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Joel Rants About Resumes
rbrandis writes "Mr. Spolsky's latest rant is about writing a resume that will be read "Please do not use cover letters that you copied out of a book. If you write 'I understand the position also requires a candidate who is team- and detail-oriented, works well under pressure, and is able to deal with people in departments throughout the firm' then at best people will think you're a bullshit artist and at worst they will think that you were not born with the part of the brain that allows you to form your own thoughts and ideas.""
Maybe the problem is that after sending out 6000 resumes and cover letters only to receive rejects letters from about 40% while being completely ignored by the rest has led me to believe that spending a great deal of time on each application/resume/cover letter I send out for Yet Another Job Opening would consume an amount of time equivelent to a full-time job? The amount of time I spend on a resume/cover letter package depends on how much I want the job. If it's a job I would use just to pay the bills, I e-mail it to you. If it's my dream job that I have no chance in hell at every getting, I send it out printed on cotten with a calogne-laced envelope.
But thanks for "keeping my resume on file" anyway...
Deal, no more generic bullshit answers. Now when to the bullshit questions and requirements stop? I've seen job requirements that required experience in products less than a week old (W2K3 Server), and bullshit questions like "what is your greatest weakness". Cut it all out, sounds great to me.
Gees. I gotta disagree, here.
First of all, what does my prospective employer have to do with what other positions I apply for?
And second, I think that shows a sign of determination and, in these times, you seem to need just that to get a job. Gone are the "one phone call to the recruiter" days of finding 50 job offers. In fact, my last recruiter called ME a few months ago looking for a position for herself...
Go ahead, apply for every job THAT YOU'RE QUALIFIED FOR, and sort through the results yourself. Get out, get noticed. If your prospective employer thinks you should sit around on your ass and pretend that you're qualified and live off of Ramen and potatos for months while you wait, then you probably don't want to work for him.
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
Except that you are the product.
It's no use sending out resumes at random. You need to know who you are speaking to and what they need. Then, try to explain clearly why hiring you will save them money and/or provide other concrete benefits.
The hardest part is getting an interview but normally decent firms will interview several candidates. You can also call before you send your resume, find the person doing the selection, and ask them whether your CV was clear or not. This can help to get it to the top of the stack.
Last piece of advice: this is such a hard time to find tech jobs that you may be better starting your own business one way or another. Ironically, the dot-com boom was better for employees than for businessmen, and this period is the reverse.
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D does really exist
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E-mail is cheap, worthless. At least say that you're willing to send your portfolio/resume by mail if requested.
The owls are not what they seem
It's not what you know, but who you know.
Many people believe this saying. More correctly its "not what you know, but who knows you". Think about it for a sec. Someone like Linus could easily have a 1 line resume:
- I created Linux in 1991.
The person reading this probably knows who Linus is (or should), Linus, more than likely, does not know the person reading the resume.
Actually, I see many job postings where they ask for some experience like the list above but then end with 0-3 years of experience required.
Sometimes I think the real purpose of such postings is to be able to show that they can't find any qualified people in the US.
"Writing a shareware app when you're a teenager is just as good a qualification to us as getting into MIT."
In my 15 years of hiring new college grads for entry level engineering positions, I've seen some total fucknuts come out of MIT. I mean complete mouth-breathers who couldn't solve a problem without their hands being held from start to finish.
I'm not putting MIT below any other school, I'm just surprised that it had an equal percentage of dead wood as the local state school.
However, I do find that the students who excel from MIT, generally do so to a much higher degree than the top performers from other schools.
I'd immediately pounce on an applicant who started and finished a big project, on their own time, during high-school. Hardware, software, organization: the simple fact that you have problem solving skill and care about something is a HUGE plus. Can't stress that enough.
GPA and SAT scores are the LAST things I look at.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Cover letters are not fluff. We specify on every posting that a cover letter is required. If there is no cover letter, the resume is usually put in the round filing cabinet. We do this to find out if the applicant can actually follow directions...
"Don't be afraid to take risks..." This wasn't the case in the UK when I was on the market there (4+ years ago now). These are some of the things I tried, only to get CVs (resumes) thrown back at me by agencies, saying they couldn't use them: - Use of a HTML document instead of MS Word DOC for electronic copies: some couldn't handle HTML at all, others figured out that they could load them in Word to view them, upon which they borked the formatting, then printed them out to fax them. - Landscape format (with columns): got a few interested "a-ha's", but mostly complaints about bits missing when they came out the fax machine. - double-sided paper copies: nope, they were a pain to fax. - Fonts other than Times New Roman, such as the Lucida family: never mind that they faxed better, some agencies even went and changed them back, before printing them out to fax. When I did find something, it was as a result of meeting the recruiters at a fair, and it only took six months between that and being hired. This after going to several interviews, which went well, after which I head nothing at all, not even a "No".
(this is not a
I've been in the job market for several years. I have a perfect resume, lots of experience that is suitable to a variety of positions, and a lifetime of experience searching for jobs. Since I usually get nibbles when I do find jobs to apply to, I would argue that the problem is the terrible job market and incompetent employers. This rant about bad resumes might be amusing to those of us used to belittling our fellow co-workers, but when I've been involved in the hiring process, most of the resumes I've seen have been pretty adequate.
The real problem here are incompetent, rude, and stupid employers. I've been through enough interview situations to know that the real incompetent factor in the job interview process is usually the employer. What burns me up these days are employers who can't even bother to contact you after you've gone in and interviewed with them. Think about it. You go out of your way to dress up for an interview, get your butt to the interview, spend an hour or two answering questions, and then the potential employers can't be bothered to contact you about the outcome of the interview.
Here is a short list of rude and stupid behavior that I have experienced from potential employers:
1) If you are contacting me to set up an interview, I assume that you have noticed the fact that I live halfway across the country from your office. Do you understand what a *phone interview* is?
2) It is rude behavior to leave an interviewee in a room so you can go get some cake at the department birthday party (Aspen Sytems in Washington, DC).
3) When you ask me stupid questions like "What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?" I make a mental note that I will not work for your company.
4) I sent you a nice resumer, cover letter and thank you letter after the interview. The least you can do is send me a rejection letter when you have made your decision.
5) Please don't spring "tests" and "homework assigments" on me when I show up for an interview. Please have some respect for my experience, skills, and time. Just because you think that it is a cute idea to send me home with "homework," doesn't mean that you are finding out anything more than you could have learned from my resume and interview. Stop wasting my time!
6) If the interview is going to take more than an hour, please tell me ahead of time so I can adjust my plans accordingly. It really sucks to show up for an interview only to be handed an "itinerary" for three hours of interviews.
7) It says a lot about your organization when you interview me once, then interview me again three months later, and never bother following up with me with a phone call or letter (ACLU).
8) Don't assume that I will leave the job because I am "overqualified." If I bothered to show up for the interview, then I have solid reasons to want the job. Did it ever occur to you that I might want a part time job so I can have time for the family or other projects or jobs?
9) Where do I see myself in five years? Probably in your job, if this is the most intelligent question you can throw at me.
Yeah, people write bad resumes, but let's talk about stupid employer tricks!
Yes, I've done some hirin' and some firin'.
Worst cover letter boner:
"I have good communicationing skills. As you seeing from cover letter, I can speaking and writing very well English"
Okaaaay... look, I don't need a James Joyce clone for an entry level engineering job so this kind of English is not a disqualifier by itself, but I try to avoid the delusional. Don't fib.
Worst resume boner:
Some guy got past the screeing process with a resume that looked quite good. Lot's of relevant experience items. So, naturally, I thought I'd pick one and let him expound, you know, give him a chance to show his stuff. First one fizzled. Second. Third. So, about the fifth try I decided to pick one a drill down to the bedrock, what did this guy really know? He listed experiece with SPICE. So I asked him some basic SPICE questions. Deer in headlights. It turns out, the "experiece" this guy had with spice, is that when he was a lab monitor some grad student had needed SPICE on a workstation, so he had tar'ed it off the tape. THAT WAS IT. He ran tar to pull SPICE off a tape. His entire resume was just as inflated as that item. His interview day ended shortly after.
Don't inflate, don't stretch. It will bite you in the ass, big time.
I've written thousands of lines of embedded code that has been running perfectly in mission critical environments for years on end without ever crashing and the resumes I write suck. What does this tell you?
If you can write a great resume, it only means you can write a great resume. Nothing more, nothing less...It 100% does NOT mean you can program. They are not related in any way. I wish HR dildos like the one who wrote that rant would figure this out. No wonder software is so buggy. Look at who's doing the hiring.
Your trueley,
Currently employed Firmware, Software, and Hardware Engineer. Working professionaly in the industry for over 12 years.
Yeah, no matter how good your resume is, you are still subject to random whims of the hiring manager -- like Joel getting pissed at a Yahoo Sig. Or a Pro/Anti-MS shop taking issue with a Hotmail address. Or someone taking a like/dislike to the font you used.
Recently, my boss was throwing out all resumes that were longer than 1 page. Apparently he'd just remembered this "rule", and I had to remind him that our entire staff had resumes longer than 1 page.
(Although, I have to admit that I've tossed resumes for tech positions for having lamer email address like biff3861@aol.com, so I'm as guilty as the rest.)
One of the biggest misconceptions about job search is that a job opening is like a lottery and you are one lucky sonofabitch if a company deigns to consider you for a position with them.
A job advertisment is NOT a lottery, it is an invitation to enter into a BUSINESS NEGOTIATION with them in which you exchange something they need (your skills) for something you need (dollars). You should ALWAYS have the view that they are on trial by you just as much as you are by them and you will walk away from the table if they aren't the right fit for you. NEVER adopt the demeanor of the supplicant or job-beggar.
Another thing I have to take exception to is this statement: If you don't have the right qualifications, don't apply for the job. That depends on who wrote the qualifications and how reasonable they are. Often the list is written by some HR drone who doesn't know shit from shinola, much less what UNIX is or what a router looks like or that you can't possibly have 5 years experience deploying Windows 2003! Maybe you don't exactly meet their qualification list...so what? If you think you can do the job and offer them something of value, by all means apply! I've applied for (and landed) jobs that I wasn't fully qualified for. Who knows? The other guy they're considering might be a super-qualified asshole. I'd rather train somebody I can get along with than have to deal with an asshole any day! And if some HR dork gives you grief for "wasting their time" because "you don't meet their list", politely remind them that your time is valuable too.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Last time the goverment allowed us to hire or replace someone, we tried something new.
First, there were horrible resumes sent in and the only thing that stopped us from deleting them was if they sent a word document. We read most of them no matter what.
Second, we only cared what the persons experience was, an opensource project was a definite PLUS!
A resume was only crappy if they had nothing real
to show. We then selected about half for the interview process.
Third, we had two interview levels. The first was IRC, we would send an email telling the person to meet us on irc and then have a chat with them. This let us know if the person was for real or not. Whether they wrote a bad resume or not. It was great to do this, everyone on the team was involved in the interview and it was logged. Also, it was completly unbiased with relation to sex or race. Then after we had about 3 canidates we interviewed them in "real life". It was a quick and fun experience. And we hired someone that kicks ass!!
Can you see Iron City here?
There are several things that will cause me to put someone in the 'do not hire' pile - here's a short list:
- Generic resumes. You clearly don't care enough about my company to research us and make sure your resume fits the job.
- More than two spelling errors.
- More than one error spelling a technical term. If you know how to do it you should know how to spell it.
- Lying. Even a little one.
- Listing obsolete skills as filler. I don't care if you're proficient in Windows 3.1
;-)
Another thing I might add for people out there looking for a job - no one I know reads further than the first page when making the first cut on a pile of resumes. I personally don't read much more than the first half of the first page.Another thing that bugs me - applicants who stress the fact that they need a job. I know you need a job, folks - that's why you applied to the company in the first place. My only concern is what you can bring to the company - everything else is secondary. If you're not the best candidate for the position you have absolutely no business showing up for the interview.
The day after the interview, call or email me and thank me for the opportunity to interview. *Do not* use this courtesy call as an opportunity to ask me if I've made a decision.
Sorry for the rant, but I hire reasonably well-paid technical people all the time and you might be surprised how many people are completely unprepared to enter (or reenter) the job market.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
Sorry for being negative, but the guy just bugs me.
Some of the points that he brings up from time to time are reasonably interesting, but rarely inspiring or revolutionary.
Nobody gives a crap about your hobbies
I've had Firewalking listed in my 3-line Outside Interests section for some time now, and it invariably sparks conversation during the interviews. I'll grant that the HR folks don't generally notice it, but I have yet to see a hiring manager who didn't. That seems to be one of those resume tidbits that gets around the office before your first day, too, and in my mind anything that gets your name around the office without making you look like *too* much of an idiot is a good thing. =)
Dan
...Hey,
Congrats on a VERY successful Karma-whore. +5 insightful, very well done. When I originally wrote it, it only got +4, informative.
Just in case anyone else cares, however, I posted this comment originally in response to "Have You Personally Used an Honest Head Hunter?" on September 30, under the subject line "Guess I've been lucky..."
All in all, this doesn't bother me too much, I figure you know you've "arrived" on /. when the whores start plagarizing your comments.
Rock on!
"That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
See, I don't get this. I wear ties when expected by our dippy culture, but I never understood what the hell they are supposed to mean. As far as I can tell, it's some pointless relic from an bygone era. I'm not saying show up in torn jeans, but why can't people be comfortable in an interveiw instead of tarting themselves up with clothing they will never be wearing on the job? Why can't we have some sort of happy medium?
What makes you think they will never wear ties on the job? There are a lot of IT positions where ties will be required, at least some of the time.
Anyway, all clothing styles are either fashion-driven, situational, or both. You can wear what your drinking buddies think is "comfortable", or what the hiring authority thinks is "comfortable", but unless they are the same, I'd go with the hiring authority for the interview. Save the "pointless relics" of the current era for after hours :)!
Some of the most brilliant engineers and scientists have are perpetually casual dressers. It's irrelevant. Drug dealers wear suits. Kenneth Lay wore suits. Saddam Hussein wore suits. It's meaningless.
Not quite. The bad guys wear them because they don't want to feel like or appear as bad guys. I think you're getting that lesson backwards ...
As for the geniuses, they by definition get more leeway than us mortals. Just because it works for them doesn't mean that it will work for you.
I once got an interview after putting "Will work for food" as one of my qualifications. So depending on the position, showing a sense of humor may not be a bad idea.
I totally blew the interview itself. I did okay with the "just be friendly and promise never to steal office supplies" portion. But then I got handed off to one of their code gurus.
He asked me if I had any experience with testing frameworks. I hadn't. He asked me to rate my Perl and C++ skills on a scale of 1-10, which I considered excessively subjective (especially since there were no follow-ups).
I know I suck as an interviewee. I stumble over words, and have a hard time claiming "I have m4d 5k1ll504zz." It's a self-confidence thing, I guess. But I also feel the guy sucked as an interviewer. For the most part, I didn't see how the questions related to my experiences, the qualifications for the job as I understood it, or generalized technical knowledge or problem solving. The whole experience was just... odd.
I left feeling like a total poser, even though I'm approximately as qualified as two of the people who did end up getting the job (we all go to school together). So, two questions:
First, what can an applicant do to improve his interviewing skills?
Second, should an interviewer try and compensate for an interviewee's subpar skills in an attempt to draw out the fact that he/she would actually be a good fit for the company. If so, what would be some ways to do that?
I ask because (God forbid) I might be on the other side of the desk--okay, that time it was a cubicle--and I'd like to do it well.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
The Department of the Army hired me for a job in a Network Operations Security Center, requiring a Secret security clearance, with absolutely NO INTERVIEW. I shit you not. I applied for a position over the internet and about 8 months later, got an email saying I had been selected. The only people I spoke to before showing up to work was a personnel clerk (via email only) and the battalion security officer (once on the phone, concerning the application I had to fill out to get a clearance which, after a year on the job I still don't have). You are absolutely right about being wary of the business. It's turned out to be the worst job I've ever held. The position is not even close to what was described in the posting I applied for and had they actually interviewed me and told me the real deal I would almost certainly have turned them down. On the bright side... I'm now in Europe and after a year of workplace misery I'm eligible to apply for (and have a much better chance of getting) other govt. jobs here. If any of you are considering trying this you should first thoroughly review your tolerance for mediocracy and waste. You ain't never seen nothing like this.
Only 7 pages? :)
:)
A few months ago, we received a 27 (!) page resume (single-spaced) for an entry-level DSP engineering position.
Now, admittedly, he was obviously a smart guy - with 80+ IEEE papers (listed individually, making for the bulk of that 27 pages). But there was just no way we could possibly hire a guy like that for an entry level position - for a senior researcher, fine, but we have enough of those. Seemingly, he was interested in doing actual engineering work but there was nothing there to indicate that he spent time doing anything other than churn out papers.
We normally schedule about 6 hours of interviews - this guy lasted 15 minutes before him and my boss realized they were looking for very different things
And here's a hint - if you have voluminous output in published journals (or the patent office - we get similar resumes stuffed with patents, though not to such an absurd degree), cite a couple that are relevant - for instance, we're a DSL company - all your papers on cell networks are nice (and semi-relevant), but if you highlighted your 3 papers on wireline communications that you co-authored and included a line about having 77 more papers published you would save everyone involved a lot of time - if we're that interested (for verification purposes or morbid curiousity), we'll go to IEEE.org or uspto.gov and search for your name. Listing that much individually just makes you seem arrogant. (on the otherhand, if you've only published a couple of things, go ahead and list them individually regardless of subject - it'll at least give us a good starting point in an interview and a chance to show-off).
Tim
Oh, and 1 more thing:
If you include a couple of papers that you co-authored, we will pull them out and the engineers you interview with will have read them. And, personally, I will ask you about it.
So if its something you got a co-authorship on when helping out a crazy-genius professor in college but don't fully understand yourself, cop to that immediately when asked about it (the honesty is appreciated, and its a fairly common situation - it won't count against you, it will just realign expectations with reality). If you don't, I (and many of my colleagues) will expect you to be all-knowing god on that subject, and in some cases you may be interviewing with someone who *is* an all-knowing on the subject - in fact, if you have a co-authorship for a paper on, say, Delta-Sigma DAC techniques, you will be scheduled to interview with our resident delta-sigma guru. You may be able to play the bullshit with some of us who have a more basic understanding of foo, but the expert will catch you.
Tim
Must have experience with a write-only scripting language" which we all know refers to Perl :P
Spoken like someone who has never programed Bourne Shell, yet alone C shell or JCL.
Try MS-DOS batch, where you have to create functions on-the-fly by writing code that creates new MS-DOS batch files for you...I tell you that was horrible.
One 'conventional wisdom' that I like is that you should always put team sports as hobbies in your resumes. The rationale is that if you like team sports, you are a good team-player, and if you like individual sports, you don't play well with others.
I always wonder if I should be honest and put 'Taekwondo' down as my hobby. I mean, not only am I not a team-player, but I also enjoy beating my teammates up. Oh my.