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Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

#31

Post by matt_the_bass »

whoisjuan wrote: post #5
matt_the_bass wrote: post #3

- lots of short stints employment. It costs a lot to find, hire and on board someone. Ideally I’d like them to stick around for a while. - lists of buzzwords without clear descriptions of what they actually did. I don’t care about “fashionable” terms. I wanted heard about concrete things they’ve done. - poor formatting. If they don’t care enough to make their resume look clean and neat, why would I expect them to car…

What's your definition of "short stint"? Less than 1 year?

Depends on context. If someone is a consultant/contractor, short stints are ok. But then have a clear reason why they want to go back to standard employee.

If someone has a number of longer stints, then a short one here or there is no big deal. But I want their resume to tell a story.

Don’t be afraid of explaining circumstances in a cover letter.

Re: Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

#32

Post by vzaliva »

I usually look for some obscure buzzword which I know something about and ask the candidate about it. For example, if he has Foo on his resume I will ask a concrete technical question related to Foo. Oftentimes it turns out the only experience with it he or she has was in a college, years ago. For me, that is an indication that candidate tends to exaggerate his knowledge and whatever else he lists on his resume has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Re: Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

#33

Post by muzani »

bbrunner wrote: post #24

In general, anything that is a red flag is probably something I would just clarify in a 20 minute phone screen. Most of the time, what looks like a red flag on a resume has a good explanation. That being said, the two that come to mind that I've seen the most of are: - Not taking direct ownership of achievements (e.g. I was part of a team that did x). I don't care what your team did, I care what you did even if it's…

Would you say those who do recent coding bootcamps are worse than those recently graduated from college?

Re: Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

#34

Post by esalman »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #11
esalman wrote: post #10

I used to hire at a startup. Following are the things I usually looked at. These are not sorted by severity, some are red flags but others are just irrelevant. * not following instruction in the job advert * CC resume to many recipients * weird sender name in email * compressed resume * begging for job in the cover letter * photo * "career objective" * personal information * broken links * clear lack of personalizati…

MS Office skills lol.

Yep, you'll be surprised how many candidates list this.

Re: Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

#35

Post by blackbagboys »

magoon wrote: post #9

The most recent entry being your own one-man shop that you’re president and CEO of. Github accounts with recent “my first project” forks. Gaps in employment. Buzzwords. Expert in too many things.

When you say you consider the gaps in employment (of which 'one-man shop' is just a subset of) to be a 'red flag', is that in the common sense of 'immediate disqualification' or just 'something to follow up on'? I certainly think there are plenty of legitimate reasons to have gaps in one's employment record (including 'I felt like not working for six months').

Re: Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

#36

Post by matt_the_bass »

notyourwork wrote: post #12
whoisjuan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your definition of "short stint"? Less than 1 year?

It depends on how many jobs you've had and how old you are. If you have 3 jobs each being 1 year that would be a red flag. If you have 10 years of experience, 1 job for a year and the other 2 split across 9 years I would be less concerned. An outlier versus a pattern is where I see a bad situation versus a concern for hire. Personally, spending <18 months in a company or on a team doesn't yield enough time to accompl…

> Personally, spending This is a great way of explaining why I think lots is short stints reflect poorly.

Re: Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

#37

Post by noarchy »

Fsp2WFuH wrote: post #17
esalman wrote: post #10

I used to hire at a startup. Following are the things I usually looked at. These are not sorted by severity, some are red flags but others are just irrelevant. * not following instruction in the job advert * CC resume to many recipients * weird sender name in email * compressed resume * begging for job in the cover letter * photo * "career objective" * personal information * broken links * clear lack of personalizati…

I'm sorry, but some of my github activity is best be kept private.

I think Github profiles can now show activity in private repos (without showing the actual code, obviously), if you choose to turn this feature on. This is potentially useful for those of us who have 99% of their commits in private repos.

Re: Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

#38

Post by [deleted] »

bb88 wrote: post #14
matt_the_bass wrote: post #3

- lots of short stints employment. It costs a lot to find, hire and on board someone. Ideally I’d like them to stick around for a while. - lists of buzzwords without clear descriptions of what they actually did. I don’t care about “fashionable” terms. I wanted heard about concrete things they’ve done. - poor formatting. If they don’t care enough to make their resume look clean and neat, why would I expect them to car…

> lots of short stints employment. It costs a lot to find, hire and on board someone. Ideally I’d like them to stick around for a while. This is a self inflicted problem across all companies. As long as companies are not willing to pay the market salary, people will move elsewhere. > - poor formatting. If they don’t care enough to make their resume look clean and neat, why would I expect them to care enough to be tho…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What do you consider resume red flags?

#40

Post by rlopezcc »

I normally use an outlook email because I can have username@outlook instead of user.name2392.stuff@gmail, also outlook advertisement is less intrusive.

I'm under the impression that it turns recruiters away, can this be right?

[Edit]: Yes/No is enough, no need to downvote.

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