How to highlight your projects in your CV

University courses Mathematics & Computing
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Your projects undertaken in university, and on your own, are important not only to grow your skills but also highlighting your skills to employers. Here is how you can highlight projects in your CV.

Choosing the right projects

  • Relevance - Prioritize projects that align with the job you’re applying for. Highlight projects that showcase the specific skills and technologies required for the role.
  • Impact - Focus on projects that demonstrate tangible results and outcomes. Quantify your achievements whenever possible (e.g., increased efficiency, cost savings, or user engagement).
  • Variety - Showcase a diverse range of projects to demonstrate your versatility and adaptability. This can include personal projects, university projects, or industry collaborations.

How to write compelling project descriptions

  • Use clear and concise language - Describe your projects in a clear and concise manner, avoiding technical jargon unless necessary.
  • Highlight your role - Clearly outline your responsibilities and contributions to the project. Use action verbs to describe your actions (e.g., designed, developed, implemented, analyzed).
  • Quantify your achievements - Whenever possible, use metrics and numbers to demonstrate the impact of your work. For example, instead of saying “improved website performance,” say “improved website load time by 20%.”
  • Highlight technical skills - specify which technologies, programming languages, or tools you have used in the project.
  • Emphasize problem-solving - Describe the challenges you encountered and how you overcame them, this showcases your problem-solving skills and ability to find creative solutions.

Example Project Description:

Project Title: E-commerce Website Development

  • Developed a full-stack e-commerce website using React, Express.js, Node.js, and MongoDB (MERN stack).
  • Implemented responsive sizing for optimal user experience across different devices
  • Integrated payment gateway through APIs such as PayPal and Stripe
  • Improved website performance by optimizing images and code.
  • Increased website traffic by 30% through SEO and social media marketing.

By following these guidelines, you can effectively showcase your projects and increase your chances of landing your dream job.

4 Likes
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Great advice, @Silver.

I wonder how useful it is to suggest that all CS students should have a personal website? If possible, with a individually-owned domain name and with budget-hosted space?

As long as you don’t go for a tld like dot com, and can choose a domain name that isn’t an obvious name or brand, you can get your own domain for between £10 and £20 a year.

An budget hosting can be got for under ÂŁ5 a month, although you need to be careful about features, and to be sure that an SSL certificate is included (or that the service supports a free service like Lets Encrypt).

For this you get your own space to showcase your work, with a nice clean url to include in your CV / cover letter, and from which you can link your GitHub or other code repository. And you can include the link at the top of your LinkedIn profile. Also, if you have hardware projects you can include photos of these, and you can write in more depth about your projects, work experience etc.

Do many CS students do this? I think, together with a well-crafted CV and cover letter, this could help to make any student stand out.

Interested to hear comments about this from students!

2 Likes
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This is super helpful, thank you! I’ve worked on a few projects during university, but I’ve always struggled with how to present them on my CV in a way that really stands out. I’m curious, when it comes to personal projects versus university projects, do employers tend to value one more than the other? Also, if a project didn’t have a massive impact or result, how would you suggest framing it to still make it appealing to potential employers?

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these are some great advices, can you show me an example of your cv ?