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Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

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Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#61

In Summary, you say "Expert" and then "entry level" in the same line. You don't want to do that. Take the word 'expert' out and if you indeed are an expert in something, show it to us in the experience details. Professional skills section. This is a usual culprit for most entry level folks as we are all taught to add keywords like "great communication skills", "accomplished career history" etc which are just fluff. N…

Expert systems engineer. Seeking an entry level dev position. As they are distinct careers I don't understand why people are keying on that so hard.

other than that i will work on the rest. thank you for the feedback.

Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#62
post #58
post #48

I'm going to pick on one flaw of your CV and explain why it is problematic. > Excellent verbal and written communication skills. Prove it. Anyone can write that. As a hirer I see that sort of statement all the time and it means nothing. I want you to prove it. Eg. > I regularly write reports for the CEO and board. I produce a monthly 200 word summary and 5,000 word detailed background on our team's accomplishments. T…

> Backup reporting app that pulled results from a backup status DB and used a local database of admins and projects to present reports in various filtered formats. So what? What did that achieve? I wrote an app from scratch that filled a need in backup reporting. If i expand in the way you say my resume is going to end up 5 pages long. I want the kind of questions you're asking - during an interview.

So, pick the stand out achievements to ensure it isn't 5 pages long. You don't need to include every little thing you've done - just the ones which are relevant to the specific job for which you're applying.

Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#63

I've wanted to ask something similar for a long time. I have a government job that has decent pay, but the schedule sucks, and I'm not challenged at all. I have freelance full-stack experience, just nothing black-and-white professional wise other than sysadmin & electronics experience in the military. I recently moved to what could be considered an "up-and-coming" startup city and I've been tossing around the idea of…

it depends on the city. In NYC, this is a reasonable expectation. If you're in baltimore, you should let me know, I might have a job for you.

I (OP) am in the area roughly. How can I reach out to you?

Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#64
post #60
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I definitely wouldn't lead off the resume with the word "Expert", unless you want to invite senior level engineers to try and take you down a notch with some difficult interview questions. The words "expert" and "entry-level" don't belong in the same sentence. They can bring it on on the systems engineering side. And as for programming, I am looking for an entry level position. How would you reword this? I'll work o…

I just wouldn't mix entry-level and expert in any resume. Just that sentence alone would at least make me consider dismissing a candidate - why is an expert seeking entry-level work, and why does someone seeking entry-level work feel they are an expert? The answer to either isn't likely to be flattering to the candidate. If you are in the interview and they softball you, I'd invite them to 'bring it' live if the envi…

An expert in one field is seeking an entry level job in another. These comments just make me feel like that sentence is misread/misunderstood. Clearly i need to change it.

Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#65
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks. Front end skills are obviously not my highlight as can be seen from the content of the resume, but I wanted to demonstrate that I have at least good coding style/organization and have some front end chops to complement my other skills. What of the general content of my resume?

The content honestly isn't great. It looks like you have some experience, but you haven't told a potential employer about any of your projects or accomplishments. Your bullet points read like job descriptions, and anyone else who submits a resume that has had a job remotely similar to yours will sound about the same. Focus on your projects and accomplishments while employed, and make it look less like a job post. I k…

>but you haven't told a potential employer about any of your projects or accomplishments.

did you not read the whole resume? tons of coding projects i've done are listed.

Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#66

No, I wouldn't hire you as-is. Probably not a first-choice intern either. Some notes on why not: + Your web-sume looks rough. As pointed out by others, there are a number of typos (i.e: "and provide an opporunity") not to mention the design itself could use work. If you are GREAT at web design/UX you should spruce it up. Otherwise, kill it and move to a traditional resume. Knowing HTML5/CSS3 today is pretty meaningle…

I disagree with a lot of this. The guy is junior, this is stuff that can be taught on the job.

Most of it is stuff he would have to unlearn before he could then learn it on the job. I would rather hire someone who has no habits than one who has bad ones.

Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#67
Your resume states that you're an "Expert Systems Engineer" but you don't give the number of years of experience. Based on the small number of positions listed, I'm guessing it's in the low single digits.

You mentioned college, but not whether you graduated. Did you go to a university? Graduate from university? If so, it's worth putting your degree. A degree doesn't necessarily mean you're a better programmer but it's an accomplishment nonetheless.

You state up front that you need remote work; does that mean you're far from large urban centers or corporate office parks? You're implying that you would not travel. That's going to make you a lot less employable, though there are a few remote positions out there. There are a lot more onsite positions that will let you convert to remote after a few months, once they've gotten to know and trust you.

Your "Personal Experience" section sounds like stuff that anyone in I.T. would have done, less than some people, perhaps more than others, but nothing impressive in there. In my opinion, the kind of personal projects that carry more weight would be verifiable contributions to well known open source projects, apps in the app store, and end-to-end involvement or total creation of a substantial project that you will be prepared to talk about in an interview.

It sounds like your main skill is Django and Python. There seem to be a lot of Python positions out there. Good luck, hope you get one of them.

Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#68
post #64
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wouldn't mix entry-level and expert in any resume. Just that sentence alone would at least make me consider dismissing a candidate - why is an expert seeking entry-level work, and why does someone seeking entry-level work feel they are an expert? The answer to either isn't likely to be flattering to the candidate. If you are in the interview and they softball you, I'd invite them to 'bring it' live if the envi…

An expert in one field is seeking an entry level job in another. These comments just make me feel like that sentence is misread/misunderstood. Clearly i need to change it.

We can take this offline if you'd like (my email is in my profile), but the problem is your experience sections are a mess. You've got experience with two employers listed without dates, then you go into a highlights section which starts with the fluff (self-assessed professional skills) and then gets into the programming experience.

Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#69
Everyone is different in what they look for.

I look for curiosity, learning, drive, achievements(professional and at home), and academics (completed degrees in CS/Math are important to me). Grammatical and spelling errors irritate me, a lot. Being cutesy with resumes irritates me. Wasting my time irritates me. I am fine reading resumes that are up to 5 pages in length (but many people aren't).

* Suck it up and set up a Latex resume.

* You're not an expert - if you are, you'd not be looking for entry level positions, and you likely wouldn't be a hobbyist. You'd probably have a history of consulting in your expert field.

* You need to put titles in your positions. While useless in precision, it gives a sense of the order of magnitude of responsibility your organizations saw fit to grant you.

* "Responsibility -> Action -> Result" is a good triplet for resumes. I use it myself. I am responsible for this class of systems, I took this action set, and this is how awesome I am. You have - 'Personally responsible for over 100 servers of varying criticality, purpose, and scope, including highly critical enterprise systems.' - That says nothing to me, it's vague enough I have to ask follow up details. Give me numbers.

- 'Summer Jobs throughout high school and college followed by full time Systems Engineering training' Vague, vague, vague. Who trained you? What certs? What jobs? If it was more than 10 years ago, I probably don't care.

- 'Analytical critical thinker with outstanding problem solving skills.' Everyone says that. Show, don't tell.

- 'Professional Programming Experience'. Not the format I prefer - ymmv - but you don't give technical details.

- "Wrote 'line of code counter' programs while learning bash and python" -- erm... this is not hard enough to even mention.

- Put a bitbucket down and mention the two most awesome projects. Don't mention the others.

- 'Several programs written for assignments while in college ' Not gonna lie, but that's what every CS major does. It is not distinguishing you at all.

- 'Technical Skills' Put this up near the top.

- 'Python, Django, Javascript, Node.js, Powershell, Bash, HTML, CSS, Markdown, Git, regex' -- formatting is funktastic here. If you are not prepared to be grilled on them, don't put them down (experience talking. :D) . And HTML/Markdown are not interesting enough to mention.

- 'Technical Certifications and Education' Drop the high school degree. Same for the MSCE - I don't know of any certificates in CS worth mentioning that aren't accredited degree programs.

My conclusion: You'd be qualified for an internship or a low-responsibility entry level position. You need some polishing on professional software dev comportment, but that's to be expected. I wouldn't reject you, but you're not standing out vs. someone with no experience and a BSCS. I suspect you actually are more qualified than what your resume represents, but you're not giving me more to go off of. Anyone who can carefully hook me harder will get called before you. Take a look at Rands "A Glimpse and a Hook" for some resume advice.

Fundamentally, when I look at resumes, I look for the awesome. If you can't show off your awesome, you drop to the bucket of non-awesome resumes, and I turn my attention to the awesomes. If I have to sort the non-awesomes, I sort by demonstrated achievements + degrees.

edit, the wrap-up:

Based on this, I would not call you before a bog-standard BSCS from Podunk U, USA. You've displayed questionable judgement in a number of items on what you judge to be worth putting in your resume (A `wc` replacement? really?), and you're probably going to bring in a lot of baggage from pure IT practices, which tend to be on the slip-shod side. I'm also not going to be keen on hiring an entry level developer as a remote worker. So you're sitting near the bottom of the stack.

You might be far better than your displayed competencies, but you're not presenting that to me.

Re: Ask HN: Would you hire me (passionate hobbyist programmer) to a dev position?

#70

No, I wouldn't hire you as-is. Probably not a first-choice intern either. Some notes on why not: + Your web-sume looks rough. As pointed out by others, there are a number of typos (i.e: "and provide an opporunity") not to mention the design itself could use work. If you are GREAT at web design/UX you should spruce it up. Otherwise, kill it and move to a traditional resume. Knowing HTML5/CSS3 today is pretty meaningle…

Personally, I don't care about usage of git/hg. That can be dealt with on the job, and is no worse than hiring someone from another shop. As a matter of fact and recommendation, I don't think atomic commits are a great practice to follow in general anyway.
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