Thoughts: Developer Lead Resumes
- Rule 84 - Interviews go both ways. The candidate is interviewing the organization just as much as the organization is interviewing the candidate. Keep this in mind both when you are hiring and being hired.
Thought: If you’ve got a position listed on your resume that says “Software Development Team Lead”, the description of the role should start out with things you did as a leader.
The first 4 bullets should not emphasize your individual code contributions, especially if you’re applying for another Lead job. It makes it look like you had an inflated title, will emphasize yourself over your team, or both.
I’ve even seen Dev Managers who emphasize individual contributions over how they helped their team. The other variant on Managers is it’s all “here’s what the team did” and still little about how they helped their team. Was the team successful because of you or in spite of you? What philosophy did you apply to management? You have a management philosophy, right? Tell me about it!
Stop with the resumes that list your job descriptions and start focusing on who you are as an individual. It may not get you more bites, but I earnestly believe it will get you more quality bites from companies you want to work for.