My dad’s resume and skills from 1980 • Hacker News Board

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#101

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:09 AM UTC

sooper wrote: post #20

raverbashing wrote: post #5

"CDC Cyber" made me laugh. Marketing seemed to be on point Almost 40 years later, phone numbers are on the way out, DOBs are "illegal" and github and email are more important information on a CV.

I didn't realise the word "cyber" had been around that long... As much as I (have to) use the word, I didn't know it's background.

1948, Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics; or, Control and communication in the animal and the machine.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/cybernetics-or-control-and-co...

Incidentally, pronounced "cyber-NEET-iks", originally.

And explicitly intended to apply to biological and social systems. Also: The human use of human beings : cybernetics and society (1954).

https://www.worldcat.org/title/human-use-of-human-beings-cyb...

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#102

Post by magicbuzz » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:10 AM UTC

y4mi wrote: post #98

magicbuzz wrote: post #94

Looks like your Dad got exposure to IBM equipment and realised that being a programmer could be a good job. I did my undergrad in the early 80s and the Uni had a CDC which was old then. First assignment in Pascal was writing it on a punchcard machine and handing the card batch over. But it was more an exercise in showing new students what had come before. I was fortunate to get a job working in COBOL on HP, which led…

you expect a webdev to know the difference between the current standard and its next version thats hardly used at the moment? aren't you expecting a little bit too much? Don't get me wrong, its great if you do... but knowing about upcoming encryption standards is imo something a security engineer should be fluent in, not a web developer.

Is it reasonable to expect a web developer to be able to configure nginx? To be honest, I guess maybe not. But the person in question was maintaining how https slowed all sites down and so should be avoided. When I questioned him about the new handshaking in TLS1.3, it became evident he didn’t know what I was referring to.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#103

Post by user5994461 » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:10 AM UTC

dessant wrote: post #97

marvin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm recruiting for an outsourced team in Portugal at the moment. They include photos on their CVs. Date of birth and marital status is pretty much standard in Norway as well.

I think that's mainly because of past conventions, and the lack of sharing current expectations. A company could refer to Europass in their job description, and also offer a filled out CV template that only lists personal information that is expected to be shared. Or are CVs which do not include photos still considered incomplete or less desirable by the recruiters you know?

You should only put a picture if you have a very good looking photo specifically for this purpose and if you are in a customer facing role. Otherwise it's likely to do more harm than good.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#104

Post by ricardobeat » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:10 AM UTC

kevsim wrote: post #100

Nearly 24 years with a single employer. How many programmers can claim that these days?

None since they all became managers after year 5 :)

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#105

Post by walshemj » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:10 AM UTC

docdeek wrote: post #47

RLN wrote: post #43

Very striking for me is listing of height, health and birth date. I would never put these on a CV. All irrelevant.

CVs here in France not only typically include date of birth but also a photo and marital status, too. None of this is relevant to the job search but it's how things are done.

I am surprised that the EU hasn't clamped down on photos etc on cv's as it's obvious way for employers to discriminate on race.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#106

Post by egeekuk » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:12 AM UTC

docdeek wrote: post #69

user5994461 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to. It's a bad habit from some old folks and some teachers poorly telling students how to do a resume.

You're right, yet almost every CV I see has a photo and DOB, and a good majority have marital status. Adding the number of children is less common, though, but all of it is irrelevant to any job I would be hiring for.

I did some training with the Equality Commission in Northern Ireland some time ago, and since then I've been actively ignoring anything that people put on their CVs that is not relevant to the position they have applied for. Aside from experience and education background, additional information should be limited to facts that are relevant to the position (e.g. do you need a work permit, can you speak the same language as the rest of the team)

I wish people would stop including the information as then it takes away the risk that they can't later claim that they didn't get the job because of their age, sex, martial status, etc.

They have some guidance on how to encourage equal opportunities in the job application process [0], the monitoring questions here [1] should be seen as things that should not be asked in a standard application process, nor included in a CV.

There's many attributes that we can't legally discriminate against when someone applies for a position [2]. We might be a little more aware of trying to ensure the process is fair and balanced, and it's certainly quite different from other parts of the UK and Europe.

[0] https://www.equalityni.org/ECNI/media/ECNI/Publications/Empl...

[1] https://www.equalityni.org/Employers-Service-Providers/Small...

[2] https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/equality-law-and-ty...

*edit - fixed formatting of references

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#107

Post by walshemj » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:12 AM UTC

pseingatl wrote: post #72

Poor guy was trying to find a new job at 54. He had been out of work for a month. Wasn't easy then, isn't easy now. As to the discussion about 1 page v. multi-page c.v.'s: a c.v. is ADVERTISING. If you get the interview, you bring along a more comprehensive document in which you can go into detail about subject areas which may be relevant but don't merit inclusion on a one-pager. As to his height: he worked on B-29's…

I assume he was applying for security cleared jobs with this CV

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#108

Post by MaggieL » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:14 AM UTC

mbrock wrote: post #14

Contemporary programmer: spends a whole weekend tweaking CSS parameters, asking web forums for LaTeX templates, finding a cool fresh font pairing on Google Fonts. 1980s programmer: sits down at the typewriter and bangs out a fixed width table, finishes with a signature.

Real 1980s programmer: sits down at IBM 3278 mainframe terminal, edits resume into text file containing DCF/Script markup. Prints mailing copies on IBM 3800 laser printer using typewriter font, hoping operations staff running printer doesn't notice (unlikely considering speed printer runs at).

               --signed, real 1980s programmer

(also 1970s programmer, 1990s programmer, 2000s programmer, 2010s programmer)

   current resume http://linkedin.com/in/maggieleber

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#109

Post by rytis » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:15 AM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #70

ak39 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's more than the romance of the ink that is missed. One has lost the visual impact of all discards with the use of the virtual trashcan. The psychology of seeing or the stark visual impact of a trashcan filled to the brim with all the imperfect and therefore discarded attempts of one's creative effort is lost - almost forever. These were the metrics of effort now untenable in the virtual trashcan. Gone. Who kno…

I really have no idea what you're talking about. I absolutely hated paper. The inconvenience of wanting to add some content higher up the page and having to redo the whole page to achieve that was infuriating to me. I for one am quite pleased that I no longer have as many violent urges when I'm composing text.

True. However the inflexibility of the physical media (pen/typewriter+paper) forced people to think and plan before they acted. These days, not so much, and I can see the difference in approach when my kids are writing essays - back in the day we were taught to come up with a little plan, toc, etc before getting down to the details. Now my kids just spit it out without structure, then add bits an pieces here and there and call it done. Maybe they are taught the structural approach in scool, but the tools aren't helping.

Re: My dad’s resume and skills from 1980

#110

Post by laumars » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 11:15 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #15

suyash wrote: post #12

One Page resume was still the style in 1980, that's cool. Really well written cover letter as well, hard to see that come by these days.

I am still trying to stick to that. No one has time to read multipages resumes (and I think most interviewers read the resume on the way to the interview room anyway).

Or sometimes during the actual interview itself. As I've unfortunately had to do on more than one occasion.