When you’re a computer science student looking for an internship or your first full-time role as a developer, deciding what to include in a good resume and how to format it correctly can be challenging.
We analyzed countless computer science resumes and chose the top 16 examples to help you get started. No matter if you’re looking for your first real-world coding job or are a seasoned campaigner, we have a computer science cover letter and resume designed to match where you’re at in your career.
The hardest part of resume writing is figuring out how to do a resume. Our resume tips, resume maker, and free Word resume templates have helped developers get interviews at companies like Facebook and Microsoft, so they’re a great place to start.
Why this resume works
- If you’ve already had an internship or related work experience (as a research assistant, for example), you want to highlight that experience at the top of your computer science resume. Lead with your strengths, and if you have the experience, that’s a real asset.
- Since you’re a computer science student, you should talk about what you did in school outside of the classroom. This can be any club you joined or sports in which you participated.
- Hiring managers review a lot of resumes for CS internships and entry-level roles. Don’t be afraid to let your personality shine! Your activities outside the classroom can help you stand out if you have a unique interest.
- We’ll talk more about projects later in this post but suffice to say that if you’ve done any coding projects either in the classroom or on your own time, be sure to include them on your resume.
- Starting with a resume outline example can help guide you in how to include a project or two on your final resume.
Why this resume works
- A computer scientist uses technology to solve various problems: space exploration, hunting for weaknesses in the gene code of dangerous viruses, and building the software that enables autonomous drones or robots to do their assigned tasks.
- Your computer scientist resume should build upon any related experience, perhaps as an entry-level computer support specialist. Your experience coupled with a four-year degree can open a career path for you.
- Use any previous education and experience as a launchpad to land your next computer science role.
Why this resume works
- When you’re short on work experience in computer science, filling up your computer science student resume can feel like an overwhelming task. You don’t have to worry about filling the page when you’re in this position.
- Browse through our free resume templates on Google for some inspiring designs suited for little to no experience.
- Employers understand that people looking for their first programming role won’t have relevant work experience to discuss. In this case, strive to demonstrate your interest in computer science through personal projects and what you did outside of class during your school years.
- At this point, your education is your greatest strength, so be sure to list all the relevant classes you’ve taken that make you a great fit for the role to which you’re applying.
Why this resume works
- Getting your first internship in computer science is a huge step towards ultimately landing your first full-time role. You want to make your technical proficiencies clear on your computer science internship resume.
- Don’t list too many skills. A hiring manager wants to know your strengths. It’s much better to list two to three languages or tools you’re really strong in than ten you wouldn’t be able to answer questions about in an interview.
- List work experience, even if it’s not directly related to computer science. It shows you can handle responsibility and are reliable. Combining this with the technical skills on your resume can give you an advantage over the competition.
Why this resume works
- Even though you’re still studying, it’s a good idea to keep your resume updated with your skills and projects for when you start applying for work. As a student, one of the more effective elements you can add to your computer science major resume is relevant coursework.
- The CS courses you’re studying will give an employer a better picture of what theoretical knowledge you’re well versed in and can bring to your first job.
Why this resume works
- We get that transitioning from one role to another can leave you wondering what to include in your resume. If you don’t have enough relevant paid experience as a developer, include personal or academic projects where you demonstrated your technical skills.
- The details of a personal project—like one where you designed and developed a portfolio website—are a great addition to your computer science no experience resume.
Why this resume works
- When it comes time to apply to your first full-time role after graduating with a computer science degree, try to make your entry-level computer science resume as complete as possible.
- This means finding a professional resume template that includes your education, relevant skills, projects you’ve worked on, and any relevant internship experience, plus leveraging a cover letter generator to complement your application.
- To make the case you’ll have a real impact as a full-time developer, you should quantify the impact of your internship achievements. Numbers make a much stronger case than words, so using them will set your resume apart.
Why this resume works
- As a desktop publisher, you use publishing software to create various documents and products, including financial reports, business proposals, books, newspapers, newsletters, packaging, tickets, and business cards. You format and combine text, numerical data, photographs, illustrations, charts, and other visual elements.
- Due to the vast range of duties required in a typical desktop publishing role, it’s necessary to “analyze and specialize.”
- Analyze locally available job descriptions and take note of consistent skill requirements. These requirements serve as a physical roadmap of what to include in your resume.
- Specialize using the physical roadmap from the local analysis mentioned above to create an aspirational checklist of what to learn/continue learning to be maximally effective.
- Career objectives exist to support and enhance whatever work experience you list. Instead of opting for a lengthier resume that includes irrelevant experience, your entry AGS desktop publisher resume can use a career objective to instill confidence in the reader and prove that you have a proven, albeit short, history of driving value.
Why this resume works
- As an aspiring developer, your entry-level Android developer resume has options for showcasing your available skillset.
- The first option is to demonstrate language, library, framework, and competency by building well-designed projects that solve real problems through code.
- The key here isn’t reinventing the wheel but creating something dynamic and unique that can’t be easily replicated with a few Google searches and a video tutorial.
- Another option for your resume is to invest time and effort into internships. Internships are a fantastic way for an aspiring degree-holder to gain on-the-job experience.
- Some internships require a fully completed degree to be in hand before starting. Although this is becoming more uncommon with the introduction of online coding trade schools (boot camps), research needs to be done regarding individual markets and locations.
Why this resume works
- Your senior computer vision scientist resume should be steeped in well-documented data and reporting. When updating the resume skills list on your resume, there are two primary sources from which you can collect data.
- The first source is the company’s list of required skills from the job description. This list provides the exact skills needed to excel in the role.
- The second way is to look at desired job titles in a specific geographic location. After evaluating the market’s desired skill requisites, adjustments can be made to showcase expertise to the general “heartbeat” of what employers in the area are seeking.
- Emphasize specific bullet points with KPIs that complement and enhance the general “heartbeat” of the desired market.
Why this resume works
- There’s no doubt about your computer programming skills, and you’ve proven your mettle over again through your stellar performance.
- So, what else can you do to ensure that your computer programming resume impresses recruiters? Well, an elegant template with subtle color accents would add flair to your application. Also, this format gives your piece the room to balance text and white spaces for a formal outlook.
Why this resume works
- Your computer engineering resume will stand out if you proved your understanding of quickly solving and preventing technical issues. In Landon’s example, it is clear how involved the applicant was in ensuring uptime of critical systems, troubleshooting and solving problems whenever they occurred.
- Take this direction, and demonstrate your numbers in production errors and hardware costs (cue: 27% reduction in production errors and reducing hardware costs by 18%).
Why this resume works
- Craft your computer technician resume to effectively present your qualifications and accomplishments in the IT field. How well did you prevent and resolve downtimes? What role did you play in mitigating cyber security threats? Did you do anything to improve the system’s functionality and stability?
- Be sure to highlight these achievements in your resume all while integrating quantifiable metrics to add credibility to your achievements, making yourself a strong candidate.
Why this resume works
- Your computer science teaching assistant resume should contain the key sections recruiters need to see. It may be tempting to include other sections, many projects, or even non-relevant work experience when writing your academic resume, but that can greatly hurt your chances of being interviewed.
- The most important sections are skills, work experience, education, and relevant projects.
- Although common knowledge, it’s important to tie your proficiency in any industry-specific tool or skill to an overall result. This creates a wireframe for including even more quantifiable data to show off your career highlights!
- For example, “Engaged with industry to maintain 100% fluency in the area of focus and provide opportunities for students to work on industry projects.”
- In the eyes of the reader, this bullet point means you will not need a lot of training and will bring immediate value to the company when hired.
Why this resume works
- If you’ve been in the field for 10+ years, you should consider adding a career summary to your resume.
- Adding a summary gives you the chance to reinforce your abilities with software engineering, curriculum development, and teaching, overall increasing your chances of landing an interview.
- It’s common to see a plethora of skills with an experienced engineer and educator, but don’t go overboard. We recommend sticking to 10 skills to avoid looking cluttered.
- Don’t forget to customize your skills section in addition to the other sections on your resume; check the job description for skill keywords you can include to catch any recruiter’s eye.
Why this resume works
- Tutoring is a form of teaching, so you should treat your computer science tutor resume like a teacher resume.
- For example, you could include experience that involves working with students, colleagues, and school administration.
- You should also include soft skills, even though they’re difficult to quantify. Scan the job description to find soft skill keywords you can use in your skills section or work experience.
- Since computer science is a technical area, demonstrate your technical chops for the role.
- Projects are a good way to demonstrate your tech knowledge, especially if you have limited work experience. However, projects are formatted slightly differently than work experience; use our resume outline example to show you how to add relevant projects to your resume.
- Your skills section is vital for demonstrating your technical abilities – include the software and tools you’re comfortable using and especially include any tools that are listed on the job description.
Related resume guides
Writing Your Computer Science Resume
Early in your computer science career, you must keep your resume to one page. As such, real estate on your resume is valuable. You should only include a resume objective if it adds value and increases your chances of getting an interview.
So, what is a resume objective for a computer science student? It’s a statement that succinctly states your skills, what you’re looking for in the job you’re applying for, and how you’ll add value in that role.
That sounds like a lot, but it’s not that bad in practice. You should keep it to two to three sentences and customize it to each role for which you apply. Here are a couple of examples from the resumes above:
- “I’m looking for an internship where I can utilize my experience with natural language processing and building web apps for non-technical users to further the mission of Coursera in democratizing education across the world.”
- “Industrious recent computer science graduate with a zeal for innovation. Seeking a position at Sikka Software, where the strategic focus on delighting users aligns with my creativity and desire to enhance social events through technology.”
Alternatively, if you’ve built some valuable experience, you may want to consider a resume summary statement. Only include one if you can successfully and specifically highlight your greatest career accomplishments.
Projects on your computer science resume
When you’re looking for a computer science internship or your first full-time role as a developer, projects are a must-have on your resume.
These can either be projects you completed as part of a class or something you went out and built on your own. Projects are the best way to show a potential employer that you can take what you learned in class and apply it to the real world.
More than that, they’re a great way to demonstrate your interest in coding outside of your classwork. In your projects, mention exactly what you built and the languages/ libraries you used. Here are some examples:
Social media scheduler
- Built a responsive web app using Django and Node that allowed users to schedule social media posts across Instagram and Twitter
- Utilized the Twitter API and Instagram API
- Built features using scikit-learn in Python that learned what time of day maximized engagement with social media posts which increased the overall user engagement rate by 15%
- Released app for free for University of Pittsburgh students, and it quickly grew to over 500 monthly active users
- Used: Javascript, Python, SQL, HTML/CSS
Poker simulation
- Built a full-stack web app to allow users to simulate and visualize outcomes of poker hands against opponents of different play styles using open-source cards.js on the front-end
- Utilized sci-kit learn in Python to simulate possible outcomes under different scenarios that the users chose
- Used: Javascript, Python, SQL, HTML/CSS
