If I was a recruiter, this would go in the not interested heap.
While some companies want generalists, this isn't tailored for that either. You indicate projects you've been on, but not what your specific responsibilities were. Describing the project's language, DB, and how the project is pipelined is not useful. What did -you- do? What experience do -you- now have that could translate to other projects? "Core was a Perl server that collected binary data from upstream devices, stored data using SQL, and relayed it to clients as XML over HTTP." tells me about the project, but not what -you- did, not what experiences -you- now have. Even better if you can highlight keywords for me. The whole 'typical projects' section is kind of a waste; it's project names that have no meaning to me, or which may, but tell me nothing about what technology you know. 'Email client programs'; does that mean you have familiarity with the various email protocols? TCP/IP? GUI development? Nothing anywhere else tells me what it is you know.
Most companies want to fill a niche. Highlight what niche you can fill (yes, preferably tailored for the company), and make that -obvious- in your resume.
In general, take this approach - assume a recruiter, HR person, etc, will spend 3 seconds looking at your resume before deciding whether to bin it, or continue reading it. They are looking to match a certain set of relevant keywords/terms. What message do you want to send to someone in three seconds/what words/terms do you want to be matched against? That should be what I as a reader get from the first sentence, the first item in your experience, and the first item in your skills.
The message you're currently sending is "Old coder, part of a large team that did...some stuff that isn't spelled out clearly, and generalist with a whole lot of bullet points". Not interested. But tell me "Perl, C, and Linux expert, extensive application development experience, double CS/Math major", and suddenly if I have a Perl or C codebase I'm interested. Right now I have to do too much reading and thinking to get that information out, and no recruiter will do that.
Also, in general, you are correct that there is a bias against age. You're making it so the first thing I notice is your age. Make it so the first thing I notice is your experience; make it clear that you fill the niche I have, that you may well be the ideal candidate for my needs, BEFORE I notice your age.
My solution to your initial problem is to have a "note to recruiters" linked prominently at the top of my resume (and linkedin). It covers what kind of places I'd be a good fit for and vice versa. Things like I am not going to update the recruiter's database, tell me company names, small companies/startups etc.
It becomes very apparent very quickly which recruiters have made any effort to read it and if they can't do that, they are unlikely to be paying much attention to their clients either. Since I run my own mail server, I then add the most egregious cases to a block list. (They also tend to be repeat offenders so that problem is solved too.)
When recruiting I look at the initial acronym soup. I especially like people who categorise what they are very good at versus ok. Then I look everything else for substantiation and to get a flavour of experience. For example is networking there, mobile, low level languages (eg C), web stuff, Python/Ruby etc. It is generally a good idea to include the acronym soup for each item in the resume (eg if doing a network server say what language and frameworks were used).
Open source stuff is excellent because it is actually concrete - something I can look at, and far more informative than generic text elsewhere can ever be.
What I am usually ultimately looking for is "smart and gets things done". (Joel has articles with more detail.)
The general bad things people do are what appears to be a bulk send, really long but irrelevant cover letters, and not substantiating things. I was looking at a resume this morning where C++ was listed as the first skill yet could find no mention of it anywhere else. It immediately makes me sceptical of everything else listed.
> Have a big, long "technology used" for a project. For example, "technology used" in a project includes "Python, Java, Javascript, HTML, CSS, jQuery, SQL, C#, Django, Messaging, C, Bash.."
I've also seen this recommended as a way to get past recruiters in big companies.
I feel we should have two separate resumes. One for the recruiter crapshoot (where we play buzzword bingo) and another for engineers.
my website? my github?
my past work experiences, if so do you read the description of what I did?
my projects, if so do you read the description of the project?
the languages and technologies I know?
I agree with you that it would be insulting to pass this on to an industry veteran, and I wouldn't send this to someone who had that kind of resume. A lot of the candidates we've had so far have only been coding for a few years, so I think it's a fair ask, especially from people who don't have a portfolio at all.
So, if I saw a job description like that I would smell BS and never apply. Maybe handing off a resume like that gives the same smell.
You don't give resumes like this, you tailor your pitch to the company which is hiring.
If you are applying to a PHP job, then remove all the fluff and tell the employer that you are a PHP developer. Generalists dont' get hired, then don't be a generalist. Touching up your PHP skills should take a couple of weeks. ;)
I always wanted to add a section to the bottom of my CV titled "Technologies I know nothing about" listing everything I can think of, say .NET. Then wait for recruiters calling / e-mailing with messages like "I noticed you have experience working with .NET"...
Great advice; I did some Scala like ten years ago and put it on my CV and linkedin. Then the recruiters kept sending me offers for a Scala job.
But... I don't know Scala anymore, I don't LIKE scala, and I don't WANT to do scala.
So it's a bit of a trade-off; on the one end, you want your CV and linkedin profile to reflect how amazing you are, how many things you know, etc. But on the other, you want it to be an invitation for people to approach and hire you for something YOU want to be doing.
I've updated my linkedin to reflect what I'm fairly good at - web front-end - because that's job guarantee, and what I want to be doing - Go - for whoever wants to take a punt on it. And I'll keep tweaking it towards what I WANT to do. I'm sure I'll keep mentioning what I've worked with in the descriptors of different jobs and projects, but I will de-emphasize the list of technologies in the summary section.
I partially agree with much of what he is saying. As a hiring manager looking over resumes, I cared nothing at all for things that were not at all connected with the job. But I was very interested in things that were tangentially related.
For instance, I hired mostly MS Sql Server/C# developers, but having python on the resume indicated they had a broader base within programming (and also that they probably learned on their own beyond what was needed just for the job.) The same with having Oracle or MySql on the resume along with SQL Server, it showed a broader base in related technologies.
Also, I was very interested in someone with good face to face communication skills. Most of our software was used in-house so the primary users often spoke with the primary developers face to face and a lack of ability to interact that way was awkward at the best.
I've started writing my resume in a more prosaic form, and dropping the stilted language of resumes past. I talk about not just what I bring to the table, but also what I'm not looking for in an employer. Check it out if you'd like to get a better sense of what I mean.
(It's also worth noting that I have ~12.5 years of experience in the software industry, Seattle—the city where I live—has a hot tech market, and I have focused mainly on iOS software development for the past six years. Relatedly, I never apply for jobs through websites, only through people, meaning that I manage to skip buzzword-skimming front-line recruiters. So YMMV.)
Coming at this from the other side of the table, my first reaction to reading most resumes is "so what?" Tell me why I should care that you increased Flibbet production by 22%, or that you decreased bug volume by 19%. What does that translate into in terms that someone who doesn't work at that company would care about?
From my experience, recruiters only ever send "big company" profiles: MSCE certified, Cisco whatever, Oracle yadda yadda, Java enterprise stuff and stuff, RedHat thingy and the likes. My interest in these sort of profiles is exactly equal to zero, because we use Debian, Perl, C and postgresql. And we haven't even got a single windows machine, and nobody in the team ever wore a tie in his whole life.
Actual people I'm interested in have zero certs, may have zero diplomas, wear ragged jeans and flip-flops and beards, but they have friggin' code to show and run Linux (or some other Unix) on their personal computer. Anything else than displaying obvious ability to write code is meaningless to me. Since I explained this was the profiles I'm looking for, I didn't received any more résumés from recruiters.
So it all depends very much on the sort of job you're looking for. My guess is if you're an hacker and you want to work in a startup, never mind the recruiters. Making a latex résumé is fine, because of the added bonus points.
Yup, agreed. On my resume I have a list of my jobs and the things I accomplished at those companies, and I don't mention tech stack or language unless it's relevant to the accomplishment. At the bottom I have a "keyword list" of the frameworks and languages I've used and feel competent in, without saying anything about years of experience. (I've found this is useful to get through the recruiters who filter by keyword.)
Just apply to jobs, and talk about what you've done, and how you did it.
Im sorry but this article does nothing for me. In fact here's my 2 rupees:
> Quantify your accomplishments: For eg instead of "Used java to build a scalable trading platform" try "Build trading system used by YY people in ZZ countries that managed $XXX billion" . I'm sure it can be improved but the idea is QUANTIFY.
> After every bullet point you write ask "SO WHAT?". You used some cool technology to build something gee-whiz? ...SO WHAT? Why should your potential employer care. Explain how the skills matter to them.
>Resumes are eventually going to go away/get marginalized. Build a solid linkedin profile. You don't need 500 connections but try and get as many recommendations as you can. Put up a professional picture, link to a blog or a portfolio that showcases the work you've done.
>Attend meetups, network. In NYC the demand for good software talent is ridiculously high! Just show up for events and if you have even half decent coding skills people will be inviting you for interviews (so resume's matter even less).
I'd argue that this is a resume overindexed on getting past recruiting filters looking for specific JavaScript libraries or UNIX commands. Even the recruiters action may not be necessarily bad - startups with a decided tech stack might decide they are not able to provide the time for a new hire to ramp up.
Effectively you penalise not catering the candidate resume to what you are looking for or deem important.
The difference between the preferences of posted job requirements and recruiters is stunning. From reading hundreds of job requirements you get the strongest indication it’s a keyword game and nothing else matters, but recruiters who are actively and manually sifting through resumes are clearly looking for something different.
Example: according to most job postings for web developer the new hot title is Fullstack Senior Engineer which consists primarily of React on the front end with a fallback to Angular and Java with a fallback to Python on the backend. Everything else reads as insignificant filler. I don’t want to blindly dick around with your framework insanity like a junior so I am sure to omit this from my resume and recruiters still contact me about TypeScript and Node.
Just a heads up, but I've worked for at least two companies so far that automatically throw away any applications written in code like that. It's pretty common that people submit resumes like this, and I've never seen anyone hired from it.
I hate to be negative, however I just want to make sure you don't disqualify yourself from jobs you're qualified for :)
If you decide to keep it, I'd make everything that isn't a string (aka, the actual details about you) a light gray that fades into the background. So, anyone scanning it only really sees the important parts.
[EDIT] More critiques:
- What languages do you write? Java? List the languages, don't just mock business people for no reason. That line is offensive to some people and means nothing to everyone else.
- At least three of your "Achievements" are negative about yourself (and make you look glib)
- Have you never had a job nor gone to college?
One thing I look for in resumes is a subjective sense of whether the candidate is smart/passionate. While these things are very hard to glean from a static and short document, I find, like a few of the other commenters, that a regurgitation of everything you've ever touched is a huge negative.
I'd much rather see less buzzwords and more content. Very few resumes actually contain job descriptions where I can tell what the person actually worked on. I care much less about what language you worked in than what you actually accomplished and whether you have strong CS fundamentals.
I'm also working on a resume analyzer and trying to use it to predict candidate success. One feature that has showed up as consistently being a predictor of a poor candidate is high keyword saturation (# of languages, OSs, frameworks etc divided by total resume length).
I find it so interesting that you select for that, because that example tells you virtually nothing about the person that isn't generically applicable to a large number of candidates.
Especially those with 13 years experience. Delivering 30 projects is the only item that stood out for me, but everyone with a few years can make that claim depending on what they choose to call a project.
The number of languages listed is laughably small for a 13 year candidate, but I guess they have picked out the ones they think you want to see.
From that resume, I cannot tell even one thing that the person is particularly good at, or any qualities they could bring to the company that would set them apart - other than their decision to write a short resume and avoid telling you much about themselves.
I look for things that are directly applicable to the posting I have up.
I dislike seeing filler like "SVN", or "Word". I hate it when people list every piece of software they've ever touched. Tell me what's relevant and I'll assume that's not the full corpus of your computer using career.
Here is a snippet of something I pulled out of a random resume from my 'rejected' file:
MS Office, DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript, ASP/ASP.Net, C#,
VB/VB.Net, AJAX, JAVA, SQL
This was for a C# gig. I don't care at all about Windows 3.1. Or MS office for that matter.
You’re describing work that has no relevance outside of a megacorp like Google which even amongst megacorps is quite unique because it invents technology and can afford to do so.
If you look at the type of work being done at “normal” companies you’re applying for, you’ll likely see work that is much more at the coal face and so experience at the coal face is worth much more than work that most people can’t even conceptualise — even if it happened at Google.
In a competitive hiring environment, you need your resume to tell the person reviewing it why you’re a safe bet. Your resume tells me that if I need someone to build internal full stack web-app automation then you’ve got experience of doing that at Google… which is great except Google is pretty much the only place where that work is required.
Don’t think of your experience as a list of things you’ve done, think of it as evidence for why you’re the right candidate to fill a role. If you’re applying for a company that has an internal customer support system then absolutely shout about how you did exactly that at Google, it’ll get you an interview… if you’re applying for a company that builds AR furniture previewing for e-commerce, it’s probably not worth even mentioning.
The perfect resume is a copy-and-paste of the job spec, you need to get as close to that as is possible. If you did a random weekend project at Google that can be framed as relevant to the job you’re applying for, that will do more for you than the hundreds of engineering hours you saved by automating the deployment of full stack apps.
Google is valuable to have on your resume because it lends credibility to the work you did, but that work has to be relevant to the job you’re applying for.
> I can say I worked with Java, Angular, Typescript, etc. But that's all exceedingly generic
For example, if you’re applying for a company that uses Angular, the focus of your experience section should be having used Angular at Google. A single paragraph that says “Google created Angular, I worked every day with Angular at Google. I built web apps that help support millions of Google customers via a customer service team processing thousands of calls per day. I used angular features x y and z and contributed code to Angular itself.” would be an order of magnitude more effective than what you have now.
While some companies want generalists, this isn't tailored for that either. You indicate projects you've been on, but not what your specific responsibilities were. Describing the project's language, DB, and how the project is pipelined is not useful. What did -you- do? What experience do -you- now have that could translate to other projects? "Core was a Perl server that collected binary data from upstream devices, stored data using SQL, and relayed it to clients as XML over HTTP." tells me about the project, but not what -you- did, not what experiences -you- now have. Even better if you can highlight keywords for me. The whole 'typical projects' section is kind of a waste; it's project names that have no meaning to me, or which may, but tell me nothing about what technology you know. 'Email client programs'; does that mean you have familiarity with the various email protocols? TCP/IP? GUI development? Nothing anywhere else tells me what it is you know.
Most companies want to fill a niche. Highlight what niche you can fill (yes, preferably tailored for the company), and make that -obvious- in your resume.
In general, take this approach - assume a recruiter, HR person, etc, will spend 3 seconds looking at your resume before deciding whether to bin it, or continue reading it. They are looking to match a certain set of relevant keywords/terms. What message do you want to send to someone in three seconds/what words/terms do you want to be matched against? That should be what I as a reader get from the first sentence, the first item in your experience, and the first item in your skills.
The message you're currently sending is "Old coder, part of a large team that did...some stuff that isn't spelled out clearly, and generalist with a whole lot of bullet points". Not interested. But tell me "Perl, C, and Linux expert, extensive application development experience, double CS/Math major", and suddenly if I have a Perl or C codebase I'm interested. Right now I have to do too much reading and thinking to get that information out, and no recruiter will do that.
Also, in general, you are correct that there is a bias against age. You're making it so the first thing I notice is your age. Make it so the first thing I notice is your experience; make it clear that you fill the niche I have, that you may well be the ideal candidate for my needs, BEFORE I notice your age.
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