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OS Projects and Your Resume?
DavonZ asks: "Being that many readers of Slashdot may have contributed to Open Source projects, I thought this the best place to ask this question: What is the best way to outline our side projects into our resumes? I did the conversion of the C700 from Japanese to English, review hardware for nvmax.com, run MaxProjects which ports applications to the Sharp Zaurus, founded the Embedded Linux Developers Group and still maintain a full-time job with a semiconductor. How to I add these into my resume? I have been told not to; to only enter them into my cover letter. Others have told me to add a projects section. I have even been told that I shouldn't mention my projects at all. Which is the best approach? What are other Slashdot readers doing?"
If you resume contains a 'hobbies and interests' section, add them there. They aren't education related, and they aren't *jobs*, so don't place them in the main body of your resume.
A Cover letter would probably be the best spot overall though.
Since OS projects are like free beer, why not give some to your potential employer? That is a sure-fire way to get employed.
I added a "Community" section to my resume and put things like that there. Similar to a 'hobbies' section, but community expresses it better. Would running the local Unix security SIG be a hobby? Not really.
My resume
What better way to underline your passion for technology than to mention your extracurricular involvement w/ it?
If your resume is strong as-is, and nets you the important first interview, you could manage by just mentioning your volunteer activities in a cover letter. With resumes, size does matter and the shorter, "the better."
Otherwise, like some readers have already suggested, paste the information into a broadened "Experience" category or, if you prefer, an aptly named "Community" or "Projects" category.
HTH.
Here's what I do, and I've had a fair bit of success with my resume:
Put a "Special Skills" section at the top of your resume. In this section, list a few software/hardware/personal skills that stand out. Here, you can also list one or two of your open source contributions, but don't go into too much detail and make sure that you choose only your best contributions. (You want to be succint, but still get the message across.)
Other alternative: you can list one or two of your contributions in your "Activities and Interests" section, near the end of your resume.
-kris
I recently got hired for a new job. While I was interviewing for the spot, I was asked more than once about more than one of the projects I've done. They seemed genuinely interested in what I'd done.
I think having a projects section as part of your resume is a good idea because it indicates that you take developing your skills outside of work seriously.
This is work experience just like any other job. The fact that you didn't get paid for it or that it was volunteer doesn't make any difference to someone looking at your resume. The point of the resume is to show what *related* work you have done in the past. So if you are applying for a software related position, your OS work is definately relevent work experience and should be listed with all your other work experience.
I would like to contribute to Open Source Projects and support the community in this fashion. I am a Developer I and I don't have a great deal of experience, and I am not familiar with the way Open Source projects progress.
I have looked a little at Sourceforge, but am really unsure where exactly to begin. Any ideas?
One thing I've learned is that no two people on the planet will give the same advice regarding resumes. Their effectiveness is so dependent on the personality of the person reading them that all you have on your side is hope and luck. The most important thing you can do is to express your projects somewhere on the resume or cover letter and hope that it catches an eye or scanning machine or two.
If you have lot's of time, create a slightly different resume for each company based on your research and your estimate of their "atmosphere" or "corporate culture" or "Feng Shui energy displacement patterns" (that's as good as anything else, I guess).
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Couldn't Open Source programming be considered contract labor, for release under the applicable license? If you contribute to the Linux Kernel your work is GPL and you did that work knowing it would be GPL. I don't see why it shouldn't be credited under Work Experience. As for compensation the attribution of contributed modules should fall under fixed rate compensation, in this case whuffie: The new new economy.
This sig is self referential.
Employers are interested in what you can do.
;-)
You know your kung-foo well enough to do what you have done, in your "spare" time. I think independent projects help prove that you really do have the skills, and weren't just a tagalong on some work-related project.
Anything you can do to make your resume look better, makes you more formidable as my opponent.
When you do get an interview, the immediate supervisors and potential co-workers are usually the most interested in your projects. I've had interviews where the bulk of the interview questions involved independent projects.
However, I haven't had too many interviews recently...so maybe employers are more interested in the number of years you worked for someone.
...
The rest of us are still waiting to get our hands on a C700, you insenstive clod.
One thing I try to keep in mind is that the main purpose of my resume is to get me an interview.
Bearing that in mind, one tactic would be to put on the resume something general about contributing to FOSS. Then, they have to actually contact you to find out the specifics. This also helps keep the resume brief, which is a good thing.
Your average response here is going to be from an unemployed technozealot of some sort telling you what to do with your resume to get a job, that they don't have.
Your best bet is to make a resume that is the best representation of the work you are capable of. If you read it, and it looks like it describes you and you'd give yourself a job then get it out there and see what happens. You'll find out pretty quickly whether it's working or not, and if not make some adjustments and go at it again.
IMHO, people spend WAY too much time worrying about how to write the perfect resume when they'd already have a job if they'd put that energy directly into finding jobs and applying for them.
No Comment.
It covers many different aspects of involvement without requiring several sections. I describe my level of involvement in each entry in the section.
put it in there! for employers, this is a further chance to "try before you buy" - they get to see some projects that you've worked on, rathern than just hear about them. I contribute to several projects, and have details of these on my CV. At every single interview, without exception, I have been asked more details about the Open Source projects that I work on. All have been intrigued to learn more. At the end of the day, it is something that will make you well remembered and stick in an employers mind, which is going to make it much more likely that you will get an interview, or the job.
to mention that you got a story posted on /.
:)
It's all going according to
After that, though, do try to keep in mind that anybody can start any kind of open source project at any time, so you need to ask yourself how you're going to appear to your potential boss. Really now, are all your projects serious efforts that could be career-level if somebody would just pay you? Or are some of them more like hobbies? Don't just say to yourself, "Hey, I want credit for everything I can get credit for", and don't just say "Am I proud of these things?" Ask, "Is my potential employer going to be blown away by this stuff, and see the obvious connection to the job I'm trying to get?"
Nobody out there is going to say "all open source good. You do open source? You good." The people out there that "get" open source in the biz world also get that for every killer project like an apache, tomcat, ant, sendmail, etc... there are a million others that are really just glory grabs or some kiddie someplace that said "Dood I have an idea and want to be the first one to say that so i get all the credit...I just don't want to do any of the work...."
See what I'm saying? I don't know anything about your projects, so I'm not trying to put them into either category. Just suggesting that you take a serious look at them and ask if your potential employers are really going to care.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Having been on the hiring end of things, I'd definately say you should put it in. How you do it is up to you.
Think about what kind of company you want to work for. If they don't see this as an asset, then you're not missing anything. The difference between canidates for us can be tipped by "other" work. It shows a true interest in your work, not just "showing up for a paycheck". You're also actively encouraged to continue after your hired... experience only makes you more valuable and productive.
It's this atmosphere that keeps me at my job... hrm, "how to retain good employees?"
-=sig=-
For sure. It's a good screening tool. If a company is afraid of you because you work on open source projects you don't want to work there.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Generally, I think all relevant experience should go on a resume, including this kind of avocational programming and project work.
My only concern is that by alerting your potential employer to such projects you might find Intellectual Property issues - they might claim that such work is their IP and not yours, and/or they might write this into your contract.
This may seem overly paranoid, and it's a judgment call you'll have to make. I work for a University so IP is not really a concern, but when my wife worked in the corporate world there was some concern about off-time work that was substantially similar to her corporate work, and the definition of *substantially similar* can be pretty sketchy...
I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
One advice is be honst on your resume. It doesn't matter if you put your opensource experiences under Voluteering or Community sections.
From my experience as a project admin in two projects at sourceforge.net, I know there are a lot of people who join opensource projects just to get the names on their resume. So, what the project does is not that important. (For example, people can submit just one Linux kernel hack and claim themselves kernel developers on their resumes. Unethical, but possible.) The important thing is to be honst and state clearly what you have contributed (learned) to (from) the project(s). And if you have a very good relationship with the project admin, why not ask him/her to be your reference on your resume.
============
Mathematics will always come back to hunt you down, in so many ways
If you want to fit it into a "standard resume", add it into the Volunteer Work section of your resume.
I'm a software team leader and I had problems getting one of my team as HR didn't like his open source projects - they saw it as competition. UK companies don't want inovators or high caliber employees - they want 'Yes' men. Leave them off your CV.
Do you really want to work for a place with management that would say, "This applicant did not format his resume properly. He has included accomplishments that defy our traditional categorizations!"? Go ahead and put them on there, either in some "other" category or wherever you think they best belong. However, don't pad with trivial accomplishments; just put your best ones.
my opinion is: write several different versions of resume, the one with your open source projects is for the OS as_ kissers. And if applying for MS jobs in M$, tell them you can use MS IDEs(.NET specially) like brushing your teeth. good luck!
eXtreme programming, man!
My resume has sections for paid work and for volunteer work. If I made any contributions to open-source software, I'd probably stick it under volunteer. Once I was part of two or more projects, I'd add another section.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
In general, people who are not interested in you want a short resume.
Someone who is actually interested, who is thinking of spending $80,000 per year in salary and expenses to hire you, will want to know as much as possible about you.
In general, people who are not interested in you want a short resume.
Someone who is actually interested, who is thinking of spending $80,000 per year in salary and expenses to hire you, will want to know as much as possible about you.
Not true... It says volumes when you can focus a broad range of skills and experience into a couple pages - and sell the business angle too. Surprisingly few techies get the latter. I've seen way to many four plus page CV's that go all the way back to some junior high internship. I've actually seen folks list logo. Argh!
The thing to be afraid of is the short interview... because they will want to know as much as possible about you. Just not on the CV.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
and still maintain a full-time job with a semiconductor.
Tell us, what sort of job do you have with a dwarfish locomotive employee?
Some proprietary software companies may not hire if you've written GPL'ed code.
I think you have one of the most impressive resumes I've ever seen, both in style and in content. If you don't mind, I may borrow from it (that is, the style, not the content).
;-)
In the spirit of OSS, let me make a few minor contributions:
1) Argonne National Laboratory - "...needs to work closely with it's peers." - "it's" should be "its".
2) Fermilab - "...maintain a subset of the physics thumbnails, all user data and allow for searching." - How about "...maintain a subset of the physics thumbnails and all user data, and allow for searching."?
3) Landis & Gyr - "Worked with client personal..." - Did you mean "Worked with client personnel..."?
4) Swing Master - "data was stored and later utilized..." - This is just a pet peeve of mine, and you're welcome to disagree, but I think the word "utilize" and it's variants are way over-utilized.
Cheers...
-BK
Chemical Blog
I should have said long resumes that are packed with useful information are better than short resumes that are difficult to decode.
I've always used the heading "Softography" to list any software I have developed myself.
I wrote and marketed the first native provider for MySQL on the .NET platform. I've gotten a big hit out of this when I go for new clients. Of course this is a commercial product for me so it's not open source, but MySQL is open source so I think that there is some value here.
:)
Interested parties can check out www.einfodesigns.com though I would add that this is a shameless plug.
or localization?
Your goal is to get them to read the darn thing. To that end it must be catch their attention first, be attractive second. You must survive the first 2 seconds when they make the "read/don't read" decision. Size is a consideration only to the extent that it impacts those first two goals. It must obviously be readable and informative. Like most of us,I have a variety of different resumes, I've found that I get the most compliments (AND RESULTS) from my 6-page monster. The two-pager often gets lost in the stack.