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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

#161

Post by ndr »

dspillett wrote: post #99
wyattpeak wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

> people will finally accept that Python and JavaScript are no longer young languages > JavaScript is 26 years old, Python is 31 I can't speak for Python, but Javascript has changed¹ massively in recent years, more so (I expect) than Fortran or COBOL every did in their active history. It could be argued that what we have now is a younger language with the same name. > but I'd bet my bottom dollar that they'll at leas…

> but Javascript has changed¹ massively in recent years

Does anyone have any good resource to learn modern JavaScript? Not any of the weekly js framework, but the updated language, capabilities and patterns.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#162

Post by nsxwolf »

insightcheck wrote: post #130
nsxwolf wrote: post #30

It is so simple. There's no "Experienced software architect with a proven track record of delivering high quality and performant blah blah blah" shit. What were the interviews like back then?

> "Experienced software architect with a proven track record of delivering high quality and performant blah blah blah" What's wrong with that? Each part of the phrase sounds like something an experienced developer should strive for, and is objectively testable (e.g. delivered projects in a work setting or not, well-written code or not, the software runs quickly or not, etc.). Junior developers in particular may lack…

Well, I don't think there's necessarily anything "wrong" with it (It's actually from my own resume), I just cringe when I read it. It reminds me that I operate within a world obsessed with jargon and eye-roll inducing business speak. It all feels so unnatural to me.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#163

Post by aidenn0 »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #103
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…

If you think much about the different platforms, it makes perfect sense that there are specific and varied requirements. Presumably they're pretty flexible about who flies a C-5, considering it's big enough to carry Chinooks or M-1 tanks [0]. OTOH, ejecting out of a fighter jet probably doesn't go very well if your knees are smashed up against the dashboard. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-5_Galaxy

Sitting height is just as important for safe ejections as leg length. My dad was 5'10" but with a tall sitting height and he was just barely under the safety line for a seat in an S-3.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#165

Post by PragmaticPulp »

zackmorris wrote: post #142

If the minimalist resume is appealing, can we also bring back walk-on hiring? In warehouse and construction work, if someone shows up at 7:30 AM on a Monday morning, odds are quite good that the foreman will have something for them to do. Maybe not that day, but maybe tomorrow, or maybe someone on the list above them won't show up that week and they'll get called. I made rent doing that in my early 20s and they even…

> Hire someone right away and let them quit if they want to and hire someone else. It's just business for crying out loud.

This is missing the point of interviewing. The goal isn't to find any warm body to fill the chair, the goal is to find someone qualified to do the work who also has a history of doing good work at previous employers. You also don't have unlimited headcount and hiring budget, so it's worth making the investment to find the top 10% of your applicants rather than picking first-come first-serve.

One of the things you don't realize about the hiring market until you've been reviewing resumes for a while is that problem employees are over-represented in the candidate pool. The most qualified employees spend the least time job searching because they're given offers right away. The most problematic and underqualified employees are frequently searching for jobs after being fired or let go. If you sample applicants at random, they're far more likely to be in the underqualified and/or problematic group than in the great employee group, statistically.

The other thing that isn't obvious is just how damaging a single bad hire can be to a team. Hire someone who clashes with their peers and fails to deliver any good work and you'll find yourself losing the good team members very shortly. Nobody likes working with painful coworkers.

That said: The analogy of a "walk-on" job isn't dead in tech. If you pick a company you want to work for, find someone on LinkedIn, and send them your resume with a short pitch about why you want to work there, there's a good chance they'll at least strongly consider your resume. Nobody is guaranteed a job this way, but it's one route to getting your foot in the door even when you don't see the exact job posting you want on the website.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#166

Post by DMell »

onei wrote: post #25
yupper32 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see many 5-star skill ratings, dual colored backgrounds (?), or unreadable fonts. Where do you see those? I would turn people away from that format if they asked my advice. My resume, and the resumes I've seen aren't too far away from this format. More bullet points and a bit more detail than this, I guess. But otherwise pretty similar

I see them a lot for interns and new grads. I think there's a bunch of templates that have these 'features' and when people are first starting out they don't know better. No interviewer I've ever met thought 5-star ratings were a good idea.

I graduated last year and one of our final classes required a resume be submitted using the professors format which was colorful, differing fonts, and used "confidence percentages". I wouldn't dare use it in the real world but I'm wondering how many of those new grad resumes are similar.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#167

Post by Beltalowda »

youngNed wrote: post #37
jstx1 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of these things are generally frowned upon already.

I got made redundant in 2008, i signed up for unemployment benefit (UK) and part of the requirements was i had to attend a cv writing one day workshop, in the basement of a particularly dingy pub. The guy leading it was spectacularly useless from the get-go, training us in how to use word in the most wonderfully terrible way, one particular nugget i remember him coming out with was: 'bold is particularly good for sta…

> 'bold is particularly good for standing out, in fact I would even go as far as putting the entire document in bold'

What a muppet. Clearly you should use the Header Font.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#168

Post by dn3500 »

latchkey wrote: post #55
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.

I wrote code professionally for 40 years before retiring. Toward the end I was also doing a lot of non-code crap but I always resisted the push toward any kind of management. I am quite happy at how my career turned out.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#169

Post by DMell »

2ICofafireteam wrote: post #73
yupper32 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see many 5-star skill ratings, dual colored backgrounds (?), or unreadable fonts. Where do you see those? I would turn people away from that format if they asked my advice. My resume, and the resumes I've seen aren't too far away from this format. More bullet points and a bit more detail than this, I guess. But otherwise pretty similar

As someone who has been through several government vocational programs in Canada, I will say that when your Case Manager or Instructor says to write your resumes and letters a certain way, you do it.

My girlfriend is a biologist with the National Parks Service and all of their resumes are expected to be three to five pages long. It hurt my soul when she told me that.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#170

Post by rr888 »

rmnclmnt wrote: post #6

Can we bring back this form of resume, please? Information is clearly organized, easy to read, easy to remember. No need for 5-star skills ratings, dual-colored backgrounds, unreadable fonts, and whatnot...

Presumably it was typed out by hand, one for each job? Maybe a photo copy. Its a good reason to keep it simple.
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