An Epitech student enters the internship and work-study market with an unusual profile: few lectures, lots of projects, intensive bootcamp-style "piscines", an innovation project run over several years and internships spread throughout the programme. It is a considerable asset, provided the resume translates it into proof that a recruiter who does not necessarily know the school can read. Yet many student resumes merely pile up the names of internal projects, understandable only to other students. This article explains how to turn this background into a convincing developer resume.
What recruiters read
A tech recruiter who receives a resume from an Epitech student generally knows two things: the school teaches through practice, and its students have coded a lot. The school itself describes its project-based pedagogy 🔗, with intensive piscines in the first, second and third years, dozens of projects carried out alone or in teams, and nearly a year and a half of internships over the whole programme.
What the recruiter does not know, and what your resume must tell them:
- which stack you are strongest in, among all those you have worked with;
- what you actually built, in which project, with what personal share;
- what your internships taught you about a professional team: code reviews, production releases, working with a product;
- what you are looking for: an internship of what length, a work-study contract, starting when.
The tech lead, for their part, will often open your GitHub and look in your projects for an engineer’s reasoning: structured code, tests, explained choices. They are not interested in a project’s internal name, but in what it proves.
Presenting your projects
Choose three or four projects
An Epitech programme produces too many projects for a single page. Choose three or four, using these criteria:
- the innovation project (the EIP, presented by the school on its Innovation Track 🔗 page), which is the longest and closest to a real product;
- a project that matches the stack of the role you are targeting: a web project for a full-stack internship, a C or C++ project for a systems role, a mobile project for a mobile team;
- a technically demanding project whose difficulties you can explain (networking, concurrency, graphics engine, compiler, game AI);
- possibly a personal project, carried out outside the programme, that shows your curiosity.
The first piscine exercises, on the other hand, are identical for a whole cohort and do not belong in detail on a third- or fourth-year resume.
Translate the internal name into a description
A project’s code name means nothing outside the school. Always describe what the project does, in one line that someone unfamiliar with Epitech can understand.
Before: "Projects: my_rpg, my_ftp, zappy, arcade, EIP."
After:
- "File transfer server in C (sockets, concurrent connection handling), built alone in three weeks; integration tests with a home-made client."
- "Networked game with multiple clients and a server in C++, in a team of six: designed the protocol and the game server."
- "Three-year innovation project, in a team of nine: mobile app for booking sports facilities for associations; responsible for the API (Node.js, PostgreSQL) and for production releases."
The second version lets the recruiter understand the technical difficulty, the size of the team and your role, without knowing the school’s curriculum.
State your personal share
Most projects are done in groups. Always say what you did yourself: a module, a layer, a responsibility. "Responsible for the rendering engine" or "designed the database schema and the API" gives the lead a precise question to ask.
Internships and work-study
Internships are the part of your resume that reassures an employer most, because they show you have already worked in a professional team. Describe them as full experiences:
- the type of company and the size of the team, without necessarily naming the company if you prefer;
- the stack and the method (sprints, code reviews, continuous integration);
- two or three bullets of deliverables: a feature shipped, an internal tool, a migration, with an order of magnitude.
Before: "Developer internship — Took part in developing the application."
After: "Four-month full-stack developer internship at a web agency: developed three modules of a back office in Symfony and Vue.js, shipped to production; wrote the functional tests for the billing module."
If you are looking for a work-study contract, state the schedule offered by your programme and your preferred start date in the summary. A recruiter who does not see this information straight away may move on to the next application.
The year abroad offered by the school is mentioned in one line in the education section, with the host institution and, if they are relevant to the role, the courses taken.
Technical skills
Project-based learning has made you touch many languages: C, C++, Python, JavaScript, sometimes Haskell, Java, Kotlin or Rust. The reflex is to list them all. Resist it.
Instead, organise the section by use, starting with what matches the role you are targeting:
- languages: the two or three you write most, then the others with a more modest mention;
- frameworks and tools: those you used in a project you mention;
- practices: tests, Git in a team, continuous integration, containers.
Our article on presenting your tech stack details this method, which applies to students too. A simple rule: every technology in the section must appear in at least one project or internship described above.
For GitHub, check that the projects you mention are visible, with a README that explains the project in terms understandable outside the school. Also respect the school’s rules on publishing the code of educational projects. Our article on the GitHub link on a resume explains what a lead looks at in a few minutes.
Common mistakes
- Listing internal project names without a description: incomprehensible to an outside recruiter.
- Presenting the piscine as work experience: it is a stage of the programme, to be mentioned in one line in the education section if it adds something.
- Showing ten languages at the same level: the recruiter no longer knows what you master.
- Forgetting internships or summing them up in one line: they are often your best proof.
- Not stating the start date and length of the internship you are looking for: it is the first thing a recruiter looks for on a student resume.
- Going over one page: even with many projects, one page is enough at this stage.
Example
Here is the structure of a fourth-year student’s resume for someone looking for a final-year internship in backend development.
- Summary: "Fourth-year student at Epitech (Grande École programme), looking for a six-month final-year internship in backend development starting in February. Practice of Node.js, Go and PostgreSQL in the innovation project and in internships."
- Education: Epitech, Grande École programme, with one line on the pedagogy and the innovation project; the exchange year abroad with its relevant courses.
- Experience: two internships described by their deliverables, most recent first.
- Projects: the innovation project, a networking project in C, a personal project in Go.
- Skills: three lines grouped by use.
- Languages and interests: English tied to a use, one or two interests.
The mobile developer resume template shows how an Epitech graduate presents their qualification and their published final-year project, and the junior developer resume template offers a structure suited to a first job.
For formatting, an editor that handles the page for you saves time between two projects. TechCV’s produces a plain PDF that recruitment software reads without losing your projects or your dates. You can start your resume from these templates. And if you are looking for your first job after graduating, our article on the first developer job takes over from here.
Frequently asked questions
Should I mention the piscines on my resume?
In one line in the education section, if you want to show the intensive nature of the programme. They do not replace the description of your projects, which speak much more clearly to a recruiter.
How do I present the innovation project if it did not succeed?
Describe what was built and your role, then what the project taught you, without hiding that it stopped. A recruiter values a candidate who can explain why a product did not find its users.
Is the Epitech degree recognised?
The school states that its Grande École programme leads to a diploma of expert in information technology recognised ("visé") by the French Ministry of Higher Education. Use the exact title on your resume: recruiters read it as a five-year post-baccalaureate level.
Do I need an English resume for internships abroad?
Yes, for applications outside France or in international teams. Prepare a separate English version rather than a bilingual resume, adapting job titles and the way you present the degree.