Whether you are a Software Engineer, an Android Developer, or a QA Tester, there are always plenty of exciting projects to join that will help you grow professionally.

The interview process — central to securing these opportunities — depends on the level and type of position, of course, and varies from company to company. However, there are a few factors all employers pay attention to when interviewing that we will cover below.

The post How To Successfully Pass An Interview At A Software Product Company? first appeared on Relocate.me.

Résumé trends change very fast, especially in tech. In spite of that, there are some elements that remain relevant to this day.

Since the launch of the Relocate.me job board, over 3,000 résumés have been received and forwarded to European technology companies. Below are the conclusions we came to based on our experience.

Résumé Size

Your résumé should be one page (unless it absolutely needs to be longer). Why? Recruiters and hiring managers usually spend only 10 seconds viewing any given résumé. Thus, it’s highly recommended to list all your professional skills right on the first lines of your CV to capture their attention.

Résumé File Format

Don’t let the wrong file format be your CV’s downfall. ‘Word is not the king, it was in 2003,’ says Bernardo Sulzbach. It should be a PDF by default unless you’re asked about another one, e.g., a DOC file or some other format.

No CV Titles, Use Your Name Instead

There is no silver bullet for an effective CV title. Just try to avoid any titles at all. Recruiters are skilled at learning what you’re all about by reading the content in your résumé. By including a specific title, you run the risk of throwing them off and reducing your chances of being offered an alternate role.

Don’t Look For Easy Ways

The ‘Export to PDF’ option on LinkedIn isn’t the same as crafting a good CV – in fact, these are two entirely different things. Even if your LinkedIn profile contains enough info about you, sending it as a PDF will hardly grab recruiters’ attention. Most of the companies you’ll apply to actively check LinkedIn to see reviews on a certain candidate, find common contacts, etc. It’s still a good idea to add a link to your LinkedIn profile to the cover letter, but don’t rely on it as your CV.

‘Sweets’

A good CV should have something to differentiate it from a boring wall of plain text. Try employing a good sense of humor, self deprecation, or some interesting numbers and facts: e.g., over 3M lines of code were covered with unit tests, 5 reasons why employers should hire YOU, etc. These simple things will make your CV stand out among the rest.

Where Is The Passion?

It’s no secret that every company wants passionate and enthusiastic employees who live for the job. Hence, it’s advisable to show this ‘passion’ in your CV:

• Add links to your GitHub/Bitbucket/StackOverflow profile(s) (after making sure their content is worth it, of course).
• Talk about your participation in various open source projects.
• Add certificates, training courses on Coursera, etc.
• Include a reference to your technical blog.
• Let them know if you ever took part in programming competitions.
• Have you ever organized any meetings/workshops and thematic conferences? It’s also worth noting.

Achievements

It’s always a good idea to talk about the tasks that you were performing while working on a project in the perfect tense (developed, implemented, optimized, etc.). In doing so, you’ll enable an employer to measure your worth in concrete terms. Plus, very few candidates put their achievements on the résumés, so it’ll help you stand out. I’d suggest that you use the following expressions:

• Accomplished X by implementing Y which led to Z…
• During my work on this game, I solved several interesting problems…
• The most challenging tasks were…

Describing Your Work Projects

There’s no need to describe all your projects. Pick two or three and provide a good overview. Very often, screening CVs from our Relocate.me tech job board, I come across project descriptions that go like this:

Since 2009: Huffingtonpost.com, Software Developer

Brevity is key, indeed. However, The Huffington Post is the largest news portal in the USA and one of the TOP100 most visited websites in the world. The company was acquired by AOL which is a huge corporation as well. These are the facts that I would definitely mention in the CV.

When describing a project, you should choose 2-3 sentences that would best tell about the tasks you completed. Give a few links to the website/App Store/Play Market (if any) along with other interesting facts like:

• The number of visits per month.
• Startup Of The Year Awards.
• Top 5 in downloads on the App Store during the last 3 months.
• The application is a market leader in X category.
• And so on and so forth.

Personal Projects

To write a good CV, you should talk briefly about the projects you may have done ‘for fun’ and all those interesting things you were doing whilst working on the project along with its social use (even banal enrichment of an owner can be presented in a favorable way that will enhance your résumé).

Summary

You have two choices: write a good summary or write no summary at all. As it typically goes in the beginning of your CV, make the opening lines count. Write a few sentences about your job activity and prove your professionalism. It’s not a simple task (especially when you’re limited by the number of characters). But, if you manage to write a catchy opener, you’ll get +5 to your karma.

Here’s an example of a poor résumé summary:

I am a 24-year-old senior developer with 2 years commercial experience in Android development and about 4 years in Java. A focused, goal-oriented, fast learning, responsible team player. Strong understanding of programming methodologies, able to develop and integrate Android apps using different modern frameworks and approaches.

Let’s take that same information and craft a much better summary:

I’m a passionate and agile-minded software engineer who is scrupulous about the details. Having started coding in Java during my 2nd course at University and learning ‘Thinking in Java’ by Bruce Eckel almost by heart, I’ve been totally committed to Android development for the past 2 years. I am a big fan of low-level things like memory management, multithreading, etc. and believe that TDD will change the world for the better.

‘80 level’ summary is when you’re capable of describing yourself with a single sentence, so-called ‘self-identification’. Here’s an example:

CTO, grown from LAMP developer with huge passion in UX/product management.

Listing Your Technological Proficiency

This is where most tech applicants don’t show restraint. They commonly list all the technologies they’ve ever worked with, even on a casual basis. Don’t do that. Instead, mention those ones that you feel confident with and demonstrate your superior knowledge. For example, Java (expert), C++ (basic), PHP (proficient), JavaScript (mother tongue). I can assure you, employers won’t judge you on these criteria alone. But, if you overload your CV by listing too much, it’s liable to work against you in the long run.

Don’t write that you’re proficient with Microsoft Office suite or an advanced user of Linux, CorelDRAW, Fortran. Agile, Scrum, and Project Management shouldn’t be listed among your technical skills either. Do you think that the more you use words like ‘Agile’ and ‘Scrum’ in your CV, the better it will be? Sorry, that’s not true. Recruiters perform a ‘quick scan’ of most résumés, and can easily identify the mindset of its author and see whether he/she is truly ‘Agile’.

One final note here: don’t forget to update your résumé every few months as your technology skills change and grow.

Your Work Experience Section

All your projects and professional experience from 3-4 years ago won’t be of interest to your potential employer. Even if you used to work with the required technologies, a lot of time has passed since then. Therefore, if you want to make your CV really good, get rid of outdated facts and talk about those projects that have a true value to your employer.

Trimming The Fat From Your CV

You can eliminate all the tables in your CV and get straight to the point. Don’t use headings that go as follows:

• Main tasks and job responsibilities
• Name of employer
• Dates of employment
• Project type and description
• Used technologies

Instead of writing a telephone number, give your actual number. Instead of including date of birth, use your age. The list goes on, but the general idea is that it’s not worth writing general phrases that pretty much everyone else uses. Don’t describe your hobby in details. A photo is not a must either. For technology companies, your ‘portrait’ on GitHub comes before your photograph, indeed.

Forget about Yahoo!

Don’t give recruiters the impression that you’re stuck in the past. If you are still using Yahoo or Hotmail, it’s time to create a Gmail account, or, alternatively, tie an email to your website.

The Finishing Touches

Remember that there’s no one CV and cover letter that will suit all your needs. Always assess the situation first and modify your CV and cover letter, taking into account the exact company/position you’re applying for and your own desire to work there.

The post For Techies: Raise The Bar For Your CV first appeared on Relocate.me.

You’ve probably all heard of Europass. Having launched the Relocate.me tech job board, our team gets a lot of developer resumes every day, and somehow many think the Europass CV is essential to get hired by European technology companies.

What is the Europass?

The Europass was established by the European Union to assist European citizens to make their skills and qualifications clearly and easily understood throughout Europe with a portfolio of five documents, one of which is a CV.

30 European countries are currently participating in the Europass Initiative.

Despite this, one often hears the Europass CV doesn’t give any benefits to applicants for tech roles. Moreover, its template is ranked even lower than a standard (short and plain) one. On the other hand, lots of software engineers (both in and outside the EU) believe that by using the Europass CV they’re one step closer to landing a job in different European countries.

For you, as a recruiter, the primary questions are what companies your tech candidate has worked for, when and how long, what he/she was doing for each company and which technologies/tools were applied. In this regard, the Europass CV is utterly worthless. Why?

First off, its template is rather generic and faceless. Consequently, many good developers have been overpassed just because their expertise wasn’t expressed in a proper (clear and comparable) way.

Companies like Spotify receive thousands of resumes regularly. And one doesn’t have to do the sums to see how much time on average is spent on screening each one of them. I guess it takes 7–10 seconds per resume and the screening is very brief. So if you want to snag a job at a hot tech company, your CV should ‘strike’ its recruiter immediately. A unique CV template may well give you a few seconds more while the Europass one can take a few seconds off. The key is the ‘content’ of your CV and whether you’re a good match for the team and its product.

Let me stress the following — the Europass CV is not obligatory to get hired by European tech companies. There’s no need to use it, thus. It may be helpful as a simple CV builder, however the internet is now teeming with such things and some of them can be a good alternative to the well-known Europass.

So, why is the Europass CV template NOT the best choice if you want to get tech jobs in Europe?

• The Europass logo in the header takes a decent amount of space on your resume.

• Every single word counts in your resume, so there is no strict need to headline it ‘Curriculum Vitae’. You can simply add ‘CV’ or ‘Resume’ to the title of your document (preferably PDF) and save a bit more space.
• The photo is not required for most of the tech roles. Recruiters can easily source the web and find your photograph if it is needed. By cutting it from your resume, again you can save some space as well as avoid any subjective judgments.
• I cannot fail to mention that there’s neither icon for GitHub, Stack Overflow and other almost must-haves for software engineers nor Dribble/Behance for designers.
• ‘Jobs applied for’ section is not required as well. I’d suggest adding ‘Which company I’m applying for and why’.
• The work experience section could be a little bit better too.

It doesn’t allow you to add enough information about your company and the project you’re working on. You can only shortly describe what type of problem your software/app is solving and a few details about the project (e.g. some numbers why you can call it a ‘high-traffic’ website). There is no space to mention your main technology stack.

• There’s no need to mention Business or Information Technology (IT) sector as it’s obvious for software developers.
• The ‘Personal skills’ section of your CV often can take at least half of A4 page. However, there is no real added value for describing you as a team-player or the most pedantic person in a team in terms of the quality of code.

• You don’t have to put your mother tongue, either. The most progressive tech companies are currently checking 2 languages — your English and how good you’re dealing with required programming languages.
• Communication, organization, managerial, and digital competence can be structured in 1–2 sentences. That’s more than enough. And this is also not mandatory to mention at all. You’ll never find ‘bad’ skills in any resume, and the required ones such as a team-player, open-minded, fast-learner will be carefully checked during the interviews.

The Europass CV is not something you necessarily need to use and it can hardly increase your chances of getting a great tech job in Europe. In our next article, we’ll share the best practices and tips from recruiters/hiring managers of European technology companies on how to raise the bar for your resume. 

The post The Europass CV doesn’t work for European tech companies anymore first appeared on Relocate.me.

Nowadays, tech companies are appearing every day with a high growth rate. Relocation of overseas talent has long been a common practice for most of them. It brings diversity and allows outreach beyond the local market.

A modern spacious office, table tennis, adjustable desks, a coffee-maker are already a must-have for technology companies. However, all companies attracting international talent have one thing in common: relocation packages, which could vary from absolute zero to some luxury type.

Well, why does at least basic relocation support matter for your future foreign employees?

1. Relocation to any foreign country is always cost-intensive.

Flight tickets, essentials for a new home, rental costs, security deposits, etc. fall on the newcomer’s shoulders all at once. As a result, a newly hired employee can leave the company for a higher salary well before the end of his/her probation period. The reason is obvious — it’s simple math when the candidate’s moving expenses exceed his/her income over a period of 2–3 months.

2. A set of expectations and professional experience could be overrated by the employees when hiring from abroad.

Sourcing foreign candidates, companies often take a big risk. At the same time, they gain access to the global market along with a chance to hire the best and most-qualified tech candidate. Having the suitable skill sets found in a local employee and an international may affect hiring the former with some doubts about hiring the latter.

3. The relocation process itself is always stressful and full of uncertainty.

So if you want to have a productive and committed employee from day one, help your newcomer settle into a new country with minimum stress and tension.

4. The provision of relocation support emphasises your company culture and attentive attitude towards your employees.

Attention to employee happiness, enabling self-organised teams and transparent communication are very trendy now and contribute towards encouraging an employee’s full potential. The attitude of a new employee during relocation and their attitude over the period of employment is not usually thought to be linked, however, if you (as a company) wish to show your value to the employee from day 1, ‘prove yourself’ able in ensuring employee well-being and comfort with comprehensives relocation assistance.

5. In the long term, it would be cheaper for you (as an employer) to provide some relocation perks.

It sounds strange, doesn’t it? But if you don’t provide, for example, housing assistance, your employee will probably have to leave during valuable working hours to view prospective apartments at a cost to you. The absence of any relocation support may also lead to the fast quitting a job. So you, as the employer, would have to utilise your resources (time and money) to find new talent again.

Taking all of the above into account, relocation package really matters for your international employees and it does not necessarily have to cost a lot. Absolutely not. Our key function is to provide at least a basic relocation package that will cover most moving ‘issues’ of your future employees and effectively reduce relocation stress, thus, easing integration of new employees into your company’s work environment.

The post For Tech Companies: why ‘Relocation package’ really matters first appeared on Relocate.me.