Hey everyone!

I've been studying computer science/software engineering in college for the past couple of years, which has been going fairly well, but I've gotten to the point where I am looking to find an internship or an entry-level job. I've been applying to some places for a little over a year now with no luck, and I believe (and hope) that the issue lies with my resume.

Thus far, I haven't added any Cemetech projects mostly because I don't know if I should, and I also don't know how exactly I would include those projects. And besides my projects here on Cemetech, I don't have any practical coding experience outside of school projects.

Do any of you have any experience with this sort of thing, or do you have any advice for me (or anyone else) in this situation?

Having only school-project experience isn't necessarily unexpected (though I suppose still detrimental against the vast sea of fellow applicants), and I think the best way to share them would be a GitHub profile or similar. Tidy it up, maybe pin your best work, and let the reviewers decide for themselves what they think is worthwhile. There's something to be said about that, akin to, "Hey, I do hobby projects. They might not matter a whole lot, but it shows I've got experience and the determination to finish things." That said, making explicit mention of particular projects on the resume is still a good idea, and as you say isn't guaranteed to make a difference.

I speak as someone graduating with a CS degree soon, but isn't currently looking for tech jobs and is instead leveraging the advice and actions I've heard from others.

On the concise version of my resume (as opposed to a CV), I list my calculator projects thusly:

I particularly advocate couching calculator programming work in terms of the embedded programming skills it demonstrates.

FWIW, my resume also has some information about calculator-related software, mostly on the computer side, as well as admin/moderator experience.

Now I'm curious. I've heard those two terms (resume and CV) used more or less interchangeably. What's the actual difference between the two?

Good question. Not being a native English speaker, I'm interested in the explanation as well

The main place I've heard the term "CV" is in an English (as in British) context rather than an American (as in Pie) one.

Specifically, in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Cabin Pressure (hilarious, by the way. Look it up; it has Benedict Cumberbatch as the Captain), when said captain prints up a CV.

Resume (I know this much) means essentially, "This is what I've accomplished in life so far, condensed into about a page's worth of bragging. Hire me."

EDIT: Except it's not bragging, which is rude. Resumes aren't rude.

Your summary matches my understanding. The resume is a ~1 page summary of the most salient points of your experience and achievements, while the CV is a quite long (3-10 pages) and exhaustive enumeration of your experience and achievements.

Ah, so a Resume is a summarized CV, a CV being, "This is literally everything I've accomplished in my life on several pages of bragging. Hire me!"?

Yeah, unfortunately, it seems that companies try to find the students who have a catalog of projects in their portfolio, leaving those of us with only school-project experience in the dust. I currently have my GitHub linked to at the top of my resume, but I feel that since the body of my resume is unimpressive, they'll not bother checking my links like GitHub or LinkedIn.

And on that note, maybe I should post more of my hobby projects on LinkedIn? Then if there are any recruiters looking at my page they'll have more than just a blank profile to look at.



So to be clear, these hobby projects would be more effective on a resume when focusing on the skills demonstrated? Maybe I'm confused at your wording. So for example, I could include a calculator project, but bring attention to how I use GitHub to manage my code, or using object oriented concepts, or showing off skills in C/C++. Does that make sense?



This makes sense to me, but I am lacking in projects for the computer side if it's just for that. I've considered the possibility of making non-calculator versions of my games, but computer graphics are a completely foreign topic to me.



I always assumed they were just two different terms for the same thing haha.

Edit: Also, I recognize that my current resume is lackluster in more than just the experience section, and I should work on the formatting and phrasing of things. When they tell you to write a resume, you're told to put down any work experience, but I've worked at Walmart and a gas station, and it is very hard to make either of those sound impressive when applying for a software engineering position.

I don't think this quite captures the distinction.

I am entering a PhD program this fall; I submitted a CV (Curriculum Vitae) to all the schools I applied to because the CV contained all of my relevant academic & professional qualifications. My CV will continue to grow as I do more stuff in academia, and I've seen giant laundry lists of accomplishments and condensed summaries both called "CV"s.

Meanwhile, I don't actually have a resume, and if I were to need to make one, I would organize it a lot differently and highlight different points. For example, my CV contains almost no mention of my programing projects, but a resume probably would.

In Quebec, I have never heard anything other than CV being used at all. Not even once. Just like how Quebecers use the word "racism" for almost any form of bigotry I'm pretty sure they use CV for both a resume and an actual CV.

*bump*

I apologize for the bump, but I'm working on refining my resume and I had a question.

There is potential to place calculator programming under a "Hobbies and Interests" section of the resume. I'm just confused about how I should phrase it. For example, I could just have a bullet point that just says "Calculator programming" or "Graphing calculator programming," but I feel like that is too vague? Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

I would like to include something along those lines on my resume because I've heard that companies find interest and potential in hobby projects.

Just put something like "experience programming <language> on <graphing calculator(s)", and then notable projects if you feel like it and have any.