I'm starting to look around for a new job, and need to update my resume. In my current resume I have a section called "Skills & Competencies" which includes a mixture of languages (C#, python, Go, JS etc.), products (various DB systems, BPM suites, etc.), areas (front-end, back-end, "cloud"/aws, db) but also practices/skills (project mgmt, TDD, agile development methods, CI, etc)
To me this feels like a mishmash of things and it does not give a clear picture. I'm not sure how to "design" this piece of my resume.
I guess the main point I want to bring across is that I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job. I'm able to learn/understand tech quickly but this is just a means to an end. I like to focus on the team and there interaction / openness.
How would you solve this? As interviewers, what would be helpful to bring this point across? What would trigger you to invite me for either a cup of coffee or a job interview?
Thanks a lot!
(It's also worth noting that I have ~12.5 years of experience in the software industry, Seattle—the city where I live—has a hot tech market, and I have focused mainly on iOS software development for the past six years. Relatedly, I never apply for jobs through websites, only through people, meaning that I manage to skip buzzword-skimming front-line recruiters. So YMMV.)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0tntyr8isf2l47k/Aaron%20Brethorst%...
Coming at this from the other side of the table, my first reaction to reading most resumes is "so what?" Tell me why I should care that you increased Flibbet production by 22%, or that you decreased bug volume by 19%. What does that translate into in terms that someone who doesn't work at that company would care about?
1. Avoid saying things that apply to everyone. Example, "I love building products that delight my users." Who wouldn't say that when applying for a job? This, "help create positive social change" is more interesting and should be the focus of your intro.
2. Avoid useless phrases. Example, "This has manifested itself in many ways during my career." Boring filler.
Overall, you could cut the length of this by 30-50% just by removing cliches and filler phrases. It would immediately become much more readable and emphasize your technical skills.
I guess the next step is to write a blog post to assimilate everything I learned today about setting up a 'dev' resume.
"Most recently, I been the de facto architect of NBC News’s four iOS and tvOS applications."
So talk about your achievements, and mention the skills you used as part of that. Be specific, and focus on the most important bits instead of listing every single item. Remember to include human skills like planning and leading.
Also: it's very hard for people to compress their lives in a CV.
Recently, when writing a job ad, I usually ask something like:
"send us your CV, or a link to your blog, or write something about you, what you like to do and what you do well, tell us something great you did in your career, or just send us anything you think it's relevant for us to understand your value".
If you just ask a CV, you just get a CV.
It's very hard, which is why those that do it well stand a better chance of getting the job.
FWIW, I have compressed my CV to the back of a business card. Sure it misses out an awful lot of detail, but it leads to someone looking at my full CV, which leads to a full interview, which hopefully leads to a job.
Sure, I have a list of all dunno-how-many programming languages I kinda used, and DB-engines and other crap so techies can satisfy their curiosity about the strange tech they might look for.
But I consider it much more useful to have a bunch of projects I did that are relevant to the position, what tech was involved, and how the tech was involved. I consider that a lot more valuable than a dumb list of stuff I might or might not have used less or not more or whatever. Especially if that list already display a level of self-reflection.
Thanks for your suggestion on planning and leading, those are easy to forget (as is elicitation of requirements I guess)
Wouldn't mixing tech/skills with job positions make it more confusing?
Examples:
* Used Angular and Rails to build an intranet application used every day at Acme Inc by over 200 people, increasing efficiency at the company by 150%. Features included uploading and sharing documents, with commenting system and email notifications.
* Optimised a Java algorithm in the backend of Foobar Corp's service to increase response time by 200%, delivering business value of $60,000 per year.
Here's my fairly up-to-date CV if you want a complete example: http://dblo.ws/cv You sound like you're a better programmer than me, so you should have plenty of good achievements.
I did few groups of skills I have:
- Currently focusing on (skills I am interested in and best at)
- Relevant skills (git, agile development, tdd...)
- Also worked with (other tech I encountered during my career: DBs, languages, frameworks...)
Hope it helps.
ps. I would love to hear some thoughts on this problem from somebody that actually reads resumes
As a hiring manager, I see a lot of resumes, and I rarely see skills being cleanly defined; so most of the time I parse the descriptions of people's past jobs and determine what they were doing, and what questions I needed to focus on to get the information I needed to make a decision. Additionally, I will use key things in a resume as a reasoning to ask certain things. If someone mentions design patterns, then I will be asking them about design patterns. If someone said they worked on a project, I will ask them what their level of involvement was, and how they worked with others.
Personally I think it would be great to have a clearly delineated list of skills, grouped they way you do it. The reality is, when you look at a ton of resumes, you eventually follow your own 5-second rule. If a resume can't grab your attention within 5 seconds of skimming through it, then it's probably not worth your time (and it might seem harsh, but there's plenty you can pick-up on in that short amount of time).
It made me realise why so many HR agencies request the person's CV only to take the information and reformat it into the agencies style (which is generally boring, but sensible).
Don't get me wrong. I love unique CV's, but given the choice between 'unique' and 'useful' there's only one possible answer.
http://i.imgur.com/JG1IZLi.png
I built my resume based on few assumptions:
- There are people that go through hundreds of CVs a day
- There are people that take a look at just couple of them but want more details
- People from the first bullet if interested usually want more details
This made me thinking that I should probably get all basic information across as soon as possible and if people are interested they can find more details. Copy/paste from top of my resume:
> On the 1st page, you will find general information about me and what I have been focusing on since I started professionally programming about 5 years ago. The rest of the pages will provide more details and recommendation letters.
The first page is designed to help filter my resume second to show actual competencies. My job descriptions on the second page provide information on how different skills were used.
From an apply process a resume should contain keywords and should be easy to parse.
What I mean by parse is that we automatically extract details from the resume and if the resume is too hard to parse this may minimize your chance to be noticed (the ATS does this as well downstream).
So ideally you want your resume to be a small plain document. That is either MS Word, or plain text. You do need the keywords because there are some ranking algorithms that some ATS use and sadly it is based on simple keyword matching. I recommend putting this at the bottom of the resume to keep the parsing happy (ie list of technologies used). Or if your resume you think is large perhaps at the top but a short list in case it is is truncated.
I stress small because the bigger the document the more likely systems downstream can fail (our system can handle 100MB resumes no problem... and yes people will upload resumes that large but downstream systems cannot).
Finally I think including links in your resume of work you have done is also beneficial. I believe it is the future of resumes. We are seeing more folks doing this and we already to some extraction based on this (ie github profile, github projects, blogs, linkedin profiles, etc).
In large part the resume doesn't matter once you have made the initial HR/Recruiter pass. So make sure you get past that.
Is this because MS Word documents are easier to parse (by SnapHop, not humans)?
The other issue with PDF is that some cheap PDF conversion tools will just turn into an image and thus characters are lost.
Most apply processes allow you do paste your resume as text and attach. I recommend doing both.
Honestly it'll depend on the size of the company you're applying to. I manage the ats for a large NGO. We process 27k applicants a year. We live and breath by the fact the system can process those resumes. A boutique software shop probably doesn't care as much.
As others have commented, I guess it's a good idea to provide context of skills and competencies by describing your previous positions. Maybe a separate list for "skills" would be an option as well.
I came across some sites that required MS Word, which I still find weird, as extracting text from a PDF shouldn't be too hard as well.
How are you going to use this resume? Sending in applications, posted online? Would affect my advice.
In general, two types of people will read your resume: hiring decision makers, and their agents/gatekeepers. Ideally the resume speaks to both groups. Gatekeepers use pretty simple filtering, though it won't all be disclosed. For example, if you've got 5 years of experience, and the rest of the applicant pool has 2, and they all went to Harvard and you went to University of Phoenix, you're getting filtered out unless there's something really amazing about you. The "top school" filter may not be disclosed in the job posting, or even known prior to seeing the applicant pool. In some cases these institutional biases are more or less public knowledge, in others not. Worry about passing the obvious, stated filters. It should be clear, in under 3 seconds, that you pass or exceed them. Don't be afraid to ELI5.
For the reviewers giving more than a passing glance, tell a short story. This is like pitching your startup idea, or selling anything, really. Quick, punchy, hook them and let them call you for more.
The resume gets you the call. The call gets you the meet. The meet gets you the job.
Based on your and the other comments, I think a list of skills is 'required', but might be meaningless without context (as in, where did you apply this)
I would caution that, while generally a solid approach, this does not advantage you in the final hiring, only in the initial screening stage. Not a bad thing, but keep in mind there are multiple stages to getting hired, and avoiding the first filter pass shouldn't be where the majority of your efforts are focused.
Of course, if you're goal is to get into a specific company, vs "any company" or "any of these companies", your approach will be different.
Resume screening is about cutting a stack of 100 down to 10, so it's all about finding a reason to say "No." If the job calls for C# WebApi and Angular experience and you start listing Python or Go projects, that's an easy no.
Generic resumes receive a fraction of the responses that resumes crafted for the position do. This has been well studied and cited. So why not take 20 minutes to customize a resume?
A Skills section is usually for the purposes of an ATS (automated resume scanner) or a human that will be looking for certain buzzwords, like a language or a framework that is most important to the job requirement. Recruiters know they can go to a skill section and find those things quickly.
I think in your situation, listing specific examples of your accomplishments is going to be even more important. You can tell me "I'm an all-around developer who cares about getting things done..." all day long, but listing specific things you've developed to illustrate that point is much more effective. It's not unlike people who say they have excellent communication skills - don't tell us, show us by writing something or demonstrate it in conversation.
Recruiters and HR are looking for those buzzwords, but engineers reviewing the resumes are looking for an interesting project that they can ask you about. Ideally it will involve a problem the company is trying to solve.
Start with a summary to quantify your experience - this starts the reader off with a big picture of who you are. Don't trust the reader to figure out you're a full stack dev, because the person first reviewing your resume might not be technical at all. They need to be told specifically what you do, and it's your job to do that. Your summary might start "Full stack developer with n years of experience across a mix of languages and platforms in Agile/TDD development environments. Additional skills in Project Management..." or similar.
Next, experience section with responsibilities (the day to day) in a couple sentences in paragraph form, then bullets for your novel accomplishments.
Skills, Education, other projects, community involvement, etc. to follow.
1. Write relevant bullet points that show what value you provided for your previous company and BOLD languages along the way.
E.g.
- Architected a product that does $X revenue with Y languages
- Stabilized systems of X which allowed throughput of Y% more connections with Z language/framework
2. Include a summary/objective in your LinkedIn/Resume. E.g. I'm an all-around developer that isn't afraid of X, Y, Z
I do think that this would be especially beneficial once you've passed the first screening. I might be wrong here, but I don't think most HR people take business value into account as it is not in the 'official' job description.
At smaller companies they might not have dedicated HR gate keepers or the person reading resumes might have a combined business/HR role. And at all companies being able to state your accomplishments in terms of business value helps a gate keeper understand your resume better and shows your ability to communicate effectively.
Goes in to great detail about exactly what to put in there and why, including a template that will appeal to the recruiter, to the hiring manager, and then to the interviewing developers.
As an aside, I wish there was a recruiter like Pete, but for Python developers (he focuses on Perl). You should check out his site: https://opensource.careers/
Skills on their own (9 out of 10 on JavaScript) don't mean much.
When I'm hiring it's what I look at first to see if there's any alignment on the tech stack at all. Then I check to see what has been used IRL lately, whether professionally ("day job") or not ("side projects").
It's a balancing act.
"I guess the main point I want to bring across is that I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job. I'm able to learn/understand tech quickly but this is just a means to an end. I like to focus on the team and there interaction / openness."
I usually just write working with Java stack / JVM technologies and a few sentences what I (not the team) accomplished in my previous jobs, because I don't think resumes all that important.
For better or worse, they're the first thing people see: it's important they describe your talents, interests, and passions.
I have a pretty non-standard resume, but I include standard parts like the ubiquitous bullet list of "things I know", but it's augmented with info that gives some insight into my personality, approaches, etc.
The people that don't like my resume are people I don't want to work for, so it's win all 'round.
So try to match the list as best you truthfully can to the one in the job description. If they put languages and skills in one big list, do the same. If they have some other format, use that. Just don't parrot their list so exactly that it looks like you are lying.
As for your main point: make it directly in a summary paragraph somewhere near the top of the resume.
"Architected a solution and led a team of developers to implement a custom solution for a large merger & acquisition company" doesn't tell the HM whether you know her stack. Depending on other strengths or weaknesses of your application, this may cost you the call. Yes, a great engineer/dev can learn your stack, yadda yadda, but maybe you're hiring because you're the only one who knows it, you're already training the rest of the team, and need someone to hit the ground running, you know?
Good to have all the checkboxes from the job spec covered. Avoid uncertainty on their part.
But that reinforces the practical part of my advice: don't worry if the skills list doesn't make sense to you, as long as it conforms to whatever the job decription is asking for.
State your accomplishments. Technical skills can be learned. I feel that learning technology is part of the job, not a prerequisite for the job. on your linked-in, okay list every little thing if you want non-technical recruiters to find you w/ keywords... But as a hiring manager, I want to see someone who can learn and grow into the role. Having technology experience relevant for the role is worth highlighting but not every bit of technical experience. Otherwise highlight technologies you've used in your accomplishments only but focus on the accomplishment itself. Focus more on the activities - what big important features did you implement, not what technology you used to implement the features. The positive outcome of the work is more important than how you got there.
Eg having worked on an open source project, managing contributions from other developers, releasing etc is more important than the project itself.
Right above the list of skills I have a 'Summary of Qualifications' which explains my overall caliber.
> I guess the main point I want to bring across is that I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job.
This is what you put in the summary, written for a resume of course, e.g. "Veteran developer with X years of experience using a pragmatic and goal oriented approach to development. Focused on solving problems and shipping software" etc.
Then I recommend listing work experience focused on acheivements. Recruiters want to see how your past experience will translate to future success so don't list job duties. List accomplishments at the job. How much revenue did the apps you wrote bring in? How many active users did the app you built support? Did you mentor other people and were they successful? Did you contribute to an open-source initiative?
"Built and maintained web applications using Ruby on Rails and React with over 200,000 active users per month."
I do list skills both in context and in a skills section.
My résumé has gotten me an interview every place I've sent it for the last 15 years. These things will never hurt you to do on yours. They will only help you.
I've heard that objectives hurt, and I know that work experience that reads like a job description hurts too. My wife is in HR and I've asked these questions of her network of people and that's the general consensus. So I hope that helps.
In fact you already have something to work with in this quote: "I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job. I'm able to learn/understand tech quickly but this is just a means to an end. I like to focus on the team and there interaction / openness." (but fix the sp of "there interaction")
If the audience sees something like "Senior Software Engineer" followed by the above paragraph it helps them understand how you see yourself fitting into the organization.
Next I would follow with a simple tabular format of skills (languages/frameworks/platforms for example) that is quickly scannable and has been pruned to remove outdated or out of favor technologies.
- a "classic" CV which describes education, skills, work experience, and "miscellaneous" projects (late night hacks mostly);
- a second document entitled "friendly CV" but which is actually a short pdf with slides. It is super casual and I explain my previous work with pictures of algorithms and technical stuff. I cut down all the noise and try to speak directly to the inner geek of my potential reader.
From my perspective, I'd say I had quite some success with it.
I think it doesn't matter if you do exactly that. The point is to wake up your reader if you're the 50th CV they're reading this afternoon.
Apply selectively. Construct a narrative about your career that shows an inevitable trend towards the exact role you're looking to fill. Employers are generally looking for someone to shore up a skills gap, or augment an existing team. The job spec generally makes this an open book exam.
Really, the biggest thing is figuring out what sort of role you want, and trying to see your career through the lens of the person hiring for that role.
If you successfully can describe your current/last positions, point out how you had used technologies and competencies, you’ll highlight yourself.
Each hiring manager should be able to quickly scan through your CV and check the mental boxes in their head, so that they can move your candidacy on to the next phase. That's really all the resume needs to do. So streamline each resume you submit to make that process as quick and painless for the hiring manager as possible.
Later on, when you're getting to know the company (and they're getting to know you), that's when you can bring in your multitude of experiences that aren't directly related to the job. But there's no reason for that initial submission to be an exhaustive list of all your great qualities.
I would say make the skill section brief. Don't list every flavor of SQL you've ever worked with, just put SQL, etc. Or go crazy, but put it at the end. Honestly, I never begrudged someone doing a word dump at the end of their resume, as long as the rest of the resume was good. We all know that recruiters have no clue and might scrap an application if a buzzword is missing.
It doesn't make sense to put in the same level "bash" and "JavaScript" if you really want to look for JavaScript jobs.
Then, in each of the previous jobs, I put the main tech that I have been exposed to. That gives an idea of the different skills and tools, but making a clear distinction in terms of which ones I am interested or consider that are my core skills.
My view is that a CV/resume (non-academic) should list relevant work experience and education. Probably also certifications if relevant for the position.
Perhaps a section on other experience (leadership/management/responsibilities/achivements in volunteer/leisure activities - eg: successfully guided a hiking trip through a storm, etc).
Then the cover letter should put those experiences in context for the position you're applying for. And it probably should be no more than (half) a page for the letter and one to two for the CV.
Maybe I'm a bit extreme, but I strongly believe in not wasting the time of people doing the hiring (hopefully for an engineering position they're not full time HR and have other things they'd rather be doing).
http://blog.robertelder.org/50-interviews-with-facebook-twit...
You may want to start at the section "How Do I Pitch Myself"
Selected Project Experience:
Consumer Finance Protection Reporting Database (2014) - Backend Developer. Developed the platform to support a consumer finance protection website that allows users to put a lock on their credit account without navigating customer service telephone lines. Built the backend with Django (Python) and Postgres and implemented a robust API with the Django REST Framework.
Etc...
Name: Cody McCoder E-mail: cody@mccoder.any
Profile: "I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job. I'm able to learn/understand tech quickly but this is just a means to an end. I like to focus on the team and there interaction / openness."
Skills: "a mixture of languages, products, areas but also practices/skills"
Portfolio: ...links to your case studies with code, rationale, team contribution and comments...
DONE
New | Proficient | Expert
Or something along those lines. Then list your skills in there and it's super easy for people to very quickly see your skills and how you rate yourself. The New column is a great way to show that you are learning new things on your own. Most recruiters I've showed to it like it.
I pretty much keep my work experience the same but change around my Skills and Technical Proficiencies to match the job I'm applying for.
2. Personal connection
