Video:Resume Writing Tips for a Software Engineer

Transcript:Resume Writing Tips for a Software Engineer

Hi I'm IT Career Counselor Christine Jorgensen for About.com and today I'm going to talk about writing a resume for software engineers.

Tailoring Your IT Resume

Finding an IT job can be a challenging task, but if you know where to look and how to present yourself, you'll have an easier time. When tailoring you resume for a software engineer position, you'll want to open with your pertinent information: name, address, email, and phone number. Beneath that you'll want to give a professional self-summary written in first person person.

Here's an example: “I am a results-driven, customer-focused, articulate and analytical Senior Software Engineer who can think outside of the box. I am strong in design and integration problem solving skills. Expert in Java, .NET, and T-SQL with database analysis and design.”

List Your Experience with Bullet Points

From there, you'll want to list your experience in bullet point form. For example here are a few appropriate bullet points:

• Engineering web development, all layers, from database to services to user interfaces
• Supporting legacy systems with backups of all cases to/from parallel systems
• Analysis and design of databases and user interfacesManaging requirements

Make Sure to Include Your Employment History

Then give your employment history. Beneath each employer, give a few detailed bullet points on the jobs and duties performed at that job. For example, say you worked for Intel. Here's what a couple descriptors of that job would look like:

Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA Jan 2000 – Jul 2002 Systems Programmer (Remote Servers and SSL Product Analyst)

• Deployed and tested Remote Installation Services (RIS) Server Installs on Windows XP.
• Focused deployment of Server builds and handled some client builds.

Your Skills are One of the Most Important Elements of Your Resume

Beneath that, it would be advisable to list your software skills. Even if you have listed them before, list them all in one place to make it easy for your potential employer to quickly reference.Lastly, you'll want to list your education. The list should go in order of most recent or most advanced degree first down to your lowest level college or community college degree. Hopefully now you have a better idea of how to compile a resume for a software engineer position.

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