Building a Portfolio

Résumé

Your résumé will act as your first port of call when applying to placements and graduate jobs, so you want to make sure it will get you through the door. Bare in mind when writing your résumé, that the recruiting reading it has read thousands. Make sure to keep it short and to the point; any waffle will be immediately spotted by the recruiter and it'll go into the rejected bin. Here are some rules to follow when it comes to writing it:

1. Keep it short. Don't feel you have to write more to pad it out, the ideal CV to read is one side of A4 and absolutely no CV should be longer than 2 sides for an experienced professional.
2. Keep it Relevant. Only put items on your CV if they are relevant to the job you are applying for. They don't need to know you were a cashier at Tesco's as a developer. It means that they will have to dig deeper into your CV to pull out the relevant bits.
3. Come Up with a Structure. Decide on a structure for your CV and stick to it, try and keep a chronological flow throughout. An example common structure to follow is (there are plenty alternatives):
   • Education
   • Experience
   • Volunteering
   • Projects
4. Don't lie. This is one of the worst mistakes people, especially graduates and placement seekers, make on their CV. While it might make you get to interview, anyone with technical experience will use it against you in the interview.
5. Be Quantitative. Any claim on your CV should be backed up with something quantitative, writing "Great Communication" on your CV means absolutely nothing.
6. Use the right language for the position. Read the job listing, typically there will be key words in the listing which can be lifted into your CV if applicable. This may help get through any automated screening process.
7. Try to have some non-technical listings. It looks great on your CV that you might know 15 programming languages but generally you would be better listing only a few you are specifically fluent in and then backing it up with projects and more soft skills.
8. As Little White Space As Possible. Try to reduce the white space wherever possible, this will help you keep the CV short and punchy. Keep white space only in the case where it separates distinct items apart, such as between sections.
9. Don't be Modest. Don't belittle any of your achievement with words such as "Easy", "Simple", "Obvious".
10. Project Listings should be Tweetable. Any listing of any projects you have should be able to fit in a tweet. They should say what was the project and what technologies it used.
11. Don't list modules on your CV. Recruiters wont have an context or meaning to go and generally the name of the university, year and average attainment is more than enough.
12. Don't use tables. Generally, these are very poor formatting options. Particularly in LaTex. It's much better to just use a list, it reads much better and is actually easier to write.

LinkedIn

As LinkedIn is a generic platform, here you can list additional positions and experience which may not be relevant to a particular job. Generally recruiters find candidate on LinkedIn via using the search function. The best way to increase visibility is to be active on the platform, post some interesting articles/reads and ensure you'e completed the LinkedIn Start guide. An All-Star profile gets the highest visibility by default.

LinkedIn is an excellent platform for recruiters to message you opportunities directly which can really help with your career. Make sure to update it often and consistently; checking any messages you may have missed. Here would be an appropriate place to put your modules and scores and will help bolster your portfolio. Include awards and honours you have received here as well whereas they might not be as relevant to a particular position.

If you are open to opportunities simply click on the jobs tab and mark yourself as such. You can specify the industries you are interested in as well as the kind of jobs you are looking for, this allows recruiters to pick you out above everyone else.

GitHub

Github is a fantastic platform for technical interviewers and hiring managers to directly see what you can do. Treat it like a portfolio of work, keep the code clean and try and bolster it where ever you can. Its an awesome place to put all of your hackathon projects, and show off your skills with some of the unique third party services. Try and keep the items on there fairly diverse, many languages, many technologies.

The only caveat is that employers can see your activity, which could mean that they can see when you haven't been committing which might not reflect greatly. You can though, attach a link to your GitHub portfolio on your CV which would be useful to any technical recruiters.

Extra-curricular

Do something different! Everyone in the industry is a programmer, prove your a little bit more. Try and get involved in something in non-technical, societies are a great start and volunteering can help prove soft skills on your CV. It is also an excellent opportunity to meet new people, have fun and learn new skills and really puts you ahead of the curve. Recruiters would rather see a few languages, technologies and volunteering; rather than a CV which has 50 languages with "proficient" next to it (see rule 5)