Critique my CV for me.

[BrevityOverLevity]

Professional Summary
A Front End development bootcamp graduate with experience of building mobile first accessible web applications in an agile environment. Strong communication and time management skills from my former career in healthcare & a drive for education.

Key Skills

o HTML 5
o CSS 3
o JavaScript ES6
o REACT.js
o JSON
o GIT Version Control
o Git-Hub
o REST API
o Figma
o Wireframing
o Microsoft Office
o Adaptability
o Communication
o Agile Working
o Critical Thinking
o Collaborative working

Career History
October 2022 to present Personal leave.
I have used this time to build my portfolio website & learn Figma/wireframing.
I have also completed my Level 2 Understanding coding and I am currently completing Level 2 digital marketing.

May 2010 to September 2022
Self Employed private Podiatrist visiting patients in their homes. I was responsible for all clinical care, business administration and business development during this time.

September 2000 to May 2010
NHS Podiatrist working with high risk patients in a multidisciplinary setting. Mentored newly graduated podiatrists and led teams of staff to run clinics efficiently.


Education
Podiatry BSc with Hons Birmingham City University
Coding Skills Bootcamp Purple Beard Training
Level 2 in Business Administration, IT Skills, Understanding Coding.

It fits on one page but I'm worried I've made it too short?

Also to add OP I was going to sort of edit your CV and post an example but am going out now... I'll be back later

Accessible means the screen readers can easily access the content to relay to the user, that the tab key can be used to access the clickable links because CSS can work against you sometimes with that, and that the design is clear & the choice of fonts/colours is easy for anyone with visual impairment to read. It's the difference between using divs or using semantic tags, sections containing article tags or p tags. You could build a website wrapping everything in divs but it would mean nothing to a screen reader.

"was responsible for all clinical care, business administration and business development during this time." It means I did everything from treatment plans to invoicing to progressing the business on

Are you applying for a full time job working for an organisation or freelance work?

Are you applying for a job in a company which does web development, or to healthcare organisations to hire you to develop/improve their websites/make them more accessible?

Were you involved in web design for organisations that employed you as a podiatrist? Or what kind of organisations have you designed websites for?

Is there a place - Linked In - or a more specialist site, where as well as sending a CV you could create a profile which shows some of your web design skills and include links to that with a letter or CV?

I'll be applying to companies with web dev teams. I don't want to be self employed again.

The other people on my course (well the ones who enjoyed it) have web dev jobs working for well known companies, one has gone into software dev instead.

At the moment all my work is portfolio work, It's all any of us had at this point.

I'm just behind because dh got cancer and died. My initial plan was to be employed May 20th last year, one woman had multiple job offers a week after the course finished but she had to do the final project all on her own and I really respected her for that because she could have asked to be put into another scrum but she got on with it.

I havent had to write a cv for years and I know it's going to hold me back if I can't get it right.

If you're going for positions that you've seen advertised, look at the ads - or even if it's not an ad for a specific job, and organise your CV according to what they ask for.

Your experience and skills running and marketing your own business as a self employed podiatrist, and previous experience in a professional role, might be more relevant and impressive than listing skills and "level 2" courses.

I'm a data person who has worked in NHS, I understand all the NHS speak. I don't get the soft sell persuasive speak at all but will yield if others think it's somehow meaningful. Making bespoke systems (data handling) for a lot of NHS GP surgeries was a big growth area about 22 years ago, so a lot of older website contractors/database people will know the lingo.

I think main thing you need to do is get some helpful work experience, even a short term volunteer role. Many small charities are crying out for some web site development; you could help one for a few weeks and have a good reference from them and have a public live product to point at.

I thought "Personal Leave" was perfectly obvious and didn't need elaborating. I mean, I didn't know it was bereavement, but people have reasons they are allowed to keep private.

I'm working on a project to do with patients attacking health care workers. The stories are indeed grim.

Should I drop the level 2 courses off the education bit?

Do you know anything about Green Digital Skills. It's just a bit of upskilling and while it's currently a bit niche it's very much a growth area that would set you apart. It's basically learning how to make websites etc with lower carbon footprints.

No but it sounds very interesting!

I have thought in the past these servers are going to be pumping out so much heat it can’t be good for the planet.

I'm sorry, rereading my post, OP, I think I sounded like I was disparaging the level 2 courses - I'm not but I don't know what they mean, and I have no knowledge of web development. The format of your CV is not one I've seen before, and I have a completely different work background to yours in terms of past experience and the job you're trying to get into.

What I do think is that skills running and marketing your own business, as well as a professional higher education qualification, are a bit buried. Podiatry itself might not be relevant, but you must have all kinds of transferable skills which would be really help in your transition. Can you mention an exam board/name of the qualification award/training provider? Is this college or distance learning?

Good luck!

I think @titchy makes some good suggestions about organising it, except that I'd separate the NHS business and the self-employment, because running your own business inc the admin and the marketing might well be relevant to the new role, but the change of direction seems like a good reason for seeking to return to working for an organisation to gain experience and develop your new IT and web development skills further.

By October there should be a new version of the free course up. Keep an eye out here. It's a 24 hour course with Microsoft and LinkedIn as stakeholders.

www.greenskills.inco-group.co/

Congrats on the coding career change! I did it a couple of years ago and it was one of the best decisions I've made.

I think your professional summary is great. I'd consider putting "Front-end developer" instead of "Front End development bootcamp graduate". And instead of naming FreeCodeCamp I'd just say "via a coding bootcamp and online courses" or something.

I'd also swap JSON for Accessibility in the skills list. Sooo many devs don't/won't learn about accessibility so this sets you apart.

I'd put the coding bootcamp top of the education history as it's the most relevant and most recent.

Remember to include links to Github, your portfolio and LinkedIn somewhere.

In general there's not much info about the actual coding you've done on your CV!

It could be good to have a little more info about the bootcamp somewhere. I'd be interested to know how long it was and what you actually did. Something vaguely like "a full-time 4-month coding bootcamp, focusing on front-end web development and the react framework. In this time, I built X individual projects, including designing, coding and then deploying the websites - available on Github and my portfolio. They were all built to be mobile-first, fully accessible and used the latest web standards in HTML, CSS and javascript. I also worked on a larger group project with other developers, taking part in stand-ups, demos and retros."

You could also have a section called Web Development Projects where you give a 1-2 sentence overview of each project you did during the bootcamp. That would let you get in more web-related keywords and give the interviewers something to talk to you about in the next stage of the process.

Good luck! 🌟

Great advice @LavenderAndLime !

Ok, I've done it again. Thank you for your advice @LavenderAndLime

Professional Summary
A Front End developer with experience of building mobile first accessible web applications in an agile environment.
A growth mindset, coupled with a period of furlough, afforded me the opportunity to pursue a long held interest in coding and web development using online resources & a government funded bootcamp with Purple Beard Training.
A confident communicator with a collaborative approach to work, I have a particular interest in mobile first accessible applications and am keen to work in a front end developer environment to progress my skills further.

Front-End Bootcamp
An 8 week bootcamp delivered using Microsoft Teams we learnt the fundamentals of modern HTML, CSS, JavaScript and React.js before building mobile first accessible web applications in scrums using agile working practices.
We built small projects using HTML & CSS to learn how to take a design and use CSS to display images and text on the screen before building two projects, one using HTML, CSS & JavaScript to make a mobile first pizza restaurant application & a bigger project using the IMDB API to display the data from their “250 top movies” API using DOM manipulation with some JavaScript functionality to add likes and alter the ranking.
We also used the React.js library to make a Spotify app using the API to login to our own accounts & play music.

Key Skills

· HTML 5
· CSS 3
· JavaScript ES6
· REACT.js
· GIT Version Control
· Git-Hub
· REST API
· Agile Working
· Figma
· Wireframing
· VS Code
· Responsive Web Design
· Accessibility
· Mobile First Development

Soft Skills

· Adaptability
· Communication
· Active Listening
· Critical Thinking
· Collaborative working

Career History
October 2022 to present, Career break.
I have used this time to build my portfolio website using skills learnt from my boot camp. I used pen and paper to wireframe, I wanted to think about the use of semantic tags and how a screen reader would interact with the finished app. Once I had planned the structure I enjoyed adding content and images to the page. It is mobile first & responsive using a media query to show a ”burger” menu on small screens.

I have also learnt Figma to design websites, using online resources, after seeing this was a desirable skill. I enjoyed using Figma with it’s built in collaboration. I built a wireframe project which I did not build as a website but it taught me how to use Figma design tools.

I also completed my Level 2 Understanding coding and I am currently completing Level 2 digital marketing.

May 2010 to September 2022
Self Employed private Podiatrist visiting patients in their homes.
· Conducted my own market research to target the desired demographic.
· Advertised to suitable business, I built a full book of 30 care homes in 3 months.
· Designed my own patient record paperwork to streamline record keeping.
· Organised all administrative processes such as treatment schedules, invoicing, debt collection, book-keeping, COSHH documentation, inventory management.
· Implemented Covid-19 infection prevention protocols in 2020.


September 2000 to May 2010
As an NHS Podiatrist working with high risk patients in a multidisciplinary setting my aim was to reduce lower limb amputation rates.
· Performed minor nail surgery.
· Mentored students, newly qualified staff & assistants.
· Championed self-care to reduce painful skin lesions by 90% in my cohort.
· Used my active listening skills to formulate care plans.
· Worked in large teams proving myself to be an adaptable colleague.
· Fostered collaboration with nursing and GP staff building a strong working relationship based on mutual respect.


Education
Coding Skills Boot camp Purple Beard Training (2022 Jan - Apr)
Level 2 in Business Administration, IT Skills, Understanding Coding Vison2Learn
Podiatry BSc with Hons Birmingham City University (1997 – 2000)

Still no other replies , OP?

I’ve been reading this thread with interest.

think your latest version looks great - much easier to read and make sense of

best of luck 🤞

You’ve made great improvements.

Two bits of feedback from me

1. I dislike the use of ‘we’ in the course details
2. presentation-wise, I would suggest a modern sectioned format like this where the skills are listed in a narrow column. It’ll be back down to one page too.

I tried that two column layout and got feedback it wasn’t ATS compatible, Thats the layout I prefer, and the layout used by the first of us to get a job.

I will drop the we.

Thank you @LeonardCohensRaincoat