I can reduce that number without significantly reducing the quality.

2) In many cases these aren't HR generalists, they're recruitment professionals. They know about whether people are eligible to work, they know about qualifications, they can spot odd patterns and gaps in CVs and they can spot a well written CV.

You mock spotting typos but how interested should I be in someone who sent out a professional document to someone they were trying to impress and didn't proof read it? How serious are they about the job? Are they going to send the same sort of thing out to my customers? Maybe it's just me but while it wouldn't exclude them outright for this, it raises alarm bells.

3) You can define basic rules which allow someone relatively non-technical to filter out complete time wasters. If a candidate hasn't listed JavaScript in any of their roles and I've asked for commercial JavaScript experience then I can reasonably conclude (1) they don't have it, (2) they do but not enough to warrant listing it (which is effectively 1) or (3) either they are an idiot or their communication skills suck because despite knowing it was relevant they didn't mention JavaScript when applying for the job. Whichever it is of those I don't think I need to waste a developer's time having them look at the CV - maybe they do have those skills and a developer could work that out but I could probably find someone who knew JavaScript who didn't also have the questionable decision making skills that led them not to mentioned it.

Let's be clear, this isn't a stage where people making difficult, detailed decisions requiring specialist skills. This clearing what should be a relatively low bar to create a long list where those with real skills will get involved.

Of course you should make your resume as nice as possible, all I'm advising to job-seekers is that it isn't enough, and it would probably be worth your time socializing rather than making your resume absolutely perfect

There is already JSON Resume [0] initiative but YAML feels much more natural when writing semi-structured text.

Here's the source if anyone's interested: https://github.com/hanula/resume

[0] https://jsonresume.org/

- one guy I interviewed for a junior position had put his CV and projects online on his own website. It wasn't loads but he was the only one out of that bunch of grad inverviewees to do it. I had a look through it before his interview, and when he came in I said, "that HTML looks remarkably clean! Did you tidy all that up just before you posted for the job?" We both laughed because it was obvious he had. Rest of the interview was nice and easy after establishing the "we are developer friends" bit.

- one guy had no degree, no A levels to speak of, but his contribution to open source was immense. We got him in for interview and he could speak clearly and with authority on each of the huge projects he was involved in. We offered him the job but he refused us to go somewhere bigger.

So go get yourself a GitHub account, buy a domain name for very little/year, point it at a GitHub Page and put anything you can think of on there. Congrats, you are now better than 90% of candidates out there.