How Can I Make My Resume Better Given My Work Experience?

[steep furnace]

Hi there!
(Updated Resume attached in the comments below)

• I'm aiming for pretty much any junior developer job. Preferably I'd like to work front-end with React, but I want to keep my options open as I'd be willing to learn full-stack too.
• I'm a quality assurance analyst currently. While I'd like to give quantitative bullet points for this job, we do all of our testing manually and can't give any hard stats about automated test coverage or anything like that.
• I have also heard the advice that if the past job has nothing to do with CS, don't include it, but teaching seemed relevant to my soft skills. Feel free to let me know if this reasoning isn't sound.

I'd appreciate any constructive criticism.
Thanks in advance!

[hollow gorge]

Hi Brent - if your goal is to work with react, I would put that near the top of your experience. I would also clarify what that means; calling out specific things you've done in a professional capacity in react would be helpful. You should definitely keep the teaching job in. Any work experience is better than no work experience.

I would also make sure that all of the tenses line up for your activities. I see "ability to" and "performed/communicated/created," which is a little confusing. I would also make sure to use active statements; "Experienced working with Agile Scrum" makes it seem like it just happened to you rather than that you did it.

Also Agile Scrum is somewhat redundant in 2023; I would just say scrum, but you might also clarify a little bit about scrum.

[steep furnace]

Thank you for your input!
My manager only recently started looking into React projects I could potentially work on, so I haven't necessarily worked on any React projects professionally just yet. Do you think it would be best to remove that as a bullet point altogether if I haven't actually used it in the workplace?

And when you say, "if your goal is to work with react, I would put that near the top of your experience." Do you mean I should state it as an objective, or were you just referring to including professional work experience towards the top?

[hollow gorge]

The latter - I was saying that in your current role, you should mention the specific things you're doing with react, ie, "built an application that provided a customer dashboard using inputs from a graphql API; used by x number of customers per day" or something similar

[steep furnace]

Okay, I understand. However, I've not gotten the chance to take on a project like that, so I don't want to false advertise.

The most that I've been able to contribute is that I fixed a bug with one of our date selectors and I made a navbar collapsible (but that feature was no longer desired and didn't make it to production). Are those things worth mentioning at all?

[hollow gorge]

I'd just be vague and say that you fixed bugs and added new features in react, tbh

as long as you can handle an interview exercise or questions about debugging code or PRs I think you'll be fine

My jr dev interviews are generally more about the basics, team fit, and willingness to learn

[steep furnace]

Here's an updated version of the resume with your recommended changes!

[hollow gorge]

For the top point, I'd say "Developed new features and fixed bugs in react for an app that... (whatever it does)"

Saying "grew into" might be a little more accurate, but you want your resume to get you in the door and your skills to get you through the interview

Other than that, I think you're in good shape