How to review CVs of IT specialists: guide

Сandidates' CVs screening is the first and at the same time quite an important stage in recruiting. We are used to the fact that you can learn a lot about a candidate from his or her CV, and sometimes even predict whether a specialist is suitable for the role or not.

In the tech sphere, the CV reviewing stage is somewhat different, so it's important for an IT recruiter, especially for someone who is just starting their professional career, to understand how to work with candidate CVs so that the initial selection of candidates, as a result, turns into an accepted offer. Let's talk about this issue in our new article

review cvs of it specialists. IT recruitment agency for recruiting technoloy specialists for companies hiring developers Lucky Hunter><meta itemprop=

Tilda Publishing

Developers' CVs: Specifics

1. Demand exceeds supply
Everyone who works in the tech recruiting sphere knows that due to the high shortage of personnel in the market, most IT specialists aren't on an active job search. This means that IT recruiting in almost 100% of cases is headhunting and work only with "cold" candidates.

2. outdated data
Receiving dozens of job offers every day and having the opportunity to change jobs for more favourable conditions without much effort, many IT professionals don't need to create the perfect CV, which in detail describes their professional biography, provides up-to-date contact information or indicates their current place of work.

There is no need for that as even in case IT specialists have no CV at all, most IT professionals have every chance to find a job that fully meets their expectations.

Therefore if the CV contains at least some description of the experience, the technology stack and the contact details of the specialist, this is already a great piece of luck, and we don't recommend neglecting such CVs.

3. Lack of execution
In addition to the fact that many IT professionals don't pay full attention to the content of the resume, most candidates also don't worry about how the CV is formatted. The portfolio of candidates may contain typos, shortcomings in sentence structures, there may be no photo.

It should be taken into account that this is often linked not to the weak soft skills of candidates, but to the lack of motivation to devote time to a task that is unlikely to somehow affect a career.

In order for you to provide insight into what the CV of most IT specialists looks like, we decided to talk to the IT researchers of our agency Lucky Hunter Alika and Karina.

Girls are constantly faced with the peculiarities of compiling a CV, daily processing hundreds of CVs of specialists.

CVs of IT specialists differ in that they are not compiled according to currently accepted rules. Since IT professionals are rarely looking for a job and in most cases, they receive offers from recruiters (and not vice versa), they are not motivated to pay careful attention to their CVs. Some employers think that if a person can't skillfully compose a CV, then most likely such a specialist is an irresponsible employee. In the tech sphere, such a belief is false: because of the industry realities, the content of the CV doesn't reflect the real abilities of the candidate.

Alika

Lucky Hunter IT researcher

The most obvious distinguishing feature of an IT-specialist CV is its absence :) Unlike specialists working in other areas, where the gap between supply and demand is not so noticeable, developers don't need to put detailed information about their skills in their CVs, at the best case listing the companies they worked for and the technology stack.

Karina

Lucky Hunter IT researcher

Tilda Publishing

Key mistakes when working with IT specialists' CVs

Often, all the mistakes that recruiters make when working with the resumes of IT professionals boil down to one point - jumping to conclusions.

When working with specialists' CVs, some IT recruiters pay too much attention to how a candidate's CV is created or composed. If a specialist has a more or less relevant technology stack, but, for example, there is no information about the last years of work, this doesn't mean at all that the candidate hasn't worked anywhere. Most likely, he or she simply hasn't updated the information.

Alika

Lucky Hunter IT researcher

It seems to me that the main mistake is focusing on years of experience of a specialist. If a candidate has 20 years of work experience, this doesn't mean that he or she is a "star" candidate and vice versa: a short work experience doesn't define a specialist as a novice specialist. It's much more important to pay attention to the specifics of the projects in which the specialist was involved. Given the technology and variability of the industry, with the proper level of diligence and hard work, in one and a half to two years, a specialist can become a Senior-level professional.

Karina

Lucky Hunter IT researcher

Tilda Publishing

How to review CVs of IT specialists

According to statistics, it takes only 10 seconds for an experienced IT recruiter to determine whether a candidate is suitable for a position or not.

At the same time, an experienced IT recruiter doesn't seek to make a decision about the relevance of a candidate, based only on the quality of the CV. Often, all that is required is to find a few keywords, among which are the appropriate technology stack, relevant projects, candidate's experience.

When working with CVs of developers, first of all, I pay attention to the experience of a specialist. It's important that there are no gaps in the candidate's professional biography. I also study the candidate's technology stack and projects in which he or she had a chance to work. And, of course, I look for the "contact details" column and I am very glad if I find not only the email but also the candidate's phone number in order to contact a specialist in Telegram. Studies show that now this method of communication with specialists is the most suitable for all parties.

Alika

Lucky Hunter IT researcher

When working with candidates' CVs, I pay attention to the companies and projects where the specialist worked, study the periods of work in each project and, of course, look at the candidate's technology stack. This is the information that will help to form a more or less complete vision of a specialist.

Karina

Lucky Hunter IT researcher

It turns out that when working with CVs of developers, first of all, it's worth starting from the candidate's technology stack and the correspondence of his or her hard skills to your position. At the same time, the total number of years of work, the quality of the CV and its execution shouldn't affect the final decision to consider the candidate.

Remember, IT is a candidate market, and the lack of a "perfect" CV is a completely natural and logical consequence of the current situation in the industry. The most important thing is how the specialist acts during the interview.

Don't forget to follow us on our telegram channel, and of course, if you need help in IT staff selection, we are waiting for your requests! The first candidates are in 4 days after the job opening discussion.

Tilda Publishing