

What employers want to see on your resume - physcab
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2009/02/guest-post-memo.html

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eli
College GPA? Emailing the CEO?

My takeaway is that I guess different people look for different things.
Because when I was hiring for a developer, I couldn't care less what your GPA
was, and emailing the CEO certainly wouldn't have earned you any bonus points.

I looked for, well, relevant experience and a good cover letter that explains
why you want to work _here_ specifically -- as opposed to an obvious
copy/paste job. (And, incidentally, the cover letter should be the _body_ of
you email message. It's unbelievable how many people attach a professional
looking coverletter.doc to an extremely informal email message. Give me a
reason to want to fire up Word and read your attachment. </rant>)

~~~
boredguy8
But you're probably looking for a cog. You'll get what you look for.

As an applicant, you get what you apply for. That you wouldn't have liked my
style doesn't really matter: the person that wants to employ me would like my
style.

The problem with all these 'how to apply' topics is that they really mean 'how
to apply to me'. But I think there are 2 underlying and competing truths:

1) Be authentic. If you're not the person on your resume, it will come out
sooner or later. Hopefully (for everyone) sooner.

2) Be unique. If you don't have a way to differentiate yourself, you don't
have a reason to get hired. Of course, what makes you unique for one person
won't make you unique (or will make you uniquely annoying) for another.

Of course, these are suggestions for getting the 'right' job - a job where you
fit in with the people that hired you.

If you just need an employer: pander.

~~~
motoko
No, I disagree. The function of a resume isn't to represent you, it's to
qualify you for further relevant attention. Thus style may disqualify you
without justifying your relevance unless the position itself requires style.
If it does, then what you should be submitting is a portfolio and an audition.

This is congruent with why it would be offensive to ask for a resume from
somebody you know well. Somebody you know well would have already qualified
for your attention some time in the past, and asking for a resume would
trivialize that relationship.

~~~
boredguy8
I think you've missed the point. I don't think anyone is saying, "Use lots of
windgings, lol!"

Instead, we're talking about the entire mise en scene.

The point Glenn (and others) are making is that every non-cog position
requires 'style'.

~~~
eli
Admit it, you just wanted to use the phrase "mise en scene" :)

And of course I agree that important jobs require creative people, I don't
agree that resumes are a valid method of judging creativity.

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xenoterracide
Churn: does this keep you from hiring someone? I'm unfortunately just getting
started, I've had a lot of contract jobs. When my job was done I moved on.

Gmail address: Seriously get a life other than worrying about who someones
email provider is. If they have AOL so what? how does this affect the job they
do for you, AOL allows you pop or imap right? (might have to pay extra) maybe
they use a mail client... and because they've had it for so long they don't
want to change. I'm not an employer (yet) but I really don't care what email
you use to mail me, even if it's totally unprofessional/inappropriate. I'm
going to give you a company email anyways, I assume you were just being
efficient with your time and not going out of your way to make another email
just to impress me.

Customization: I probably wouldn't reject a tailored resume, but to me this
reeks of a person who wastes time on perfection. If you are seriously looking
for work... you are probably emailing a lot of companies, tailoring for each
one is just a foolish waste of time, there are better things you could be
doing with your time, like learning something new. I'd make an exception for a
place you really want to work, have inside info on, customer etc. but most
places I've applied to have not made this list.

Email to the CEO: Really it's a good idea to waste the CEO's time? In a small
business where the CEO is HR then it's fine. I think emailing the department
manager that you want to work with is the right answer.

Numbers: the numbers this guys citing are probably BS, numbers like that are
obviously made up, don't lie on your resume if you have numbers that you can
prove you are responsible for, then don't list them.

~~~
Flemlord
Churn - Consulting is fine, but if an applicant has moved too quickly between
permanent jobs it's a sign that they probably won't be at yours for long.
Maybe they have a recruiter friend constantly putting new offers in front of
them, or maybe they are outright incompetent and are quickly fired. My hiring
team calls them "jumpers", and it's one of our biggest negatives.

If you are working as a consultant, I would suggest listing the consulting
company as your main job source, and any specific companies as sub-items
beneath it. Make sure you don't get thrown into the jumper pile.

~~~
smokinn
What about my situation? I got a job right out of school and worked so much
overtime I more or less burnt out on it. When they showed me graphs of how
much money I made them and didn't even bother with a Christmas bonus I quit.
The company I then went to more or less lied about what I was actually going
to do so I quit there too. (Even though they were paying me twice the amount I
was previously making.) I only lasted 9 months at the first job and 6 months
at the second. I'm on my third job now (thankfully I like this one so I'll be
here hopefully for a while) and I graduated less than 2 years ago. I suppose
my resume would make me look like a job hopper so you'd hold that against me?

~~~
Flemlord
Yes, I would. Would you quit the first time you thought you deserved a bonus
and didn't get one? You may be a good fit, but having three jobs in two years
makes me nervous.

Another warning sign we look for is when somebody trashes their old company.
In every case where that happened and we made the hire, that person was
trashing our company within six months.

~~~
smokinn
Thanks, I know it makes sense from an employer perspective, I just wanted to
point out that there are exceptions so while I can understand reluctance in
the interview I personally wouldn't set the resume aside and not give an
interview at all.

To answer your question, no I wouldn't quit. I actually took a pay cut to work
where I currently am because I thought I would enjoy the job more. (And I do.)
I don't ever "expect" a bonus. Banking on a bonus I think is a really bad
idea. You should get what you consider is a fair wage rather than expect a
bonus to make up for whatever you think is lacking. People should be wary of
companies that offer a salary that is below market average but promise bonuses
or "quick pay raises". They often don't materialize.

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joshwa
Mandatory reading for job-seekers-- Rands' essay on engineering resumes:

[http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/02/25/a_glimpse_a...](http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/02/25/a_glimpse_and_a_hook.html)

(and a brief update):

[http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/12/06/a_brief_gli...](http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/12/06/a_brief_glimpse.html)

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staunch
Highly bothered by the 944x1384 image scaled to 200x293 with the IMG tag.
Can't help it.

~~~
jrockway
It amuses me that people think putting irrelevant pictures into their writing
makes it "more interesting".

If you want to make a lolcat, just make a lolcat.

~~~
tjr
There's an art to it. I always found Philip Greenspun's oft-random image
placement amusing and tasteful, e.g.

<http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/better-living>

But the image placement in this story does seem odd and awkward.

~~~
jrockway
I think he takes all the pictures himself.

This doesn't make them more relevant, but they are nicer looking than ads :)

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mavelikara
I am aware that it is not an employees hiring market out there right now, but
if _you_ want to see a specific kind of resume, say so in your job advert.
Please don't generalize what _you_ want to see, to what _employers_ want to
see. The job advert or your website is the best place to put this information,
not when you do a guest post on some other guys blog (unless clairvoyance is a
job requirement).

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dkokelley
"Verbs ending in "d": shipped, launched, _built_ , sold."

I wouldn't want to see such an obvious oversight on a resume.

Should read "Accomplishment Verbs"

I also disagree with the "churn" criteria. I think it's becoming more and more
acceptable for an employee to have a broader range of employers over a shorter
period of time. The "company man" idea is dying. Sure, different industries
will have different standards, but I tend to think that the trend is heading
away from 20 years at the same company. It typically pays better to keep
moving, and employers should (and are) realizing that the brighter candidates
are the ones who are always looking for better opportunities.

------
bradgessler
Here is how I go through resumes from developers:

(1) Sort resumes in order from least amount of pages (on the top) to the most
amount of pages (on the bottom). The resumes with the lesser amount of pages
get priority (I've seen 12 pagers... the quals on it were from a complete
bozo). I'll throw out anything over 3-4 pages.

(2) Throw out resumes that list every programming language since 1982 (this
halves the resume stack) or a list of languages the person is "familiar with"
(when will head hunters stop telling their applicants to list this crap?)

(3) I could care less about GPA as long as its over 3.0; I look for diversity
at this point. Was this person an English major or a CS major? Does this
person code outside of work? Are they experimenting with other
languages/technologies? Does this person travel quite a bit?

(4) Now its time to more carefully read the resume. I'll actually look at the
experiences to make sure they're being honest and not making stupid claims
like, "Save over $10mm in costs from writing code X".

(5) Next up is the phone interview where I ask simple questions to make sure
the applicant can communicate clearly, knows what regex is (this questions
throws a lot of applicants to the way-side), and verify a few claims on their
resume. I had one person claim they knew about DOA web-services and another
guy who had "HTTP" listed on his resume and didn't even know what an HTTP verb
was. Another more clever guy was actually Googling shit as I was asking him a
question (I can hear your keyboard!).

~~~
Daniel_Newby
"I had ... another guy who had "HTTP" listed on his resume and didn't even
know what an HTTP verb was."

Indeed. HTTP has _methods_. Apparently certainly proprietary software has
"verbs".

------
chime
> # Verbs ending in "d": shipped, launched, built, sold.

Uhem.

~~~
boredguy8
His point is past-tense action verbs. Get over it.

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aristus
"...my twin brother Wes..."

Shit. There's two of them?

------
herval
"Verbs ending in d: shipped, launched, built"

ouch...

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access_denied
What about not working for companies who want me to deal with that kind of
cruft in the first place, because life is to short?

~~~
neilc
You wouldn't work for a company that requires you to present a resume? That is
basically equivalent to not working for any company at all, other than as a
consultant or a founder. Making a decent resume is not difficult, and done
well, it isn't "cruft".

~~~
eru
Don't you have to provide at least equivalent documentation as a consultant?

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xenoterracide
What I don't like to see on blogs, no place for comments, or registration
required for comments. How dare anyone question you.

~~~
endtime
Um...click the "Leave a comment" link at the bottom and you get a comment box
with the name defaulting to "Guest". Doesn't get much easier than that.

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xenoterracide
I see no "leave a comment link". in fact there is no word "comment" on the
page at all. Fail at web accessibility, you know the part where your site
should work without javascript. At least I assume this is added if I allow one
of the 10-ish domains that noscript says I'm blocking, I tried allowing the
main domain, but that didn't help.

~~~
smokinn
The comments are loaded through a script tag. The top of the comment box says
(Powered by JS-Kit)

The script tag loads content from this url: [http://js-kit.com/comments-
data.js?jx=0&gen=0&srt=da...](http://js-kit.com/comments-
data.js?jx=0&gen=0&srt=date&ord=desc&sp=1&pn=2&ps=500&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.guykawasaki.com%2F2009%2F02%2Fguest-
post-memo.html&randevuId=1235450753197.3486&);

So either no-script is blocking that or you have security settings that don't
allow script tags to an alternate domain or something of the sort.

