

Ask HN: How many languages to list on resume - anonhacker

I'm updating my resume and the list of skills/languages and tools is getting super long and looks somewhat ridiculous(at least to me). Is there a way to be selective about it?
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donretag
As my career grew, I found myself putting less and less on the skills section
of my resume. My next version might not have the section all together. The
reason is that I want to be considered as a code architect and not simply a
list of buzzwords. I am at the point in my career that I can be picky about
who I work for and no one will pigeonhole me into buzzwords.

Of course, if you are junior, you might need to list these skills in order to
pass any matching software if you are applying to big companies. In general,
only list skills that you wish the explore and develop further. Do not care
for PHP anymore? Do not list it. Are you rusty in some language that you used
as a freshman? I would not list it as well. Do not list "common" tech skills
such as HTML. If a recruiter (internal/external) does not have a buzzword
match with your resume, you probably do not want to work for that company
anyways.

For any skill section (language, OS, etc...) list at least 2-3 to show you
have some depth. Applying to a job with Ruby as your only language is not
ideal.

EDIT: I should add that the skills section is definitely a good spot to add
something that you have been learning on your own. It is a great conversation
starter and shows your interest to grow outside of work.

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anonhacker
Thanks, i will definitely remove the "common" skills.

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cwgem
In general I make a resume targeted to the company I'm looking to apply for
(or if it's a job site the type of position I'm most interested).

With that in mind I keep the main language that the company cares about front
and center, and maybe a few supplemental languages if they are a multi-
language shop. For specific positions I do research into what languages that
position most requires. For sysadmin for example, I would most likely put Ruby
(Chef/Puppet), perl (parsing, general scripting), and bash (general
scripting).

If you really want to go into depth, there's always the interview for that.

~~~
anonhacker
My main issue is that I want to avoid needing to customize my resume to the
company every time. I already spend a bunch of time writing cover letters to
companies, and most of the time you never even hear back. (I'm applying to
internships)

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bjourne
If you happen to know every pl from Clojure to assembly, why on earth wouldn't
you list it? The more languages you know the better. If someone disagrees with
that statement, then that's stupid people you don't want to have anything to
do with anyway.

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andrewstuart
I wrote something on this topic a while back.
<http://www.supercoders.com.au/blog/theskillsmatrix.shtml>

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danso
Is it not possible for you to sort best to worst and keep just what your best
at? The other factor is to consider the demand for e language. You may not
love Python the most but if your goal is to get a job almost anywhere, then
prioritizing your Python experience is a good strategy.

