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The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

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Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#131

Post by mastazi »

user5994461 wrote: post #77
sotojuan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine's not a cover letter in the usual sense but that's the closest analogy I can think of... I just write an email saying those three things and links to my stuff.

Right. The separate full blown cover letter is dead. We just put a short text in the initial email to go along the resume. That's also what I do and recommend.

> The separate full blown cover letter is dead.

Out of curiosity, in which country are you? AFAIK, here in Australia, not having a cover letter would pretty much prevent you from getting a job.

Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#132

Post by BigJeffeRonaldo »

3pt14159 wrote: post #91
thaumasiotes wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the rest of it is just making sure you aren't a conartist, which an interview can easily handle I would have thought that if there was one thing an interview was not suited to do, it would be detecting con artists. Isn't passing interviews their only core skill?

Not for a useful interview. If you tell me you founded and sold a machine learning company but can't explain the pros and cons of using variance versus standard deviation then you didn't sell a machine learning company.

I'd be surprised if there weren't somewhere out there who didn't understand additivity of variance (and linear combination with the covariance terms, or that it is a more natural parameter for the normal distrovution, or some other reason) but had founded and sold a machine learning company. Further, this seems a bit like asking someone with several years of development experience if he knows what a compiler is.

Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#133

Post by csabeer »

brazzledazzle wrote: post #116
csabeer wrote: post #109

Surprisingly, not many people know just how to write a good developer resume. The Developer Story is a good approach but even that is missing the key element that makes a resume work _when you are looking for a job_. Imagine this scenario: - Farmer looking for horse to plough my fields and inspect my farm - Horse 1: "I am a stallion! My coat shines in the sun, my mane is dark and glossy, and the very earth trembles a…

>The book's description on Amazon contains the entire process so you don't need to buy it unless you want to. Would you say this level of openness has an impact (positive or negative) on sales of your book? It's pretty refreshing but the cynic in me wonders if it hurts sales.

I'm not sure - maybe it does but the idea itself is pretty simple so I want to get it out there. I see a lot of people spending time making their resume's "look good" instead of being more result-oriented. I figured if I could explain how to write a resume well it would help.

The book itself has more detail and a step by step (chapter by chapter) process to get a great resume written out. So it's mostly helpful for the lazy ones! :-)

Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#134

Post by fecak »

mountainplus wrote: post #124
fecak wrote: post #52

As someone who reads and writes thousands of developer resumes a year, the major problem I see is that people have a difficult time separating what is important from what isn't, and separating day-to-day responsibilities (which are typically understood from a job title) from unique and novel achievements. I don't know if this kind of tool solves that problem. Much of my work with resume clients is extracting what the…

Although I'm not intending to derail the thread, I'm curious what resources or techniques would you recommend to get better at this?

If you're writing your own resume, I'd maybe sit down every six months to a year and think about things you accomplished, and write then down (problem solved, how it was solved, data if possible, impact, etc.). At some point you'll have a list of accomplishments, and you can select the more impressive of them to put on the resume.

(As an aside - this also helps with career stagnation. If you're having a hard time deciding what to write, it's time to move on.

Once you've got some accomplishments, refactor to the most efficient use of words. How can I say everything necessary is as few words as possible? This is where a professional might come in handy if you're not a good writer.

You can run your accomplishments by a friend and say "which two or three are most worthy of a resume inclusion?" - gives insight into what is impressive.

I think that covers most of it. The rest is mostly formatting and summarizing (if you choose to write a summary).

Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#135

Post by JoeAltmaier »

fecak wrote: post #134
mountainplus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I'm not intending to derail the thread, I'm curious what resources or techniques would you recommend to get better at this?

If you're writing your own resume, I'd maybe sit down every six months to a year and think about things you accomplished, and write then down (problem solved, how it was solved, data if possible, impact, etc.). At some point you'll have a list of accomplishments, and you can select the more impressive of them to put on the resume. (As an aside - this also helps with career stagnation. If you're having a hard time dec…

Good advice. I use my filed email threads to jog my memory, see whom I worked with or who's questions I answered.

Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#136

Post by omouse »

fecak wrote: post #60
3pt14159 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I've gotten older my resumes have gotten shorter. The shortest resume is just your last name "Zuckerberg" or "Snowden". If you've achieved something impressive (sold a company, started a well known web framework, fixed some large horrible government or organizational process) it speaks for itself and the rest of it is just making sure you aren't a conartist, which an interview can easily handle.

>As I've gotten older my resumes have gotten shorter. That's refreshing to hear. I hear too many people claiming "I have so much experience and accomplishments that I simply can't fit them all in under four pages". The problem there is just an inability to assess what is the most impressive or relevant experience. Many people do get emotionally attached to the work they've done. I've worked with people transitioning…

My resume includes articles I wrote in 2007 and the tutoring I've done; why? Because very few software devs have done that sort of thing.

It's funny though because in general I could pare it all down to maybe two paragraphs, I've done all sorts of tech work and can do everything but if you wanna get past the HR filters and have something to talk about in the interview, you pile on more details in the resume.

Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#137

Post by sqeaky »

gaius wrote: post #130
sqeaky wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resumes are extremely easy to exaggerate or fabricate. I haven't seen fake github profiles yet (and I suspect they would be more trouble than they are worth). I am often brought in on the hiring process to vet peoples technical skills. I used to just try to ask questions in the hour or two I got with the person, this seemed no better than flipping a coin. Even if the person was honest and we were both talking about t…

haven't seen fake github profiles yet (and I suspect they would be more trouble than they are worth). There are loads, usually with a fork of a couple of popular JS libraries, maybe a couple of commits but no PRs. Once word leaked out that having a Github was "a thing".

I wonder if you would think that about my github profile. I don't have any JS, but I have forked a few C and C++ repos to make minor changes and hold them until upstream accepted them. I don't think I have deleted any of them. Then I have a few experiments answering questions I wanted answered.

It is not particularly hard to determine if fork n` fix is the reason for the repo. A search for the name of a project will find out if it is a truly lazy copy. Then asking a few questions about why some class or function deep in the code does a thing can determine at least the level of motivation of the copier.

If I can ask an unlimited number of questions about the code and the copier can answer them competently does it matter if they copied? They are competent in the code they pointed me at.

It is hardly a perfect system, it is just better in every way than only an interview.

Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#138

Post by gaius »

sqeaky wrote: post #137
gaius wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haven't seen fake github profiles yet (and I suspect they would be more trouble than they are worth). There are loads, usually with a fork of a couple of popular JS libraries, maybe a couple of commits but no PRs. Once word leaked out that having a Github was "a thing".

I wonder if you would think that about my github profile. I don't have any JS, but I have forked a few C and C++ repos to make minor changes and hold them until upstream accepted them. I don't think I have deleted any of them. Then I have a few experiments answering questions I wanted answered. It is not particularly hard to determine if fork n` fix is the reason for the repo. A search for the name of a project will…

Sure, but these ones are definitely box-ticking exercises, I guess some "thought leader" on LinkedIn said all the best companies only hire people with Github, and off the masses went. There are loads of placeholder "tech blogs" too.

Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#139

Post by user5994461 »

burger_moon wrote: post #95
amorphid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like this notion of having a "good" GitHub profile. GitHub started off as an easy place for me to dump code, no matter how crappy. Dumb ideas, samples from learning, incomplete experiments, whatevs. Then I noticed that I had started censoring my code krapola. I was sepf conscious about the code I was making visible, as I didn't want to be judged. Then I decided that lame. Now I shamelessly put garbage on GitH…

I'm the same way. I removed a lot of old stuff from my early days because I was afraid I was going to be judged on it. Now I don't care. GitHub is my dumping ground for everything. I start a new project almost every time I want to learn a specific thing so I have lots of incomplete projects on there simply because I move on once I learned the goal task. Unfortunately like most people all the clean and polished code l…

To explain to both of you:

Noone gives a f* about the code you have in your github. Noone will read it ever.

When I say a "good" profile. That means you put a link in your resume to ONE project you want to show. The landing page is a README with a paragraph to explain what is the app, a quick start, and a few screenshots.

If you've got a link to the website (or desktop installer) AND there are a few icons of external integrations in travis-ci/appveyor/unittestthing/packager then your repo is absolute perfection. =)

Re: The Stack Overflow Developer Story: A New Technical Resume

#140

Post by user5994461 »

mastazi wrote: post #131
user5994461 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. The separate full blown cover letter is dead. We just put a short text in the initial email to go along the resume. That's also what I do and recommend.

> The separate full blown cover letter is dead. Out of curiosity, in which country are you? AFAIK, here in Australia, not having a cover letter would pretty much prevent you from getting a job.

UK at the moment.

We always have to fill a message when posting a resume. Write a short paragraph and that replaces the cover letter.

I wouldnt call that having 'no cover letter at all'

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