
The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume - sklivvz1971
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2016/10/bye-bye-bullets-the-stack-overflow-developer-story-is-the-new-technical-resume/
======
fecak
As someone who reads and writes thousands of developer resumes a year, the
major problem I see is that people have a difficult time separating what is
important from what isn't, and separating day-to-day responsibilities (which
are typically understood from a job title) from unique and novel achievements.
I don't know if this kind of tool solves that problem.

Much of my work with resume clients is extracting what they do from them and
then putting it into efficient words. Many people struggle with just
explaining what they do.

The other problem is that you have to understand that your reader often isn't
someone with a highly technical background (or even a recruiting background),
so you have to define yourself quickly in order to prevent the reader from
misinterpreting who you are. If a reader is looking for a "Python Developer",
it's best to refer to yourself that way on the resume.

For senior level people length is often the issue - it's a highlight reel -
not a biography. Anyone can get to 1-2 pages max.

~~~
3pt14159
As I've gotten older my resumes have gotten shorter. The shortest resume is
just your last name "Zuckerberg" or "Snowden". If you've achieved something
impressive (sold a company, started a well known web framework, fixed some
large horrible government or organizational process) it speaks for itself and
the rest of it is just making sure you aren't a conartist, which an interview
can easily handle.

~~~
fecak
>As I've gotten older my resumes have gotten shorter.

That's refreshing to hear. I hear too many people claiming "I have so much
experience and accomplishments that I simply can't fit them all in under four
pages". The problem there is just an inability to assess what is the most
impressive or relevant experience.

Many people do get emotionally attached to the work they've done. I've worked
with people transitioning into tech from other fields, and it is hard for them
to swallow the thought of distilling their 10 years as a litigator and law
school into maybe 2 lines on a resume. If you can detach yourself from the
work, are efficient with words, and you know what employers are looking for,
it's not difficult to create a one or two page resume even with lots of
experience.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> I hear too many people claiming "I have so much experience and
> accomplishments that I simply can't fit them all in under four pages". The
> problem there is just an inability to assess what is the most impressive or
> relevant experience.

As someone who recently did some job hunting I will tell you that while I
agree on an idealism level with your comment it's just simply not true in
practice.

I had _many, many_ companies outright reject my truncated resume even though
it provided an outline of years of experience and some top accomplishments
simply because it didn't include enough of the buzzwords they were looking
for. Resubmitting with my longer, 5 page resume (which I absolutely hate
doing)? Accepted. Every time.

I will say, however, that if you can apply directly to a person via email (the
"Who's Hiring" HN posts are perfect for this, typically) then the shorter
resume will work just fine.

~~~
eterm
For CVs for monster/linked in I have a buzzword bullet list where not
everything even gets it's own bullet so it doesn't take up much space.

So as a dev one ends up with bullets like (exaggerated here for effect):

* C# / .Net (ASP.Net webforms, MVC, WCF, Entity framework)

* SQL ( T-SQL, stored procedures, sql-server management)

* Python (Django, Flask, south, numpy, scipy)

* Javascript (jQuery, ES5, ES2016, webpack, bower, npm)

* Front-end frameworks (angular, react, knockout)

* Unit testing (mocha, jasmine, chai, nunit, xunit, junit)

* sourcesafe, bamboo, trello, docker

Yes, there's a danger it can look a bit redundant but it's mostly just there
for the box ticking buzzword finding recruiters and prospective employers
should understand that too and really be reading the other parts to try to get
a better picture of your depth of those and the relevance at your more recent
roles.

~~~
funkdified
> box ticking buzzword finding recruiters

Sums it up well

------
jofer
I was skeptical of this when they first launched the earlier versions, but I
actually quite like the way they've done it in the final version.

My favorite resume of all time is Matt Hall's stratigraphic column resume:
[https://static.squarespace.com/static/549dcda5e4b0a47d0ae1db...](https://static.squarespace.com/static/549dcda5e4b0a47d0ae1db1e/54a06d6ee4b0d158ed95f696/54a06d6fe4b0d158ed95fff5/1292595536033/Strat_column_2011.pdf)
(His blog post about it is here:
[http://www.agilegeoscience.com/blog/2010/12/17/resume-20.htm...](http://www.agilegeoscience.com/blog/2010/12/17/resume-20.html))

I'm a geologist, so I'm rather fond of the puns, etc that he's made here, but
the point is that a straigraphic column is a great way to lay out a resume. It
gives a vertical visual depiction of what the person has been doing from most
recent to longest ago.

That's exactly what the developer story is. I really like that they've used
that visual layout. It's a very effective way to convey activities and
employment history.

------
gamedna
My recent job search lead me to the idea that the traditional resume is
broken. Temporal view only gives recruiters and hiring managers the bullet
points to qualify you in whatever bucket that they need.

Instead of a traditional CV/Resume, I went with a single page narrative
approach with a link to the temporal view on my LinkedIn profile. Initially
there was some pushback as the recruiters were bellyaching over the fact that
they needed to actually read my essay, but as time progressed I discovered
that this format became a tool.

By forcing the hiring manager/recruiter to actually read and understand your
background, inbound leads were much higher quality and the initial phone
screen was extremely easy. Out of 100+ job applications, i got 20 or so
responses, and of those 20 responses, 10 offers.

Out of the 20 responses, 19 were good fits and had good hiring managers with a
company that had a decent culture.

I am definitely using the narrative approach again for my next job hunt.

~~~
sotojuan
I haven't sent a resume in a while. Usually I just give a "cover letter" of
sorts that says a) why I'm interested in the job b) what I can offer/why they
"need" me, c) why I think so (usually just talk about experience).

I have a website that lists my workplaces and my main projects and of course
my GitHub, both of which I link. I guess that's my "resume".

~~~
user5994461
Didn't send a cover letter in a while. I am surprised this practise still
exists.

~~~
sotojuan
Mine's not a cover letter in the usual sense but that's the closest analogy I
can think of... I just write an email saying those three things and links to
my stuff.

~~~
user5994461
Right. The separate full blown cover letter is dead. We just put a short text
in the initial email to go along the resume.

That's also what I do and recommend.

~~~
mastazi
> The separate full blown cover letter is dead.

Out of curiosity, in which country are you? AFAIK, here in Australia, not
having a cover letter would pretty much prevent you from getting a job.

~~~
user5994461
UK at the moment.

We always have to fill a message when posting a resume. Write a short
paragraph and that replaces the cover letter.

I wouldnt call that having 'no cover letter at all'

------
minimaxir
Weren't GitHub profiles the new technical resume? How well did that work in
practice, and how would this Stack Overflow approach be different?

I was under the impression (from reading HN/Reddit) that while engineers do
read GitHub profiles if explicitly linked in a resume, nontechnical recruiters
do not. And they are the gatekeeper to said engineers.

~~~
Dzugaru
Not every programmer likes to share his side-project code on public places
like GitHub - for many reasons. Or pullrequest to some opensource mess. Code
you write and problems you solve at work usually can't be shown on GitHub
either.

So, this "show me your GitHub" thing for me is no different from "show me your
Facebook, wait what, no FB account??" experience with non-technical HRs ;)

Conventional resume is totally OK for a first step in recruitment, I don't
understand the need for extra fanfare.

~~~
sqeaky
Resumes are extremely easy to exaggerate or fabricate. I haven't seen fake
github profiles yet (and I suspect they would be more trouble than they are
worth).

I am often brought in on the hiring process to vet peoples technical skills. I
used to just try to ask questions in the hour or two I got with the person,
this seemed no better than flipping a coin. Even if the person was honest and
we were both talking about the same skill, but how do I know that their
experience with that skill is applicable? Now I insist on seeing a portfolio
of some kind for coders. A Github, Bitbucket, Sourceforge or any other
publicly viewable body of source will do.

15 minutes with someones code is a much better predictor of skill than even
several hours of discussion. It costs a lot less too.

~~~
throwawayosiu1
Very recently, a close friend was looking for a job (as a junior dev - focused
on web). After applying and getting rejected, we decided to try a different
approach - he basically gave up and decided to the following:

1) added buzz keywords in his resume

2) hosted an instance of gitlab and took various open source projects (stuff
that was not popular, but had enough polish), modified them and uploaded them.

After a week, he was able to land multiple interviews. While he did get called
out once, almost all engineers/non-tech hr didn't bother calling his bluff.

I am not suggesting that you should lie on your resume or steal open source
projects, just that depending on one factor (like github, or resume, or white
boards) is futile and that tech hiring in general is broken.

~~~
user5994461
> While he did get called out once, almost all engineers/non-tech hr didn't
> bother calling his bluff.

I see plenty of GitHub profiles that are filled with forked/starred projects
from other people, and nothing of substance.

I don't bring it to the candidate because it is worthless and there are more
interesting things to talk about. But that doesn't mean I didn't see it ;)

Actually I have never once in my life see a good github profile.

~~~
amorphid
I don't like this notion of having a "good" GitHub profile. GitHub started off
as an easy place for me to dump code, no matter how crappy. Dumb ideas,
samples from learning, incomplete experiments, whatevs.

Then I noticed that I had started censoring my code krapola. I was sepf
conscious about the code I was making visible, as I didn't want to be judged.
Then I decided that lame. Now I shamelessly put garbage on GitHub, too.

Coding poorly & having fun trumps curating a collection fancy schmancy
artisinal repos. And I've also learned that my good code often lives at work,
and never makes it to GitHub.

~~~
burger_moon
I'm the same way. I removed a lot of old stuff from my early days because I
was afraid I was going to be judged on it. Now I don't care. GitHub is my
dumping ground for everything. I start a new project almost every time I want
to learn a specific thing so I have lots of incomplete projects on there
simply because I move on once I learned the goal task.

Unfortunately like most people all the clean and polished code lives in
private work repos. All those things I learned from the unfinished repos is
being used in work code. Oh well.

~~~
brazzledazzle
I wonder if it's worth maintaining two accounts. A professional-oriented
curated one could be valuable in some job hunts.

~~~
majewsky
I have a self-hosted Gogs instance for all the stuff that I want private
(either because it's shit or because it's really personal information that I
don't want to put on anyone else's computer, including GitHub's).

------
csabeer
Surprisingly, not many people know just how to write a good developer resume.
The Developer Story is a good approach but even that is missing the key
element that makes a resume work _when you are looking for a job_.

Imagine this scenario:

    
    
        - Farmer looking for horse to plough my fields and inspect my farm
        - Horse 1: "I am a stallion! My coat shines in the sun, my mane is dark and glossy, and the very earth trembles as I run. I have come from the stables of Arabia, have been in the armies of Alexander, the greeks, and the mighty Theseus! I have ploughed the fields of Asphodel, and won 'prettiest horse' in the Reading village fair"
        - Farmer: "Wow! You're...impressive"
        - Horse 2: "I enjoy ploughing fields and I'm pretty strong"
        - Farmer: "Great! I can offer you two apples, four sugar cubes, a nice warm barn..."
    

To be effective, Resume's shouldn't be all about how great we are (unless we
are _really_ someone standout). Rather they should be tailored to the job we
want.

The resume needs to get through the "hiring funnel". This means they must
contain the keywords that the ATS and Recruiter need in addition to our
technical accomplishments that the Hiring Manager and Interviewing Panel will
want. This really is pretty simple but we get caught up looking inward and not
paying attention to the actual audience of the resume. So most resume's end up
hit or miss.

For anyone interested, I've written a book on how to do this. The book's
description on Amazon contains the entire process so you don't need to buy it
unless you want to.
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KVVY9OA](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KVVY9OA)

~~~
brazzledazzle
>The book's description on Amazon contains the entire process so you don't
need to buy it unless you want to.

Would you say this level of openness has an impact (positive or negative) on
sales of your book? It's pretty refreshing but the cynic in me wonders if it
hurts sales.

~~~
csabeer
I'm not sure - maybe it does but the idea itself is pretty simple so I want to
get it out there. I see a lot of people spending time making their resume's
"look good" instead of being more result-oriented. I figured if I could
explain how to write a resume well it would help.

The book itself has more detail and a step by step (chapter by chapter)
process to get a great resume written out. So it's mostly helpful for the lazy
ones! :-)

------
greggman
So I got the notice this morning that my info had been changed to this new
developer story on SO. I go check, it's literally > 10 screens before a single
useful piece of info appears. 70 or so open source projects I contributed to
or run followed by my job experience

> "your Developer Story is the best way to share whatever it is that you take
> pride in. It’s your story; tell it your way."

Um, no, that's not my way. My way would be to list my professional
accomplishments first and then list my open source projects just to show how
much of a geek I am.

~~~
initram
FWIW, there's a tab to switch to the old view which is probably what most
recruiters will know to do. I hope they track what recruiters actually click
on when checking your resume.

I honestly don't know which they'd prefer. As someone who occasionally
interviews people, I do tend to find the cookie cutter descriptions of jobs to
be moderately unhelpful. I would be interested in seeing more "what you take
pride in," in many cases.

------
vangale
At some point years ago I must have asked SO not to show me any questions with
"soap" tag.

Unfortunately my shiny new developer story now has "I dislike soap".

------
dhd415
It's an interesting idea, but I prefer to take my experience and tell a story
that specifically targets the role for which I am applying. From that
perspective, having a single "story" out there for all potential employers
isn't optimal for me.

~~~
bduerst
They should let you tag items on the timeline for different roles, so that you
can quickly filter it for employers and send out.

~~~
initram
That's an awesome idea! You should suggest it on meta.stackoverflow.com.

------
pcsanwald
A lot of negativity here, but I really liked my profile on stackoverflow
careers, and I really like this. I felt like it was pretty different from
linkedin, here are some things I like/liked: \- easy to list my favorite
technologies and books. \- easy to link to github to show projects, easy to
link to stackexchange. \- UI gave good guidance on how to write a better
description

As someone who's hired hundreds of software engineers over the past 15 years,
it did the best job generating the kind of resumes I like to see.

------
gentleteblor
I like where this is going (i've built something similar, if private [1]).

Resumes in their current form don't work well as a source of truth about
anyone's career. The main issue being that we put summarized/editorialized
information in instead of details. It's like discarding the data you used to
generate a chart and then updating the chart directly going forward.

[1] [https://jobrudder.com](https://jobrudder.com)

------
steven777400
I've had success with the "T style" where I list the stated requirements
verbatim from the job posting on one side and how specifically I meet those
requirements on the other side. Combined with some narrative about relevant
experience, it's way better than just a chronology.

------
ben_jones
Wait so hiring managers who didn't have more then 60 seconds to parse my
resume now have the time to go through years of my stackoverflow activity?
Sweet!

~~~
asciihacker
The SO story will allow them to scan the highlights quicker IMHO.

~~~
omouse
It will become even more important to include visuals such as popular company
logos or hip cool images.

This is the only reason I created a logo for my open source project, so that
it sticks out whenever someone posts about it.

------
JustSomeNobody
Is it really now? That sucks as I don't really engage with SO that often;
Hardly ever really. Sure, if I Google for something SO results come up, but
normally I search YouTube for a talk/tutorial or search Github for snippets of
code.

I guess I'm screwed...

~~~
thecolorblue
That is why this is a good move on stack overflow's part. They wand developers
to feel like they have to use SO.

~~~
minimaxir
In terms of vertical integration, this technical resume aligns more with SO's
robust job platform than with the Q/A platform.

------
superfluid
This is authored by a Jay Hanlon, "VP of Community Growth". Apparently, the
role includes publishing clickbait.

He squeezes in a humblebrag: "...if you're like me, and still just a little
proud that you got off the waitlist and eked your way into a school above your
intellectual weight class..."

And he uses scarcity to scare devs into creating a profile: "It only takes a
few minutes, and you do NOT want some other joker snapping up the good URLs."

~~~
pgt
Yeah I also felt the scarcity quip was in bad taste.

------
pmiller2
I don't see anything on here that I couldn't do with my LinkedIn profile, TBH.

I do kinda wish I knew the secrets of how to get 2-3 recruiting emails a day
though. Unless it's "have 5 more years of experience," I think my profile
could use some help.

~~~
asciihacker
dice.com

~~~
pmiller2
Lol, I guess I should have specified emails written in good English that
weren't asking me to move across the country for some shitty 3 month contract.

------
ryanSrich
I've been a contributor and top 10-20% user on SO for the last 5 years or so,
and I've never once received a single job offer, solicitation or point of
contact. I'm doubtful this will change any of that.

------
mikestew
I thought the "new resume" was Stack Overflow Careers, which I spent USD$29
for back in the day. To SO's credit at the time, they offered a full refund if
one was ever not satisfied. I never took them up on it, though I should have
considering that it was a waste of $29 for all the value I got out of it. I
spent a fair bit of time sprucing up that profile, got very few hits, and the
quality of the leads was no better or worse than what I'd get off LinkedIn.
IOW, random recruiters spamming.

So when the recent email hit my inbox, it was with a healthy dose of
skepticism that I just immediately deleted it.

------
orliesaurus
This would probably not be the most proud feature shipped to date (if I worked
at SO). \- It looks just average and does make use of the white space \- It
has this section where you "DISLIKE" technology? wtf really? \- Who cares what
you recommend as a book to read? This is a resume right, not your blog. \- I
somehow feel this is too leaderboard-y and not something i would use for a
resume - but sure, it IS a cool thing to have if you're into StackOverflow
(like a LOT), just not a resume..

------
gentleteblor
It's not the new resume by a long shot. But it does point to some large flaws
resumes have.

Resumes in their current form don't work well as a source of truth about
anyone's career. The main issue being that we put summarized/editorialized
information in instead of details. It's like discarding the data you used to
generate a chart and then updating the chart directly going forward.

You also can't manage the things you put on a resume. You can't easily search,
tag, sort, view by company, position etc. You're doing all that in your head
and then putting the result on paper.

There should be tools to help with this stuff (I built one [1]) and those
tools should put the resume in it's proper place, as an output of some other
more comprehensive source of truth.

[1] [https://jobrudder.com](https://jobrudder.com)

------
kafkaesq
__ is the new resume_

Oh please - not again.

~~~
fancy_pantser
My first thought too.

"What fresh hell is this?"

------
omouse
StackOverflow as a company may have grown a little too quickly; I wonder how
much $$ they make from this and whether they should just focus on their core
which is community and maintaining a decent community rather than these
marketing-led stunts.

~~~
aalear
These aren't mutually exclusive goals. We have people dedicated to growing and
maintaining the community (on Stack Overflow, as well as the other sites in
the Stack Exchange network), people who work on large feature areas (e.g.
Documentation), yet more people who are focused on the Jobs and
hiring/recruiting experience for developers, etc.

~~~
omouse
I'm more curious to know how these affect the profits of StackOverflow and
what gets more bang for the buck or if random ideas are being tried out seeing
which one sticks.

------
brightball
I see some other comments about preferring other ways to tailor your
application or have specific approaches when you apply for particular jobs and
I definitely agree with both:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687415)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686741)

But I don't think this is really aimed at supplanting that. It's really just
trying to put a better face on the "passive" approach to things and I like it
for that.

------
ge96
I'm trying to get hired as a junior front end developer. Suck at writing
resumes.

This is my worst one so far. Also I've been applying but no responses, I have
a defeatist mentality and also I think I do accept that I don't meet the
requirements.

[http://m.imgur.com/a/oCdvU](http://m.imgur.com/a/oCdvU)

I have changed the format some as the bullets as titles doesn't make sense.
Still I have to condense and overall my "achievements" are pretty basic.
Probably will have to find another menial job. Oh well

~~~
alain94040
That is a terrible resume :-(

Why would you start with negative sentences about your projects? "not
complete". "at best what I have...". "decided to abandon".

The second page is much more promising. Instead of story-telling and
editorializing "This was a basic job, and quick", focus on what techniques you
used:

\- started from a broken Bootstrap prototype \- rewrote email sending using
package xyz

etc. Show me that you know how to use a variety of technologies, packages and
tools. Then I can judge whether I have a job for you.

~~~
ge96
Right unfortunately I haven't used many tools. This one site was built with
bootstrap and since I don't use/know bootstrap I wrote it from scratch the
scrolling, menu, animations, etc...

Yeah it is a work in progress.

------
bootload
_" your Developer Story is the best way to share whatever it is that you take
pride in. It’s your story; tell it your way."_

Are people still relying on third party companies marketing to both sides of
the market, to attract employees? You don't really need them. The Internet and
contributions to open source [0] is your developer story, use it. [1]

reference:

[0] I realise not everyone can/will want do this.

[1] offer from google engineering (SRE) on basis of newsgroup questions and
code.

------
eterm
Does anyone have a security@ contact address for stackoverflow that they know
is monitored?

Unfortunately there is no way to opt out of this service right now. (edit: I
don't want to email security to ask for an opt-out, it would just be nice to
opt out until they fix the actual security issue.)

Edit: Found a web form they use on security.stackexchange.

~~~
aalear
Not sure what issue you're referring to, but you can reach us through the
contact form linked at the bottom of every page on our Q&A sites (like the one
you found) or by email to team@. Mentioning something like "security
vulnerability" in the subject or the body will help get it looked at faster.

Edit: checked internally, and this specific issue is being fixed as we speak.

~~~
eterm
Thanks, I've done that now, hopefully you can find my submission I did put
'security vulnerability' as the top line in the body. If that doesn't narrow
it down search for 1635976 also in the body.

It's an either an information disclosure issue or an authorization issue
(depending on your point of view), I won't say more on here.

~~~
eric_h
I'm curious what you found - once they get it fixed, would you mind sharing in
some form?

------
tenpoundhammer
I have seen numerous versions of the "New Resume" in the last ten years or so.
It's really hard to replace something universal that everyone understands,
even if it's antiquated. I doubt this will fair much better.

~~~
chipperyman573
The difference is that this is aimed at one market, whereas other "New
Resumes" try to be a catch-all.

------
dkarapetyan
Why does everything need to be a stream? Is my resume a twitter feed now?

~~~
eyelidlessness
The length of a tweet would be a fantastic constraint on most resumes.

~~~
dkarapetyan
I agree. Sounds like a fun new product to disrupt the resume industry:
Tweesume.

------
mratzloff
The traditional resume works because it's easy to scan visually quickly. It's
easy to print out and share. This is not.

~~~
nicolewhite
There is a 'print to pdf' option that saves it as the traditional view.

------
asciihacker
I like the use of 2 columns.

------
clifanatic
That lady's resume is very impressive. Is she looking?

------
user5994461
Obviously this is marketing fake from stack overflow.

There is nothing more unreadable than a Stack Overflow resume. Well... except
a project on github that doesn't have a readme.

------
draw_down
Ugh.

