

Leonardo da Vinci's Resume - peteforde
http://www.cenedella.com/job-search/leonardo-da-vincis-resume/

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hartror
Original posting to hacker news [1] mentioned in the updates of the post, I
had not seen this however so thanks for the repost.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1086391>

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boredguy8
We read this in high school. I remember thinking, "Wow, you have to sell what
the buyer wants to get to the point where you can do what you want."

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da5e
So Leonardo was a defense contractor. I think the lesson is that no matter how
big a genius you think you are you still have to get out there and sell
something.

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tjmaxal
Did anyone else notice how repetitive this was. He basically took an entire
page to say, I can blow stuff up, build bridges, am a capable
artist/architect. I guess even Da Vinci needed to add some fluff.

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sp332
In a lot of cultures, being concise is not a virtue. Eloquence is valued, and
demonstrating a facility with words is a marker of status. Using a lot of
words to describe something shows the amount of attention or value you give to
it. So spending a long time and a lot of big words on his accomplishments is
an indicator of how cool they are.

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wybo
A thing to note here is that at that time probably almost everyone that
mattered in Italy had heard of Leonardo da Vinci's past works. So yes of
course he could leave out past achievements.

In short I don't think this is good advice to people that haven't made
sufficient name for themselves yet, or that are coming from other fields...
Though focusing conveying value offered, is of course a good idea.

(Disclaimer: I am no expert on resumes)

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hasenj
How do you know that? If he was already famous at the time, why bother list
his abilities? He would need not more than say "Leonardo Da Vinci, at your
service my Lord".

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wybo
Because he received a reference from the Medici's (a very powerful family),
and already had done some notable work by that time, if I remember correctly.

In any case upper class Italy was a small world at that time, and personal
recommendations, as well as informal sources of information would have been
much more important than resumes for conveying past achievements...

(but I'm no expert on da Vinci or his time, apart from an essay in my
undergraduate years, common sense, and the general gist of a history
undergrad...)

Anyway, the main point I wanted to make is that the information- flows that
are not recorded are often more important, than those that are, especially in
historic documents...

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Jun8
This always impresses me, but the important question is: did it work, i.e. did
the Duke employ him? Wikipedia says "Leonardo continued work in Milan between
1482 and 1499" but otherwise is mum whether he was sponsored by the Duke or
not.

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antirez
the italian used in the resume is seriously fun by today's standards...

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naz
How so?

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antirez
"Ho modi di ponti leggerissimi e forti ed atti a portare facilissimamente".

Today: "So costruire ponti leggerissimi e forti che si possono trasportare
facilmente".

And so forth.

Completely understandable but funny.

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simcop2387
reminds me a lot of the kinds of spellings you see in the original writings of
shakespeare. I guess this was done before strict spelling in Italian had been
standardized also?

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sambeau
I imagine that "Q" from James Bond's resume would read similarly.

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nika
Leo focusing on value offered!

Imagine a programmer resume. None of this "have you worked with ruby"... "I
know how to construct complex system that are able to scale such that the cost
per given unit of load declines as load is increased", etc.

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spoon16
This is my own resume... it is similar to the format you mention. I worked
this up trying to maintain a single page resume. I have had good luck with
getting interviews.

<http://spoon16.github.com/>

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peteforde
Assuming that you're open to feedback if you're posting it here.

\- while subjective, paragraph justification is generally considered to
decrease readability (and it's objectively ugly!)

\- use bold/caps/emphasis less and it will stand out more

\- it strikes me as odd to list so many references

\- consider paring down the references and LinkedIn stuff and replacing that
freed space with your non-coding hobbies and interests (my #1 hiring
consideration)

\- it's illegal in many places to discriminate based on appearance (stuff you
can't change) so many employers will discard resumes that contain a photo of
the applicant to mitigate future risk

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mkramlich
> \- it's illegal in many places to discriminate based on appearance (stuff
> you can't change) so many employers will discard resumes that contain a
> photo of the applicant to mitigate future risk

So they see his appearance, then discard his resume from consideration. That's
Orwellian/paradoxical, boggles my mind actually. On several levels. I mean,
it's almost guaranteed they're going to get to see him in person and learn his
gender/race/body-condition/approximate-age at some point before a hiring
decision is made, anyway. Hilarious!

I actually like photos because it makes it more human and realistic. And yes,
because sometimes you can see (at least a statistically significant
correlation with) certain desired qualities in the way someone's face and body
look. Most smart/fit people tend to look it, and vice versa -- not 100%
correlation, of course, but statistically significant trends are noticeable
over the course of real life experience.

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sambeau
"sometimes you can see (at least a statistically significant correlation with)
certain desired qualities in the way someone's face and body look"

Sadly, this is exactly the kind of idiocy that has been used to excuse racism
and sexism for centuries. It's the same nonsense that had victorians measuring
criminals' ears and is no different to a late-nineties British start-up I knew
that would only employ female staff that had a breast-size bigger than 36B.

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mkramlich
> Sadly, this is exactly the kind of idiocy

rude

