The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Resume critique?

Is the JoS forum a good place to do resume critiquing?

Anon
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

I'd say yes.

Careful tho, we're pretty harsh. =-)

Alyosha`
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

I hate resumes.

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

I'm very embarassed, but oh well.

I've just sat here for the past five minutes wondering why someone would think JoS is a good place to resume critiquing.

Painful.

Nigel
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

s'okay - blame Joel for not supporting Unicode on his discussion forum.

Philo

Philo
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

» Í Å

www.MarkTAW.com
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Damn. I was going by Alyosha's name.

Philo

Philo
Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Would that be "Alyosha`'s name"

www.MarkTAW.com
Thursday, January 15, 2004

By the way, the apostrophe is actually part of his name, it's on his birth certificate that way.

www.MarkTAW.com
Thursday, January 15, 2004

Is everyone's coffee machine broken this morning?

Simon Lucy
Thursday, January 15, 2004

Having been both on the send and receiving end of resumes, my opinion is: LESS IS MORE.

When I've found myself job hunting and resume writing, here's what I've tended to do. First, I decide what I can do and what I want to do. Last time, I did this, I think I came up with three positions.

Next, I look at job advertisements and postings for the three positions in which I'm interested or at least capable of doing (sometimes you need to find *a* job rather than *the* job). I then create three resumes tailor made for each position.

My advice: Don't clog your resume with the 12 languages
you've brushed up against, all sorts of irrelevant experience, etc. Be a good marketer. Identify your target market and nail it.

You're trying to get in the door. Don't force an HR robotroid to search for XML in a sea of acronym soup with his or her yellow highlighter. Make it painstakingly clear you are a double bull's eye for the job advertised...

"Hmmm... Job listed says C++ and XML. Resume says C++ and XML."

It's so clear a preschooler could connect the two terms with lines. ;-)

You might want to put other skills on your resume, but don't try to overwhelm people with the vastness of your alleged knowledge. It confuses the HR people.

And if the resume makes it to engineering, as you probably know, engineers tend to be skeptical. If you really know C++, Java, Ada, Basic, Cobol, yatta, yatta, yatta, one quickly wonders if you have mastered any of them, especially the ones they're really looking for.

From my little collection of tailor made resumes, I choose and send the resume that fits best with the job listed.

I don't recommend misrepresenting yourself, but I do recommend that you don't over-represent yourself. Put on your marketing hat and remember that you are marketing yourself. In this situation, you are the product.

oh well, whatever, nevermind...
Thursday, January 15, 2004

I don't know how this applies to others, but when I was hiring, we were looking for a semi-common but specific set of skills. The job post we put on Monster.com, etc made this clear (ie, "must have experience with...").

So all the resume's that didn't mention these were immediately tossed out.

This is why I've started ordering the sections on my resume' as:

Skills

Experience

Education

...rather than the other way around, which I often see. My reasoning is that if you're from Alumni U, but don't have the listed skills for the job, who cares. But if you have the exact job requirement, but graduated from Nowhere Tech, I'll still probably interview you.

EAW
Thursday, January 15, 2004

In case anyone's wondering, the possessive form of my name is "Alyosha`s".

And yes, the backtick is on my birth certificate that way, although we don't know if that's a slip of the pen or something in the paper or what ...

Alyosha`
Thursday, January 15, 2004

That's cool. Makes it almost impossible to arrest you, doesn't it? [grin]

Philo

Philo
Thursday, January 15, 2004

Some of my friends have created whole little sites devoted to their experience, and then send out a resume to an HR person that is succinct for that specific position, but provides a link to the site for more details.

Those of you who are hiring, do you look at such things? Whenever I get a resume with this type of reference, I spend a few minutes getting to know the person's work before I decide whether to call them back or not...

don't want the boss to know....
Thursday, January 15, 2004