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My dad's resume and skills from 1980

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Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#51

Post by wyattpeak »

jll29 wrote: post #22

The interesting bit about this post is that with that resume, you can still feed a family in 2022 (okay, you won't need any assembler, and one from the set { Fortran, COBOL } will do). I wonder if Python and JavaScript will get you that far 50 years from now?

One day, long after I'm gone, people will finally accept that Python and JavaScript are no longer young languages.

JavaScript is 26 years old, Python is 31. They both continue to grow in importance year-on-year, JavaScript because there is nothing on the horizon which will plausibly replace it, and Python because a large number of industries and programmers genuinely love it.

I think there's a nontrivial chance they'll both still be languages of primary importance in 50 years, but I'd bet my bottom dollar that they'll at least remain as relics yet needing support the way Fortran and COBOL exist today.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#52

Post by oslem »

jcadam wrote: post #41
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No need for 5-star skills ratings, dual-colored backgrounds, unreadable fonts, and whatnot... I read a lot of resumes. Honestly, the number of quirky over-designed resumes I see is probably 1 in 50. The vast majority of people do submit clearly organized resumes based on a template they found. The reason those quirky over-designed resumes get shared on HN or other social media is because they’re different, not beca…

I eventually gave up on Word templates and now keep my resume in LaTeX. Neat and organized - not unlike this example only with more detail and nicer fonts :) Occasionally a recruiter will ask/demand I give it to them in MS Word - I've learned it's always a bad idea to give recruiter a resume in an easily editable format.

I’m assuming you’re concerned with resume manipulation? Or is there another reason you prefer to submit your resume in a non-editable format?

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#53

Post by walnutclosefarm »

When I first entered the working world as a programmer and administrator of an "academic computing center", in the early 70s, you met men like Ray - ex-military, GI-bill educated, learned computers from the electricity on up in their mid-career, rather frequently, either as customer engineers for one of the big mainframe manufacturers (there were 7 or 8, depending on when and how you counted), or from the minicomputer upstarts who were then assaulting the mainframe world of computing with their smaller, cheaper, 12 and 16 bit newcomers. Sometimes you'd get the privilege of a lunch or dinner with one sent out "from the lab" who was actually designing and building the machines you were working on.

It's hard to explain just how new it all felt, then. But in 1973, even though we were sitting on the cusp of the single chip microprocessor and personal computer revolution, the commercial computer was less than 20 years old, and college recruiting materials might well brag that at their institution, there were not one, but two computers on campus. I remember the day the total RAM at our institution passed the megabyte mark - closer to the end, than the beginning, of the 1970s. The ability to "program" was a rare skill - even the people who taught it were still just learning it.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#54

Post by inanutshellus »

j33zusjuice wrote: post #38
jean_tta wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pure speculation, but I would guess it was simply expected information at the time. In some countries, it is still expected or at least common to see information such as: a portrait ; date and place of birth ; marital situation and number of children ; and so on.

What!? Some countries force you to state your marital and familial situations!? That’s insane. It’s illegal for companies in the US to ask about that stuff. That said, some other people pointed out he had a military/aeronautical background, so height and health might come into play for certain jobs. That makes sense to me. You probably can’t work in the cockpit of a plane if you’re 7 feet tall.

Friend worked for the military overseas. Locals would send in resumes and include details such as their social caste and were horrified (or delighted, depending) when that information was redacted before being sent to hiring folk.

On the upside, it apparently became an upward mobility avenue for "low caste" folk who would otherwise not be considered for valuable positions.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#55

Post by latchkey »

jll29 wrote: post #22

The interesting bit about this post is that with that resume, you can still feed a family in 2022 (okay, you won't need any assembler, and one from the set { Fortran, COBOL } will do). I wonder if Python and JavaScript will get you that far 50 years from now?

I've been writing code professionally for over 25 years now (and I'm 49). I feel like I could keep writing code for the rest of my life.

50 years doesn't sound like that long.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#56

Post by ddulaney »

deeblering4 wrote: post #48
lordnacho wrote: post #27

That job market seems like so long ago. See job ad, type out a letter with your CV, wait for them to write back, somehow organize a time to meet, more rounds, and so forth. At least it must have been hard to spam out CVs. The guy seems pretty hardcore from my perspective. University training for all those techs. Of course hardware back then cost a lot of money so you wanted people who knew what they were doing. What…

Up until the mid-late 2000s tech interviews consisted of a few conversations, followed by checking references. CS trivia interviews were largely introduced by Google, with other companies cargo culting that into their interview practices.

They were definitely influential, but it's way more complicated and probably has as much to do with The Guerilla Guide to Interviewing, which was Microsoft-based.

Here's an article that digs into this specific history: https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/linked-lists/

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#57

Post by robterrell »

lordnacho wrote: post #27

That job market seems like so long ago. See job ad, type out a letter with your CV, wait for them to write back, somehow organize a time to meet, more rounds, and so forth. At least it must have been hard to spam out CVs. The guy seems pretty hardcore from my perspective. University training for all those techs. Of course hardware back then cost a lot of money so you wanted people who knew what they were doing. What…

My copy of K&R belonged to my dad and was from the early 80s!

My job interviews in the 80s and 90s (college summer jobs, or the one time a company tried to get me to leave college for a job) had no whiteboard-coding-style technical skills components, aside from demos of software I'd written and general discussions of implementation details.

One job I interviewed for was at Davinci Email. This was probably 1990-ish? They made a LAN email product that ran on top of Novell NetWare. There were a couple of hours of general interviews, including a lunch on-site. The last interview was with someone very technical, who had printed out a few pages of listings of the obfuscated C contest. He asked me to go through them and tell him what each program would output. I did not get the job.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#58

Post by dijit »

thesuitonym wrote: post #33
taude wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comments made me wonder if there were height restrictions, found this verbiage on US Airforce site: "For pilot and aircrew positions, height specifications vary by aircraft and most applicants can successfully pursue a career in aviation with the U.S. Air Force. Applicants who are significantly taller or shorter than average may require special screening to ensure they can safely perform operational duties. Appl…

There were in the 80s, my dad wanted to join the Air Force as a pilot but was told he could never be one, he was too tall.

In my youth my mum said that I need to eat all my veggies to become tall and strong which would be required if I wanted to be an astronaut.

I found it extremely amusing that in reality there are height restrictions for astronauts, and there is no height minimum.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#60

Post by 2ICofafireteam »

j33zusjuice wrote: post #29
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No need for 5-star skills ratings, dual-colored backgrounds, unreadable fonts, and whatnot... I read a lot of resumes. Honestly, the number of quirky over-designed resumes I see is probably 1 in 50. The vast majority of people do submit clearly organized resumes based on a template they found. The reason those quirky over-designed resumes get shared on HN or other social media is because they’re different, not beca…

In my experience looking at résumés (mostly for entry-level tech roles), fancy formatting is 100% an attempt to cover for a lack of skill. I haven’t seen one that had good content. Intuitively, this makes sense to me, and seems to fit with the old adage, “if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” Imo, your experience should speak for itself.

>Imo, your experience should speak for itself.

What's wrong with saying, "May I draw your attention to my experience? They have something to say."

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