Want To Get Noticed?

How To Write an Eye-catching Test Engineer CV

At techTesters, we receive hundreds of CVs a week from Test Engineers and the standard varies considerably. Unfortunately, some CVs are poorly written and often feature the same mistakes.

As your CV is often the first opportunity you will have to make an impression, it is vital that it is not only well written, but it must also have a layout that makes it easy to read and allows for important information to be highlighted.

What we have learnt through our frequent interaction with CVs, and through feedback we have received from our clients is a preferred CV style, and what clients are specifically looking for in the content. CVs that meet these criteria will be more likely to make a good impression, and subsequently increase the chances of candidates being invited to interview.

In this article we have detailed a number of considerations for a Test Engineer’s CV and the reasoning behind them. Much of this is based on many successful years experience in the industry representing candidates to our clients, and, what CV elements make us most enthused to speak to jobseekers.

Put Yourself in the Mindset of a Hiring Manager

Firstly, think about the position the Hiring Manager is in. They have a vacancy that needs to be filled as soon as possible and are likely to be a very busy person whose time is premium. They will have a number of CVs to read and probably more to follow on a daily basis.

They want a CV that is almost written like a website home page whereby they can glance at it and effortlessly extract the information they are looking for.

They want it to have a high level of readability whereby there are no lengthy paragraphs, no long sentences and almost every word has some relevance. Be wary that Recruiters and/or Hiring Managers tend not to actually read CVs in the first instance, they skim them.

They want to be able to quickly identify if you have adequate experience of the skills listed in their job specification.

They want to quickly establish if you could be the right person for the role in question and would make their interview short-list.

Where Do Candidates Go Wrong

So, with the above in mind, let’s take a look at where many Test Engineers go wrong with their CV’s.

Lengthy Company/Client Descriptions

We see many CVs where the candidate has listed their previous companies/clients, and against each one have written a long description about them and what they do. This is unnecessary. Most Hiring Managers will either already know of the company or will look them up if they want to.

So, we suggest writing no more than a few lines about a previous company/client. If the type of company is very relevant to the job being applied for then do highlight this but keep it brief.

 Lengthy Project Descriptions

Some candidates write lengthy paragraphs detailing their previous projects but have not explained what they actually did on these projects.

Hiring Managers rarely read long paragraphs on a CVs. A short sentence giving a project outline will suffice. Make the sentence relevant to the job you are applying for if possible.

Following on from these previous points we have seen candidates use up a lot of space on their CV’s describing their previous companies and going into detail about previous projects, but fail to be specific about what they actually did on these projects for these companies.

Think about what you actually did on a daily basis and include it in short bullet points i.e.

-         Wrote automation test scripts using Webdriver and Java to enable testing of user stories

-         Manually tested the payment gateway of an international ecommerce website

-         Built a regression test suite for an ordering system and ran it daily

-         Tested search functionality on a bespoke web-based back office system

-         Raising defects, triaging, discussing solutions, testing fixes

The above gives our Resourcers a really good feel for what you have actually done, and on what platforms. Give examples and don’t be vague. This is the sort of thing hiring managers want to know and is of far more relevance than a long project description.

Poor Layout and Content Proportion

A skills and knowledge summary table on Page 1 of a Test Engineer CV is almost mandatory to allow a recruiter to quickly see what skills and knowledge a Test Engineer has acquired. List the skills and knowledge you have and group things logically i.e. test tools, platforms, languages etc. 

Make sure all previous job roles are listed in chronological order with most recent first, and make sure the amount you write per role is proportionate to how long you were in the role and how long ago it was. A one-year job, five years ago, should take up very little room compared to a recent two-year job. Also, unless it’s obvious, state if previous roles were Permanent or Contract. This can save a lot of confusion.

Not Having a Unique Profile

There is no harm in including a short personal profile near the start of your CV, however for it to make an impact, it really needs to actually be ‘personal’ and tell the Hiring Manager something special about yourself. Many profiles tend to read very much the same and say similar things such as how hard working the candidate is, how they meet targets and are a team player – as this is quite common it does not make your profile stand out from a probably ever growing pile of CVs.

What would be far more interesting and eye catching is to state something specific, interesting and relevant about yourself such as ‘Why you enjoy testing’, ‘What made you become a Test Engineer’ or ‘I really enjoy working on xyz systems because …’

Not Being Honest

It’s easy to pack your CV with keywords from a job description to try and get to interview stage, but if you don’t actually have the experience required, you will likely be found out and will have wasted your, and the hiring managers time.

What we and prospective hirers do find useful is if you can state on your CV an estimate of how much knowledge you do have on a specific subject or experience of a specific skill. For example, when you are listing all your skills and experience at the start of your CV, indicating how many years you have is a really good way to help the hiring manager understand your capability and they will be appreciative of this. Also, words like “exposure to” and “trained in” are a good way to include relevant skills you may have knowledge in using, but, have no hands on experience in the working environment.

Other Common CV Mistakes

Spelling: Always check the spelling, and then check it again. Having spelling mistakes in your CV will seriously impact your credibility at being reliable in Quality Assurance.

Misaligned Profiles: Make sure your LinkedIN profile is aligned with your CV regarding job roles and dates.

Length: CV length is always a matter of debate. Don’t realistically expect a recruiter to pay too much attention after Page 3. Therefore, anything after Page 3 should have a very high level of readability and only contain essential information as bullet points. 

Soft Skills: Many Test Engineer candidates focus on Technical Skills within the content of their CV but leave out their Soft Skills. Soft Skills are important and show that there is another dimension to your abilities.

Summary

techTesters want you to stand as much chance as possible of being successful when job hunting, so as a summary to this article we thought we would write a Checklist for you to follow.

Read through the Checklist and consider updating your CV appropriately. The more checklist items you can include, the more eye-catching and readable your CV will be to a recruiter.

Test Engineer CV Checklist

·        Name, Address and Contact Information Included at the top of Page 1.

·        If you include a personal profile, make it unique to you and interesting.

·        Include a Skills and Knowledge Table on Page 1 and indicate how much experience you have of each.

·        No lengthy descriptions of previous Companies/Clients.

·        No lengthy Project Descriptions.

·        Include the duration alongside previous job start/end dates.

·        Specify if previous roles were Permanent or Contract (if it’s not obvious).

·        Ensure previous roles are in chronological order with most recent first.

·        Don’t be too worried about gaps in your career. Give an honest explanation rather than leave a recruiter guessing.

·        No lengthy paragraphs.

·        No long sentences.

·        Predominantly bullet points as these are easy to read.

·        Don’t be vague. Be specific. Allow the reader to understand what you have actually done and how.

·        Be proportionate about how much you write compared to the role duration and when the role was performed.

·        Be honest. Don’t imply you have detailed knowledge on anything when you don’t.