
Throw Out Your Resume - davefp
http://throw-out-your-resume.com/
======
davidrudder
I'm a hiring manager at a small company with a tech focus (we have a non-tech
product, but we sell that product on the web and have a lot of tech behind
it). I agree with most of this, with some big caveats.

"If you’re not different then you’re boring." That's not true at all. If you
send us a poster, a video or (god forbid) a song you wrote, we'll wonder if
you can get along in a work environment. This isn't summer camp, it's a job.
We want to know if you can do the work.

"dress accordingly to the company’s culture" - no, no, no. Dress like you want
the job. When you work here, you can dress however you want. Most people wear
jeans and t-shirts. But showing up to an interview like that looks like you
don't really want the position. Put a tie on. Even better, wear a suit.

"If you can’t be genuine, real and comfortable in the conversation then forget
it." If you can't be comfortable in an interview, then you're human. We
recognize the inherent stress in an interview. Don't worry about appearing
aloof. We'd rather you be anxious to get the job.

~~~
thedufer
> Even better, wear a suit.

I disagree. The rule I've always heard is that you should be the best-dressed
there, with an implied "don't over-do it". If everyone else is in jeans and
you're in a suit, you don't look like you fit in. If you you're in slacks and
a nice shirt, you look nice without standing out.

~~~
codegeek
"If everyone else is in jeans and you're in a suit"

2 things on this: First, you don't know before the interview if everyone else
will be in jeans. Second, all those in jeans are not the one that have a job
interview.

~~~
thedufer
> you don't know before the interview if everyone else will be in jeans

This is something you ask your recruiter/HR contact.

> all those in jeans are not the one that have a job interview

That's why I advocate dressing one step above the current employees, not the
same as them.

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frozenport
Shenanigans, on this advertisement!

Corporations have the resources to get things done. Its corporations that
build airplanes, robots, death rays, skyscrapers, DNA sequencers, and CPUs.

Not everybody who is _young and exciting_ dreams of helping _emerging small
businesses get off the ground and grow into successful companies._

Independent of the everyone who _gets the latest and greatest Apple gear -
including a Macbook Pro or Macbook Air and a 27" Cinema Display,_ Shopify will
forever be a facilitator whose aim is to make an already working process more
efficient. I find it comical that a company in a boring field and with boring
ideas can talk trash about the people who built everything they touch.

Hell, they probably couldn't even get somebody with a good resume to work for
them!

------
xb95
Speaking as a hiring manager, a resume is still good to setup a basic
framework. What has this candidate done (names, places, types of work), what
do they find interesting to highlight, what kind of extra stuff can I glean?

What's interesting to me is less the actual words on the page and more how you
put it together. Some questions I am asking myself when going through resumes:

* Does this person know how to spell and can they use relatively proper grammar? I don't care if you're "Just" going to be a programmer, I expect a certain level of ability to document and write English. (And yes, if you're clearly not a native English speaker, that is taken into account. I still expect you to spell well -- spellcheck! -- but the rest is more fluid.)

* What is their organization style like? Did they convey the information in a straightforward, easy to parse way, or is it a complete organizational mess?

* Did they mention any open source volunteering or projects they're part of? This is a strong indicator of someone who is proactive and engaged with the world.

* Do they list code references? A Github or Sourceforge account would be ideal, but I'll take anything I can get.

* Do they tell me about their hobbies? (I generally hope not.) If they do, what do I think about them and what that means about a person? (Note: it's not fair to judge someone by the fact that they are a fly fisher, but it's damned hard not to, so please: stop putting your hobbies on your resume!)

* Do they list a bunch of accolades and Greek societies? If so, they probably value certain types of recognition more than others. (This isn't a negative, it's just interesting to note.)

* Do they hop from place to place, or are they the type who has been at Google for 8 years? These aren't necessarily pros or cons -- it all depends on why they made the decisions they did, and how open the candidate is about things.

Uhm, now I'm rambling. Anyway, hiring is hard, resumes are hard, but I still
really enjoy reading them. I understand that I could get most of the same from
a portfolio -- and certainly, someone's Github profile would give me most of
this -- but I still like to see someone out of their element. Most of us are
engineers, but sometimes we have to document or present and I really enjoy
seeing how people handle those sorts of tasks.

------
epoxyhockey
Title should read: _How to apply to a job at Shopify_

On a related note, there is definitely a bubble in job application &
interviewing posts on HN. I wonder if that indicates something going on in the
start-up industry. Companies being too selective, or applicants not plentiful
enough?

------
Smudge
"If you’re not different then you’re boring."

 _You're unique, just like everyone else._

------
kephra
imho, this is just an other example of the resume cargo cult.

Sending a resume, interview, get a job was a valid path 20 years ago. But
there are no US aircrafts anymore who drop sweets, when you light a fire.

The modern way to find a good job is:

\- Build a network of virtual contacts. IRC, LinkedIn, Facebook, Secondlife,
... what ever you like.

\- Build a network of real life contacts, e.g. in hacker spaces, Linux user
groups, Google summer of code, ...

\- Keep your ears open!

\- And whenever you hear about a problem, you think you can solve, apply to
it.

I never got a job via the HR department. Their job is moving resumes to the
trashcan. I always seen the HR department last, when giving them my tax
numbers. I always talked up from techicans to the boss, who then decided that
I was the one, and who had the power to overrule the HR department.

~~~
gamblor956
That's always been the primary way people got white-collar jobs--networking
contacts.

Resumes, to the extent they were required for a job application, are a very
recent phenomenom.

------
amccloud
Here, catch!

<http://resume.amccloud.com>

------
seiji
I'm a fan of throwing away resumes as long as you have a strong, short story
the person reading your email can understand. If you're emailing an HR
department, all is lost. If you're emailing a manager directly, you can
actually talk to them instead of trying to flaunt your peacock feathers (read:
resume).

My recent job inquiries have involved a short description of why I'm relevant
to their posting along with different aspects of my life online. Sure, they
may see me flirting with someone on twitter, but that's the world we live in.
You don't want to work for a company that won't stalk you online first anyway.
Make it easy for them.

Example of an online relevant context dump:

"Here are some supplemental contexts of me online:

• <https://github.com/mattsta> (point out which projects are relevant)

• <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=seiji> (point them to my ancient HN
profile)

• old stuff at <http://matt.io/> (ancient personal minutia with a prominent
post or two)

• life/tech/gripes at <https://twitter.com/mattsta> (life; uncensored)

• current slowly up-and-coming project: <https://ldf.io/> (a point of
information about something made from scratch)"

------
nawitus
>You don’t want to work for those corporations. You don’t want to work in a
cubicle farm. You’re young and exciting.

Actually, I would just want to work _somewhere_. It's pretty hard to get a job
without work experience as a IT student. I only have my portfolio (
<http://panuhorsmalahti.fi/portfolio?l=eng> ) to go with.

~~~
minimaxir
The website is biased toward developers, who have more flexibility in their
choice of company.

------
petdance
Please remember that a GitHub account is the start of a portfolio, but only a
start. You must have some sort of curated guide that will help the reader
through the morass of stuff in your account. Otherwise, you're leaving it up
to chance that the reader will find what you want her to find.

[http://petdance.com/2011/08/your-github-account-is-not-
your-...](http://petdance.com/2011/08/your-github-account-is-not-your-
portfolio-but-its-a-start/)

------
minimaxir
It's interesting that the website stresses having a GitHub profile...yet no
where is it stated that these tips are only for those looking for developer
positions.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Perhaps non-developers need github profiles now? That would be scary.

~~~
jacquesm
Even developers don't need github profiles. It's pretty weird to see this re-
iterated so often, 100's of thousands of developers the world over don't have
github profiles and they're doing just fine.

~~~
j-kidd
Yea, this madness about github profiles must stop. I cringe every time I see
someone here pimping some github "projects" they whip up in minutes which
obviously they have no passion in.

~~~
daenz
Why do you cringe when someone shares a useful project with the developer
community? Are you cringing at submissions on /new?

------
evolve2k
The we're hiring link at the end just goes to their homepage. Really annoying,
better to link straight to the careers page (that's what the page is for).
<http://www.shopify.com/careers>

~~~
davefp
That's bad styling on my part.

The 'bag' logo goes to the homepage, but the text underneath it ("we're
hiring") goes to the careers page.

I realize after reading your comment that it doesn't make sense to send people
to our homepage at all, so I'm going to change it so that clicking the bag
sends you to the careers page too.

Thanks!

------
davefp
Disclaimer: This was made in less than 48 hours for Hack Days at Shopify, so
it hasn't been quality tested. At all.

Please report any typos or other errors so that I can fix them up. Thanks! :)

~~~
fecak
You could probably stand to have a writer/editor look at this for some style
issues. Nothing major, but if you're expecting lots of eyes on this you'd want
to make sure your viewers think the company cares enough to edit their
marketing materials.

------
recursive
YMMV.

I recently got an awesome job at a small company as a developer by doing the
opposite of most of this stuff. Resume with no attached art project, suit and
tie, no github profile, etc.

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omgyeah
Very helpful indeed. Replying to job candidates is also helpful.

------
31reasons
Are they looking for code monkeys or circus monkeys!

