
How programmers should write their resumes - gsabo
http://www.doesnotcompute.biz/5-dos-and-donts-to-make-your-software-engineer-resume-world-famous?utm_campaign=Technology%20List%20Builder&utm_medium=hackernews&utm_source=social
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russelluresti
I find these funny. Not helpful to anyone at all, but funny.

Article says: "Sure, you might have implemented a new feature "in less than a
month", but why did you start in the first place?"

90% of developers reply with: "Oh dear God, I don't make the decisions. As far
as I know, some AE was golfing with some d-bag client/customer who, between
jokes about breasts and baseball, mentioned 'Wouldn't it be cool if your
product...' and now I've been told to make it happen."

Article says: "Use all that freed-up real estate to describe how you made it
better than anyone else could have."

Self-aware developers reply with: "Well, actually, someone else probably could
have done a better job. I'm good, but I'm not the guy giving talks and
inventing technologies. That guy doesn't need to write a resume. That guy
shows up in jeans and a t-shirt and walks away with an offer 3x my salary."

Article says: "what was the impact of your work...in numbers?"

90% of developers reply with: "HAHAHAHAHAHA. You think we kept analytics???
Good one. That's a good one."

Article says: "You resume should be devoid of personality."

I reply with: "Please die in a fire."

Article says: "Answer this: what kind of job are you looking for?"

A confused developer replies with: "But still write my resume in exactly the
same way whether I'm applying at a Fortune 100 company or a 5 person start-
up?"

It was at this point I stopped reading, so if there's more ridiculousness at
the end, well, you have more patience than I do.

------
luch
I rarely agree with the author of this blog post :

\- "Don't bother mentioning your G.P.A." : I know firms are only interested in
your diploma's name, but it can be an advantage to mention you passed summa
cum laude whereas another barely made it by coasting and offloading his share
of works on others students (which is unfortunately a useful skill in the
workplace).

\- "Don't bother using verbs other than "made" for programming projects." : I
completely disagree. Using the exact verb to describe your work show your
understanding of the tasks which fell onto you, but also your writing
proficiency (which will be reflected in the quality of your comments).

\- "Answer this: where can I look at some stuff you built?" Github is a nice
place to show-off your skill but not everyone is interested in open-source
side-projects, so it's not a silver bullet.

\- "Answer this: which languages and databases do you prefer?" Well, if you
want to pass the résumes' automatic parser used by the HR dep., you need to
stuff your application with keywords anyway.

\- "Don't bring up your hobbies." : This one really raised my hair. Not
everyone is tweeting every part of their life (I certainly don't) so hobbies
are a great way to lighten the mood during the interview and assessing the
interviewee's personality.

~~~
boobsbr
> Answer this: where can I look at some stuff you built?

You can't, it's closed source proprietary internal stuff. And I'm not allowed
to talk too much about it because I had to sign a NDA.

~~~
bicx
This. And while learning is important, I really am getting tired of the
bullshit line about everyone needing open-source side projects (and this is
coming from a guy who enjoys side projects). How many other professionals need
side projects for legitimization? My mechanical engineering friends build
stuff too, but no one's expecting them to bring in a home-made contraption for
their interviews.

~~~
JazCE
Fully agree. I wouldn't discount anyone for not having a github project. I
have a life outside of work, i enjoy going out and being with friends and
family. I spend most of my waking hours during the week at my machine coding,
it's not something I want to do at the weekend, and that doesn't make me a bad
coder.

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danielweber
This is yet another "I wish the world would work a certain way, so I am going
to tell everyone that they should adapt to my worldview" job-market post.

The author may even be hiring and saying "these are the only kinds of resumes
I read" but there are a thousand other companies out there with their own
criteria for what makes a resume work.

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imdsm
> "Don't try anything cute. You resume should be devoid of personality."

I have to disagree. I got my current job because my resume stood out. It was
the only one not written in MS word. The other candidates had equal if not
greater experience than me, but I got the job before they even got a response.

If you're going for a programming position where you're not expected to be
different, then sure, but if you're going for a development role where you may
be full stack, or expected to be different, make sure your resume shows that.

Sell yourself in the 10 seconds you get. A school boy resume isn't going to do
that.

And as mh_yam says, don't call yourself a programmer.

~~~
mh_yam
Agreed. My (LaTeX) resume that I spend many hours refining has caught the
attention of many hiring managers, and I often get compliments on it. Curse
those recruiters who reformat my resume into their shitty Word templates. I've
had times where a hiring manager would have the recruiter's version of the
resume, and when I handed them my pretty resume they were pleasantly
surprised.

~~~
MetaCosm
The recruiters do that because lots of HR departments are explicit: docx or
deleted.

Once you get through the screen, you can show them your fancy resume, but at
that point, no one cares about your resume -- you already caught their
attention and it is interview / references time.

~~~
mh_yam
Haha. If a company doesn't want to hire me because my resume is not in .docx
format, I probably don't want to be working there anyway!

~~~
MetaCosm
That is one way to look at it -- a rather unproductive one, but you are
welcome to it. Lots of great teams work at large companies and have no control
over the first pass of resumes.

The reasons are often somewhat complex. Their application tracking software
only supports word. Their IT department has sent word from atop the mountain
to only accept .docx because it works with their AV and a bad virus got into
the company via PDF last year.

It isn't the people you are going to be working with that are the problem, it
is the people who defend the outer ring of large companies -- IT and HR
departments.

~~~
imdsm
As mh_yam said, if they're only accepting .docx, and if someone else controls
the first stage of the recruitment process, then maybe these aren't the right
companies for some people.

Larger companies may do this, and if you like larger companies, this is
probably ok. Not for me.

------
cpwright
In general, I think this advice is off. Particularly, "don't use a word other
than made." Using developed, designed, implemented, deployed, or a variety of
other words that have slightly different meaning to indicate what your actual
contributions were makes sense. In general I think made is imprecise, and
makes whatever the object that was created appear simple.

I also think that if you have a GPA that is worth being proud of you should
include it. It takes up very little space, and it summarizes years of
accomplishment in a quantitative way. I'm more than 10 years out of my
undergrad now, but I'm still going to say that my GPA was 3.98 (4.0 in
majors).

------
vezzy-fnord
_Not into GitHub? Register a memorable domain and throw together a to-the-
point portfolio page instead._

Or use another goddamned software hosting service? I'll never understand this
sense of GitHub supremacy amongst trendies.

Otherwise, the advice in general is subpar.

~~~
ToastyMallows
Is having a portfolio website necessary now-a-days? What does HN think?

~~~
chadwickthebold
Having a portfolio website is necessary to get a job at the place most HN
entrepreneurs are interested in running. For better or worse, a portfolio or
an active github are almost necessary to land a position at a top-tier company
or a startup. If you want to work for a generic business that has grown a
software division out of necessity then your basic resume will do just fine.

~~~
JazCE
Would you/they discount people who have >5 years experience working for
mainstream organisations that might have "grown a software division out of
necessity", but no github activity?

~~~
danielweber
Typical thought process for deciding what features a candidate needs to have.

1\. I am a good programmer.

2\. I have/am _X_.

3\. (Optional) Just-so story about how _X_ makes you a good developer.

4\. Therefore, job candidates must have/be _X_.

I've seen this taken to stupid lengths, where employers want someone who has
done professional work with the exact toolchain in use. I don't like car
analogies, but it would be like hiring a driver and saying "well, we need
someone familiar with the Ford Fusion, and you only have driven a Ford
Taurus."

------
facepalm
Citation needed. Is there any indication that the suggested type of resume
works? Other than when applying for a job with the author, I suppose?

------
mh_yam
Don't call yourself a programmer.

~~~
aeonsky
While it might make one feel better to call oneself an engineer (you're not,
it is not one of the original engineering practices), a developer (I guess, is
it any better though), guru, ninja, evangelist (rebranded words). There is
absolutely no need for these names in the software context. All of these words
are made for the touchy-feely Gen-Y'ers (which I am a part of). While everyone
tries to make the word "programmer" a dirty word these days, I'm proud to call
myself one. When I go into job descriptions, I would put "Helped
architech...", "developed a...", "designed flow of...", and etc.

~~~
rjbez17
I would argue anyone that is creating anything within software is doing
engineering (and know what they are doing):

The American Engineers' Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the
predecessor of ABET) has defined "engineering" as: The creative application of
scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or
manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or
to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to
forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects
an intended function, economics of operation or safety to life and property.

Software engineers take scientific methods created/researched/etc from
Computer Scientists and created something from it. The difference between an
engineer and joe shmo is that an engineer understands the science behind what
they are doing.

An engineer could build a bridge and a regular guy could build a bridge. Both
may work for 100 years, but the engineer KNOWS it will work for 100 years
(under specific conditions obviously) and the regular guy doesn't. The same
could be said for software.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering)

~~~
aeonsky
While I do agree with you somewhat, I'm willing to give up to be called an
engineer by others to stop all of these new engineering disciplines from
appearing: political engineering, social engineering, market engineering. With
this logic you can apply engineering to anything you do. Engineering used to
be a much nobler and much more respected calling, not so much anymore.

------
doesnt_know
Programmers shouldn't write their resumes at all.

Get it done by a professional service. It's pretty much one of the most
important documents you will ever have created. It's your ticket to
employment, which is quite likely determining your quality of life.

Shop around. Find a quality, professional resume writing service with plenty
of positive testimonials that will provide a custom service, not some "paste
your text into a template" crock job.

~~~
danielweber
How will the programmer know that the professional service is doing a good
job? I've seen recruiters -- supposedly experts in what it takes to get hired,
and are motivated because the only way they get compensated if I get the
position -- completely butcher my resume.

~~~
doesnt_know
Recruiting and Resume Writing are completely different services. One gets paid
by a company when they fill roles, the other is paid directly by you and are
accountable to you. Surely you can see the difference? Also, for the record,
not all recruiters are like that, but it's probably pointless trying to
convince you otherwise.

Pick the service like you pick any other service. Word of mouth from people
you trust, reviews, research into the service, common sense, money-back
guarantee etc. How do pick how to use any service? How do you pick an
important SAAS or library or API to use?

If you are so convinced you wouldn't be able to tell if a service is doing a
good job, how do you know that this recruiter you went to "butchered" your
resume and didn't improve it?

Sorry if I'm coming across as overly combative, I just feel that IT
professionals in particular are really bad at acknowledging their inexperience
in other domains. I think this is especially true when it comes to writing.
Perhaps it has something to do with documentation traditionally being an
afterthought in the FLOSS world.

~~~
danielweber
I'm sure they could give me a pretty resume. How can I tell if it _actually
works_? There are dozens of factors at play[1]. While job candidates need to
dedicate time to the job hunt (just like employers need to dedicate time to
recruiting people) it's hard to imagine having the bandwidth and the sample
size to do A/B testing of my resume compared with the "professional" one.

I can tell ugly and bad resumes. When a bunch of sentences on using Microsoft
Office have been added to my resume, I can tell it's a bad resume. This
doesn't mean I can tell the difference between the 95th percentile and the
98th percentile resume for a particular employer, where the latter will get me
in the door and the former won't.

> but it's probably pointless trying to convince you otherwise.

Hey, thanks man!

[1] Say there are two companies and one has a "don't say anything about
hobbies" hiring manager and the other has an "always mention hobbies" hiring
manager.

~~~
doesnt_know
You can tell if it actually works, when it actually works. I went from 0
callbacks to around a 30%-40% interview rate. It become 100% when I just let a
recruiter do it for me (probably because he didn't "gamble" going for jobs
that were outside my experience like I sometimes did).

I'm not really sure what else to tell you. When you use any service, there is
always a chance that the result is shit. As an adult and a consumer you just
have to do your best to mitigate the risk.

If you are already getting lots of callbacks and interviews then it's probably
already fine. But if you are getting none, then it's time to swallow your
pride and accept that you need help from a professional.

 _> Hey, thanks man!_

I didn't mean to insult you, but if your personal experience with recruiters
is only negative, nothing I say will change that perception.

------
yeukhon
_Answer this: what kind of job are you looking for?_

This is a good tip. I often just say _My interest never leaves education, tool
automation, and security_.

------
jasonlotito
Like _all_ advice on resumes and interviews, this should be read with the
understanding it only applies to the particular person writing the article.
So, if you are applying to a company where this person is reading the the
resume and decided whether to interview you, write the resume using this
advice. Otherwise, it will make no difference.

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robinduckett
This is an advert for his "resume fixing" product, regardless of wether it's
free or not.

