I Reviewed 50 Junior Developer Resumes — Here’s What Actually Works

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

After reviewing 50 junior developer resumes, one thing became very clear: most resumes fail not because the candidate is bad, but because the resume doesn’t show value clearly.

What Worked

• One‑column layout
• Clear section titles
• Normal fonts (no icons, no progress bars)

What Failed

• Heavy colors and graphics
• Skill bars like “JavaScript: 80%”
• Overdesigned templates

➡️ Clarity beats creativity for junior roles.

Projects

The most successful resumes highlighted strong projects, even without job experience. Good projects included:

• A clear problem statement
• Tech stack used
• GitHub link + live demo
• What the candidate personally built

Bad projects were just lists, e.g., “Todo App – React”.

➡️ Explain what you built, not just what you used.

Skills

Resumes that listed 15+ technologies rarely performed well.

Effective Approach

• 5–8 relevant skills
• Each skill backed by a project or concrete example

Example

React – Built a job board with authentication and filtering

➡️ Proof beats claims.

Education

Education helped, but it wasn’t the focus.

Good Resumes

• Listed education briefly
• Focused more on projects and skills

Bad Resumes

• Dedicated half the page to school history
• Included unrelated courses

➡️ Recruiters hire potential, not transcripts.

Short Summaries Win Attention

The best resumes had 2–3 lines at the top explaining:

1. Who they are
2. What role they want
3. What they’re good at

Example

Junior Frontend Developer focused on Angular and Tailwind, with experience building real‑world dashboard applications.

➡️ This sets context instantly.

Conclusion

From 50 resumes, the pattern was clear: you don’t need experience to stand out — you need clarity and evidence.

If you want more practical resume advice for junior developers, I regularly share insights like this at ResumeMind.