Career resources

Your resume

A resume for a first technology role has one job: to show, quickly and truthfully, that you can do the work.

• Lead with skills you can demonstrate. List technologies you have used in a project, not every tool you have read about.
• Describe projects like work. What you built, the problem it solved, the technologies, and one result — for example "Reduced a report from 30 seconds to 2 by adding an index".
• Keep it to one page until you have several years of experience.
• Use plain formatting. Applicant-tracking systems read simple layouts best: one column, standard headings, no text inside images.
• Never exaggerate. Interviewers ask about everything on your resume.

Your portfolio

Employers trust what they can see.

1. Two or three finished projects beat ten half-finished ones. Finished means it runs, has a README and is online if it is a web app.
2. Write a README for each project: what it does, how to run it, what you would improve next.
3. Keep your code readable: clear names, small functions, consistent formatting, meaningful commit messages.
4. Show your process for design work: research, rejected options and why you chose what you did.

Technical interviews

• Practise explaining your own projects out loud: the hardest bug, a decision you would change, how the parts fit together.
• Revise fundamentals for your field — data structures and SQL for developers, test design for testers, usability principles for designers.
• Think out loud. Interviewers assess how you approach a problem, not only the final answer.
• Ask questions at the end about the team, how work is reviewed and what a first month looks like.

Applying for roles

• Read the job description carefully and adjust your resume summary to match what it asks for — honestly.
• Apply where your projects show the skills listed, even if you do not meet every requirement.
• Be wary of anyone who asks for money in exchange for a job or interview.

From ZORK Academy

Courses build towards portfolio projects, and a resume builder is planned as part of the learning platform. Neither replaces the work above, and we do not promise placements.