How to write a CV for IT jobs

A CV is first skimmed in seconds, by a person or a filter. Here is how to make it pass both.

Structure

Header: name, role ("Middle Python Developer"), city or "remote", contacts, LinkedIn and GitHub.
Summary: 2–3 lines with years of experience, main stack and type of projects.
Skills: grouped (languages, frameworks, databases, infrastructure), no star ratings.
Experience: latest job first, 3–5 bullet points with results for each.
Education, courses, certificates, languages: short, at the end.

One page for juniors and middles, up to two for seniors.

How to describe experience

Each point: action + technology + result. Not "worked on the backend" but "rewrote the reporting service in FastAPI, cutting generation time from 30 to 3 seconds". Numbers are optional; specifics are not.

Keywords

Recruiters and screening systems look for the technology names from the job post. Spell them the way job posts do: "PostgreSQL", not "postgres". If you know a technology but did not list it, a filter will not see it.

The free CV check compares your CV with a job post and shows which skills are missing.

An English version

A large share of IT jobs in Ukraine are posted in English, especially in outsourcing and international products. Keep an English CV next to your main one. In the AutoApply builder, the English version is one click away, as a separate file.

What not to do

Photo, date of birth, marital status: not needed.
Long paragraphs without structure.
A list of every technology you have ever seen.
Different dates in your CV and on LinkedIn.

FAQ

PDF or DOCX?

PDF looks the same on any device. AutoApply accepts both.

Should I tailor a CV to each job?

Not to each job, but to each direction: say, one for backend and one for data.