How to write a tech CV that gets interviews: format, impact bullets and ATS

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A tech CV has one job: to get you an interview. A recruiter or hiring manager often decides whether to read on within a short skim, so what matters is how fast they can see that you can do the job. Here is how to write one that survives that first look.

Length and format

One page if you have under about ten years of experience. Two at most beyond that.
A plain, single-column layout with clear headings. Fancy templates with columns, icons, skill bars and photos look good to you and confuse both readers and parsing software.
A standard font, consistent dates, and a PDF unless the employer asks for something else.
Name the file sensibly, such as your name followed by CV.

In some countries photos, date of birth and marital status are normal on a CV; in others, including the US and UK, leave them off. Follow local convention.

The order

Name, email, phone, city, and links to LinkedIn, GitHub or a portfolio if they help you.
A two-line summary only if it adds something specific, such as "Backend engineer, five years in payments, Go and Postgres". Skip generic objectives.
Experience, most recent first.
Projects, especially if you are early in your career.
Skills.
Education. Graduates can put this nearer the top.

Impact bullets, not duty lists

The weakest CVs list responsibilities: "Responsible for the API". The strongest show what changed because you were there. A useful pattern is: what you did, how, and the result, with a number where you honestly have one.

Weak: "Worked on the checkout page."
Strong: "Rebuilt checkout form validation in React, cutting payment errors reported to support by about a third in two months."
Weak: "Wrote tests."
Strong: "Added integration tests for the billing service, raising coverage from 40% to 75% and catching two release-blocking bugs before launch."

Numbers can be time saved, latency reduced, users served, costs cut, incidents avoided or team size. If you do not have exact figures, honest approximations are fine; invented ones fall apart the moment an interviewer asks. Start every bullet with a strong verb (built, led, reduced, migrated, automated) and keep each to one or two lines. Three to five bullets per job is plenty.

The skills section

Group skills so they are easy to scan: languages, frameworks, databases, cloud and tools. List only things you would be happy to be questioned on. Skip ratings out of five and soft-skill lists; show teamwork and communication in your bullets instead.

Projects

For students, career changers and bootcamp graduates, projects carry the CV. For each one give a line on what it does, the stack, and something concrete: users, a technical challenge you solved, or a link to live code. One finished, deployed project beats five abandoned tutorials.

Tailoring for each application

Keep a longer master CV and cut a version for each role. Read the job advert, note the skills and responsibilities it repeats, and make sure the matching evidence is near the top of your CV, in the advert's own wording where it honestly applies. If they ask for Kubernetes and you have it, do not bury it.

ATS basics

Many companies run applications through an applicant tracking system, which stores and searches CVs. To make sure yours is read correctly:

Use standard section headings such as Experience, Education and Skills.
Avoid putting key information in tables, text boxes, headers, footers or images.
Spell out abbreviations once where both forms are common.
Do not stuff keywords or hide white text; a human reads the CV next.

Common mistakes

Typos and inconsistent tense. Ask someone else to proofread.
Listing every technology you have ever touched.
Long paragraphs instead of bullets.
Unexplained gaps that could be filled with one honest line (study, caring, travel, a personal project).
Links to empty GitHub profiles or broken demos.
Sending the same untailored CV to a hundred jobs.

Share an anonymised bullet you are not sure about, or what made the difference in your own job search, in the comments.