Ask HN: How would you convince someone to hire you without your resume? - nikunjness
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brd
When you're getting hired you're just selling someone on the idea of you. You
just need to create a signal that you're worth the purchase. There is nothing
magic about a resume other than it's the most typical way an employee sells
themselves. Other signals of your worth could be recommendations, credentials,
publications, intelligent conversation, etc.

I prefer the "meet and greet" approach to job hunting. If we have a good
conversation about their needs and how I'd satisfy them, I'm inclined to feel
a little insulted when a resume is asked for.

~~~
nikunjness
I totally agree with you. "Meet and greet" has worked for me so far. I'm tired
of reading "send your updated cv/resume" line on every job description. While
lot of things are changing in hiring process, this is the area where I see
very few companies being innovative.

A person is more than his/her resume and I wish companies could realize this.

------
gesman
The conversation need to start from the other end. _Them_ approaching you
personally to be hired.

This does not mean being spammed by AMZN or GOOG or other recruiters. This
means being approached by hiring manager or higher.

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seanccox
I scored a job doing investigative due diligence by threatening the hiring
manager's family.

I didn't know I was being interviewed, we were just two people seated
alongside one another at a wedding reception, having pleasant casual
conversation. She made me feel totally at ease, complimented my suit, laughed
at my jokes, and was really inquisitive about me. After an hour of answering
her questions, I began to notice that she wasn't answering any of mine. She
would subtly bring the conversation back around to me. In isolation, it never
felt evasive, but the pattern of doing so did.

So, I casually commented that she must have been a middle child to be so adept
in conversation. She smiled and indicated that, in fact, she had just one
younger brother. To which I responded: "And now I know you have a younger
brother, so why don't you tell me what this interview is all about."

After collecting her jaw from the floor, she offered me a job.

I guess you can file that under being approached by them first, but I thought
y'all might enjoy the story.

~~~
nikunjness
I indeed enjoyed the story. If this was on quora, you would be famous by now.
While these kind of scenarios happen in a rare case, I'm wondering why
companies still stick to old-fashioned hiring process?

May be we all can put our thoughts on this problem and come up with some
innovative solution that can change it. Thanks for sharing your story.

~~~
seanccox
Hiring is a difficult process and I presume that you are specifically
interested hiring for tech-focused positions. For my employer, they knew they
needed a specific skill set and knew how to look for it. The interviewer told
me later that she was looking for someone who had competence in the local
language, who could stay engage at several levels in a conversation, and who
could demonstrate quick thinking.

Those aren't easy skills to extract from someone on first meeting or through
conversation, but their firm consistently does so. For a tech position, I
think a similar approach could be possible, but I have to admit I neither know
how, nor do I know how it can be initiated.

Maybe the same thing could be accomplished by a savvy tech interviewer at a
conference or other networking event? Again, knowing what they need, using
casual chatter, directing a conversation toward a tech problem and seeing how
it engages the person (and how they handle the puzzle). That approach might
work, but it probably isn't practical for a huge corporation. In any event,
thinking about it is a neat exercise.

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cbhl
Word of mouth.

My first job: my high school CS teacher knew I was good with computers
anecdotally. (He heard second-hand from another staff member that I had looked
at another student's buggy code, written in a language I had never seen
before, and identified and fixed the bug in a few minutes, before I had ever
taken a formal CS class at the high school.) One of the teacher's former
students had a small business that was hiring people to do some one-off data
entry work over winter break and asked if I wanted to give it a go. (I said
yes.)

Boss liked my work ethic, and offered to hire me back the following summer to
work on their C#/ASP.NET code base (even though I'd never coded C# in my
life).

~~~
nikunjness
Agree. Word of mouth helps. My first job was through word of mouth.

I would like to describe this as a "social proof". You're recommended by
genuine people for a particular job.

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JSeymourATL
Show a keen interest in the individuals problems, priorities, and mission--
share ideas on how you can help assist them. Gitomer has a good piece on
Buyer's (Hiring Executive) Motivations >
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1w-BX8jMJQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1w-BX8jMJQ)

------
marvy
You might have noticed a few triblebyte blog posts on the front page lately.
They don't do resumes. (Of course, you have to be ok with YC companies, or
else they're not much use to you.)

------
rainmaking
Demonstrate relevant skill.

