Web Developer Resume Example & Writing Guide

As a web developer on a job hunt, you need more than state-of-the-art coding skills. You need a masterpiece of a web developer resume.

However, crafting a standout resume can be just as challenging as debugging a tricky piece of code. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you could spend hours without making any significant progress.

Fear not, because we created this article to guide you every step of the way. With the right mix of creativity and professionalism, you’ll highlight your skills and achievements in a way that’ll catch the eye of any hiring manager. Just don’t forget to close your parentheses!

What is the Right Format to Use for a Web Developer Resume?

You know the power of clean, well-structured, and well-written code. The same goes for your resume. By using the right format to organize and present your information to recruiters and potential employers, you’ll maximize your chances of success.

Speaking of that, there are three resume formats that have been proven time and again to yield the best results:

1. The chronological resume format gives recruiters insight into your professional and academic progress. It highlights your most recent accomplishments and lists the rest in descending order. Such methodical information ordering makes this format the most popular. As a bonus, it’s ATS-proof.

2. The functional resume format puts your skills front and center, making up for a lack of professional history. It’s a perfect format to use when you’re creating a web developer resume with no work experience. The only downside is that your resume might not be ATS-friendly.

3. The combination (hybrid) resume format is commonly used by professionals who have years of experience under their belts. It makes skills the main section (like the functional format) and supports each with relevant achievements listed in reverse-chronological order (like the chronological format).

Resume Layout

A resume layout represents the style of the document, which is often just as important as its function. It’s not uncommon for recruiters to skim through resumes, spending just a couple of seconds on each. That's why yours needs to be visually clean, information-packed, and—unless you’re a senior with decades of experience—one page long.

Here’s how you can achieve all that:

• Use bulleted lists instead of paragraphs of text since they are much shorter and easier to read.

• Pick a modern and legible font for your resume and use appropriate font sizes. A sans-serif font like Calibri or Helvetica is generally a safe pick, along with the 10–12 pt size for text and the 14–16 pt size for headings.

• Make sure that your resume features margins of at least one inch and enough white space.

What Sections Should a Web Developer Resume Contain?

By knowing which sections to include, you should be able to create an outline for your web developer resume and start working on it from scratch. Another option is to find a template or tool to help speed up the process.

However, instead of grabbing a random MS Office Word sample of a web developer resume somewhere online and trying to make it work, you can check out our resume builder.

It comes with ready-to-go templates where you can fill in the blanks with your information and adjust various layout settings with intuitive controls. Needless to say, crafting professional resumes has never been this easy!

Web Developer Resume Contact Information

Your web developer resume should start with some basic details about you, including your name, job title, and contact information.

Here’s an example:

You can see in the example that there are several other details that you can include in your contact information section along with your professional email and phone number.

You can add your location (but only your city and state) if you’re applying for a position abroad. It’s also recommended to include your LinkedIn and GitHub profiles. You can also add your personal website and social media accounts, as long as they are relevant to the position that you’re applying for.

Web Developer Resume Objective or Summary

First impressions matter, which is why you want the first thing recruiters read on your web developer resume to be highly impactful. That’s why you should start your resume with a strong objective or summary.

Both of these sections should be 2–4 sentences long, highlighting your key strengths.

If you’re new to the field, you likely won’t have enough work experience to show for it. In that case, you should focus on showcasing your skills and motivation in the form of a resume objective.

However, if you’re an experienced professional, a riveting web developer resume summary that mentions some of your most prominent workplace accomplishments is the way to go.

Web Developer Resume Objective

Let’s check out an example of a sharp web developer resume objective that mentions key skills recruiters might be looking for:

Compare that to the following resume objective, which doesn’t really say anything valuable about a candidate:

Web Developer Resume Summary

Here’s how a seasoned web developer can grab recruiters’ attention by highlighting some of their most prominent accomplishments in their resume summary:

On the other hand, if you don’t show them any exact results, recruiters won’t be able to tell whether you’re an experienced professional or an entry-level candidate. Here’s how not to write a web developer resume summary:

Web Developer Resume Work Experience

One of the quickest ways to convince recruiters and potential employers that you’re the right person for the job is by demonstrating your previous work endeavors. That’s what the work experience section of your resume should serve for.

Web Developer With No Experience

If you’re writing a web developer resume with no experience—or at least not enough to make an entire section—you can focus on other activities. Use your chance to leverage anything—from projects that you've worked on to internships, volunteer work, freelancing, and more.

Let’s see that in an example:

Experienced Web Developer

A work history section of an experienced developer's resume should highlight only their best accomplishments. List those achievements and results obtained that showcase your prowess and demonstrate your seniority.

Here’s a good example:

Web Developer Resume Education Section

Not every web developer needs to have a formal degree, but listing one is a great way to add credibility to your skills. An education section is all the more important if you’re writing a junior web developer resume and you want to make up for a potential lack of work history. Here are the details to include:

• Your degree

• The institution issuing it

• The years of study

• (Optional) Notable achievements

In practice, your education section should look something like this:

In general, you should only list your highest degree. If you’re still in college, you can include your unfinished degree on a resume by adding “expected” next to a graduation date or by putting “current” instead.

Web Developer Resume Skills

There’s a bit of finesse when it comes to adding skills to your web developer resume. It’s a vast field that requires many different soft and hard skills, as well as proficiency in various programming languages. However, recruiters are mostly interested in the specific abilities needed for the job.

That’s why your skills need to be tailored to the position that you’re applying for. By researching the job advertisement, you can create a list of the abilities that your potential employers want to see.

Adding that list to the skills section of your web developer resume is only half the job. You also want to put your weight behind your claims and demonstrate your abilities. To do that, you should mention some of your key skills throughout your resume—or, more specifically, in your resume objective or summary and work experience section.

By associating a particular ability with a relevant achievement, you make it more concrete and valuable in the eyes of recruiters and potential employers.

Web DeveloperResume Optional Sections

While mandatory sections represent the foundation of your resume, optional sections allow you to spruce it up and make it stand out.

Awards & Certifications

Awards and certifications are perfect supplements to your work experience and education sections.

By listing notable awards, you further add credibility to your competence and make some of your achievements truly stand out.

On the other hand, certifications add to your education since they can show that you have specific knowledge on particular topics. Certifications are even more important if you don’t have a formal degree.

Projects

You can add personal projects to your web development resume to show that you’re truly passionate about your vocation. Moreover, mentioning these can be a great way to impress recruiters and hiring managers, as you’re actually showing them concrete examples of your work (e.g., websites or apps made from scratch).

Languages

Considering the job of a web developer revolves around working on the internet, chances are you'll end up working with coworkers and clients from other countries. In that case, proficiency in foreign languages can help you communicate better, foster stronger relationships, and be more productive.

When adding languages to your resume, you should start with the one you know best and include the rest in descending order. The proficiency levels are:

• Native/bilingual

• Full professional proficiency

• Professional working proficiency

• Limited working proficiency

• Elementary proficiency

Hobbies & Interests

A surprisingly powerful way to grab the attention of recruiters and potential employers is to mention your hobbies and interests. That way, you can show them that there’s an actual person behind a resume who is a driven, passionate, and exciting individual.

List something you’re truly enthusiastic about, and don’t be surprised if it comes up during your interview.

Should You Submit a Cover Letter With Your Web Developer Resume?

An easy way to show strong interest in the position and portray yourself as a hard-working individual is to submit a cover letter with your web developer resume. Use a few short paragraphs to describe your skills and accomplishments in more detail, connect with recruiters on a more personal level, and ask them to get in touch with you for more discussion.

Closing Thoughts

The process of resume-building probably doesn’t look like a daunting task anymore, does it?

Remember to showcase your skills and experience, but don’t be afraid to inject a bit of personality into your document. After all, being a web developer isn’t just about coding but also about creativity and problem-solving. So go forth, and may your resume be bug-free and your career be full of exciting opportunities!