taedryn 🏳️⚧️
I'm laying out my resume right now, and after some good feedback on my dony't question last night, realized I should tap into the well of tech hiring experience here.
What has made a resume or CV for a tech position stand out as good to you? Particular layouts? Inclusion or exclusion of particular information? Density or sparseness of design? Uniqueness in a particular way? Language use?
Kit Rhett Aultman
@taedryn Keep it simple and straightforward because there's a really good chance a machine will read it before a human will. Single column, bullet lists, don't get fancy. Don't have an objective statement; replace that with a list of what you're best at up top. Work history comes before education. Include open source work either in the work history or after the work history before your education. Keep the font simple and ideally something sans serif.
Kit Rhett Aultman
@taedryn I've been on dozens of hiring committees that this point in my career. In that time, not a single person I've talked to has ever said anything about resume layouts or aesthetics. Few people even read the candidate's resume prior to the interview.
A former member of my thesis committee used to use a resume that looked like it was written in emacs.
Assuming you're not trying to a design-related position, I'm not sure resume aesthetics matter much any more.
taedryn 🏳️⚧️
@roadriverrail Maybe I should give up on Scribus and go back to TeX. The layout would be cleaner, though I personally find resumes laid out like that to be desperately boring and completely forgettable.
Kit Rhett Aultman
@taedryn I mean his resume appeared to have been written in emacs and sent through the line printer.
taedryn 🏳️⚧️
@roadriverrail I mean, to be clear, if I go the TeX route, it'll definitely be written in vi.
Kit Rhett Aultman
@taedryn @Willow If the role you're going for isn't about aesthetics or design, I really don't think aesthetics make one stand out any more. Recruiters basically pull stuff up based on keywords and check the last job on your work experience. They make initial calls to confirm/deny if you're worth looking at closer. The results of that go to hiring managers who do more screening, typically by phone. Interviewers rarely deeply read the resume.
taedryn 🏳️⚧️
@Willow @roadriverrail Do you *like* seeing LinkedIn resumes, or is that just what you see a lot of? I don't want to be one of the crowd, if I can stand out a little bit.
Willow :trans_flag:
@taedryn@dice.camp @roadriverrail@signs.codes These days, I see a lot of the pdfs that LinkedIn generates. In fact, for now, that's what I'm sending out. I'm also shopping around for a resume writer myself. It seems to be around $800, and a friend of mine has recommended that.
taedryn 🏳️⚧️
@roadriverrail I wish I still had my old daisy wheel printer. That fucker had class just rolling off it. Not that anyone's going to see a physical copy of this resume, like, ever.
Part of my challenge is that my previous resume looked 100% like I typeset it in TeX, and I'm trying to make my new resume feel different. I'm a different person. This is certainly a vanity thing, but I don't want to present myself like I did when I thought I was a boy.
Kit Rhett Aultman
@taedryn @Willow I advise people to put their skills first, and the first line should be something like "mastery level" or "core competencies" or something, with a section after that listing the things you're decent at but don't consider your main thrust.
taedryn 🏳️⚧️
@Willow @roadriverrail funny enough, I just got advice that that kind of progress bar, which I also liked seeing on a resume when I was involved in hiring, is bad and should be avoided (if you list less than 5/5, you're listing your incompetencies, goes the argument).
Willow :trans_flag:
@taedryn@dice.camp @roadriverrail@signs.codes I agree with Kit that I don't really care about the format that much. The bigger thing for me is how quickly can I find the things I care about. Skills, abilities, etc. There was one person that had a cool thing where they had like a progress bar next to each programming language/tool they know and how well they knew it. That's literally the only thing in any resume that has stood out to me. And, again to Kit's point, that would be impossible for a automated tool to process.
Kit Rhett Aultman
@Willow @taedryn I will say that if I see any scoring or rating system on someone's skill list, I'll just find it overly cutesy. Who decides what a 5 is in the first place? There's no standard, so it means nothing. And as an interviewer, it's actually not that relevant, because mostly what I'm using the skills list for is touchpoints for the conversation and making sure my technical questions are within your scope to handle.
Willow :trans_flag:
@taedryn@dice.camp @roadriverrail@signs.codes That's so interesting! Yah, I can see that argument, but as someone who actually understands coding, if someone listed all 5/5 I'd say "lmao, bullshit, into the round file with you."
Willow :trans_flag:
@roadriverrail@signs.codes @taedryn@dice.camp But really, all but the top three shouldn't even be on a resume...
Kit Rhett Aultman
@Willow @taedryn Precisely this. I really need to see 2 things-- the stuff you're decent at and the stuff you've put most of your focus in. And both lists should be tailored to the position. If I'm interviewing someone for a FW/EE hybrid job, I don't need to know about how they kinda sorta can admin an Oracle server, too.
Willow :trans_flag:
@roadriverrail@signs.codes @taedryn@dice.camp They didn't use a 1/5 scale but labeled them "mastery", "fluent", "familiar", "dabbled", and something I don't remember for the lowest one...
Kit Rhett Aultman
taedryn 🏳️⚧️
@roadriverrail @Willow I'm thinking of having a Primary Skills section, and a Secondary Skills section, to clarify the things I'm really good at, and the things I know well enough to come up to speed on quickly. That seems to cut to the heart of the matter as well as any of these.
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