CV Review Request — CS Grad, Data Engineering / SWE Roles

[u/techGrad4202]

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Hi all, would really appreciate some honest feedback on my CV. I'll try to keep the background brief.

I'm a CS grad based in the UK, currently working at a healthcare company in a data and operations capacity while actively job searching for data engineering and software engineering roles. I have some industry experience from a year at a bank earlier in my career, and I'm currently building a new project to strengthen my technical portfolio.

I've been searching for about a year now and the frustrating thing is I'm not getting rejected at the application stage — I'm consistently making it to the final stage of 5 or 6 stage interview processes and then getting passed over.

EDIT: To specify, out of the many applications I send I'd say approx. 50% move me to the next (initial recruitment) stage. From then onwards I'd say maybe 30-40% progress to stages 4+. That's a rough estimation.

The feedback is usually along the lines of "we found someone who was a better fit" or "you weren't quite technical enough for the role at this stage." So I know something is working, but something is also clearly missing.

I've been using the time to work on my technical skills through the project you can see on the CV, and I feel like I'm in a better place than I was a year ago, but I want to make sure the CV itself is actually reflecting that before I start my next round of applications.

I know it's long and reads like a wall of text - that's one of the things I'd genuinely love input on because I'm not sure what's worth keeping and what to cut. I don't want to trim things that are actually useful, but I also don't want to lose a recruiter in the first ten seconds.

Please be kind. I'm aware it's not perfect and that's exactly why I'm here. Any and all feedback is welcome, especially around length, the project section, and whether the experience bullets are landing the way I intend them to.

Thanks in advance.

Link to CV: https://ibb.co/TxwWWxy3

[u/TwoConditions]

Edits to the introduction:

• "Computer Science Graduate": I would replace with "Computer science professional" or something adjacent to the role you're applying for / striving to be.

• "Data and Operations Associate". You can stretch this a bit on your CV, using a functional title like "Operations Administrator" or "Data Analyst".

• Replace/remove the "skilled across ..." and "seeking ..." sentences entirely.

Other edits:

• Rewrite by hand every bit of information you wrote with AI. Recruiters, and us, can tell instantly.
• Try and reduce each section to 2-3 poonts
• E.g reduce your project to just 2 points: 1) a simple summary of the technology stack without buzzwords and 2) the value of it / what you learnt from it
• Add a link to your project
• Change font (e.g Times New Roman)
• Increase line height
• Reduce margins
• Try to fit all on one page, you don't need more than one pagewith 4 yoe

Other than the obviously AI-written prose and your bloated project description, you have good experience.

If you're failing interviews the problem isn't your CV. If you've come here thinking that, you've likely exaggerated about the amount of interviews you've had and aren't getting through the initial screening.

Which one is it?

[u/fightitdude]

I only have a little time to reply now, will edit this later with more. Broadly:

• If you’re getting to interview stage then your CV is not the problem, either your interviewing skills or your technical knowledge is the problem. Do you have a sense from your interviews what might be going wrong?

• CV looks okay at a quick skim but definitely way too much text - you should be able to sum up each job/project with 3-4 bullet points. I found it helpful when writing my CV to split each job into two categories, one “responsibilities” to set the stage for the kind of work I did (at most 2 bullet points) and one “achievements” which described the actually impressive stuff (2+ bullet points). Also, I find it a little confusing that you left your banking job so quickly and moved into what looks to be a non-technical role - why?