How To List FOSS Experience On Your Resume

maximus1 writes "If you're selling skills gained in an open source project, you have additional opportunities to shine, say experts in this ITWorld article. But what is the best way to explain your FOSS experience? 'Someone stands out because of how they talk about the project, says Zack Grossbart, author of The One Minute Commute. His advice is to describe the project and discuss your contributions in detail: 'If you were a committer, what did you do to earn that status? What features did you work on? Did you design new areas, or just implement predefined functions? Did you lead meetings? Define new architecture? Set the project direction?' If the FOSS experience is part of your background but not a shining beacon or job equivalent, it's common to list it under 'other experience.' Andy Lester, author of Land The Tech Job You Love, says: 'Think of each project as a freelance job that you've worked on. Just as different freelance gigs have varying sizes and scopes, so too does each project to which you contribute. The key is to not lump all your projects under one "open source work" heading.' Good examples are worth a thousand words. Grossbart offers up his resume as a sound but not perfect example (PDF) that includes open source experience. (His article on how to format your resume might also be of interest.)"

Comments

"Meetings"?

[John Hasler]

> Did you lead meetings?

What are these "meetings" you speak of?

Re:"Meetings"?

[Threni]

If you're putting together a resume then you're looking for a job, and if you get a job, you're going to have to endure brain numbing meetings where your boss will ask you the same question you've answered at least 3 times that much, knowing full well that he won't understand and will ask you again in a few days. The meeting will waste your time, and not express any information you couldn't have committed to writing in an email. But it will pass an hour of your - and more importantly, your bosses - time, and given that bosses don't work but instead just attend meetings and try and make comments to suggest that they in some way add value to the company they work for, you'd better get used to it sooner rather than later.

Re:His formatting article might be interesting,

[Shados]

Aside for the formatting of skill lists and stuff, its pretty good, which means one thing, in my opinion: he is another victim of the "YOUR RESUME MUST BE ONE PAGE REGARDLESS OF YOUR EXPERIENCE!!!!!111!" school of thought.

The one page resume rule: hurting professionals everywhere since....well, ever.

Why should I care about this douchebag's

[Anonymous Coward]

opinion? Blah blah blah, try 30 different fonts. Blah blah blah, try 20 different text editors. And HR will still want a copy in word format or plain text format, ignore any formatting, and keyword scan.

My resume is done in latex. Better font, better justification, better appearance.