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Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

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Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#41

Post by lumost »

I’d suggest using a standard linear format. On first glance, it looked like there was a gap of 5 years in your experience from 2010-2015 (there isn’t, but it took me a minute).

As others have noted, you need to emphasize what you’ve done. I’d eliminate every “worked on” statement with something like “solved X bugs, launched Y product, lead z engineers, improved K metric, owned B area, used d,I,g technologies of interest”

Anecdotally I’ve observed a shift away from LC style hiring to a blend of resume+SYS design/code review. I’d credit the shift with dual efforts to find cost effective engineers and a fear that LC has been overfit by interviewees.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#43

Post by caddemon »

rogual wrote: post #14
oumua_don17 wrote: post #9

My 2 cents: You have awesome 3D Graphics/Games development experience. The best way to leverage that would be to market yourself as a 3D Graphics SW Developer/3D Game developer (you may need to deep dive a bit into 3D Graphics principles, OpenGL). Almost every semi company (Arm, QC, BC, Intel etc) and even FAANG's have openings for 3D Graphics SW engineers and you are actually well qualified for those as background i…

Hey, this feels like a valuable insight. Thank you. The CV would be a lot shorter with only the 3D graphics stuff, but maybe that's not a problem? I'll try creating a separate graphics developer CV and see what happens. I've heard the horror stories about games industry conditions so hadn't really pushed in that direction but will definitely start looking for non-gaming 3D jobs. Thanks again, much appreciated.

I'm not sure about hiring in 3D graphics but my resume has two somewhat different paths on it and I've always made 2 separate resumes just by switching around the focus/how I frame things. Like the main header would have the most relevant roles with greater detail, but I still mention highlights from other work under a second header, because I don't think it's entirely irrelevant either.

Also, I think the process of doing this makes me consider more carefully what I'm trying to convey about each role, and what parts of the resume I want to draw the most immediate focus to for a given type of job app.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#44

Post by taylodl »

rogual wrote: post #29
codingdave wrote: post #27

Your CV doesn't tell me anything you accomplished, it just lists things you did. Hiring managers want to know the impact of your work, not a page of bullets that all say: "I did a thing." Picking one at random: "Worked on frontend and backend systems for this health tech company." OK... and what impact did your work have? Can you cite a qualitative improvement on the business due to your work? If not, can you at leas…

Great advice, not negative at all. Thanks so much!

Not the OP, but yes - your CV should convey impact, not just you reliably showed up for work.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#45

Post by lfciv »

A bit of a different take, but given the amount of experience you have, I wouldn't put as much weight on using a CV at all.

With an updated LinkedIn you can reach out to past bosses, coworkers, and friends for introductions to other people in industry (whether they're hiring or not) – and follow that chain until you find something you're interested in.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#46

Post by egeozcan »

codingdave wrote: post #27

Your CV doesn't tell me anything you accomplished, it just lists things you did. Hiring managers want to know the impact of your work, not a page of bullets that all say: "I did a thing." Picking one at random: "Worked on frontend and backend systems for this health tech company." OK... and what impact did your work have? Can you cite a qualitative improvement on the business due to your work? If not, can you at leas…

The impact, from your words, is also important to determine what you enjoy doing.

Perhaps Gomde UK had you there just to drive the tractor (absurd example to get point across), but you really loved working with sqlite and you went on to create an event management system from back to front and received good feedback. How you interpret your value tells a lot, share it!

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#47

Post by argiopetech »

iamflimflam1 wrote: post #23
rogual wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, not sure what's up with that. Anyway, thank you! Sent you an email.

Seems to work now. Here's what I emailed you - putting it here as all general advice that might be useful. --- First impressions are that for 13 years experience you CV is a bit short. I would not be concerned about letting your CV go onto multiple pages, there's nothing wrong with a long CV when you have sufficient experience to fill the space. You don't have anything about who you are on the CV - just a few paragra…

This was my first impression as well. Additionally, by using multiple columns to avoid a second page, OP makes the document harder to read and thereby obscures his full work history.

I recommend, following any rework, handing this to a few friends (preferably non-technical), in person, for feedback on readability and appeal.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#48

Post by gushogg-blake »

I have had some success with this CV so feel free to take inspiration or copy bits: https://cv.gushogg-blake.com/

The main difference is I have a short para at the top as an intro. Also you can click each position for more details.

Code for it is on gitlab: https://gitlab.com/gushogg-blake/svelte-cv

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#49

Post by cooper_ganglia »

ath3nd wrote: post #32

Because a bunch of obscenely rich people decided they want to use 'macroeconomic factors' as an excuse to rank in even more profits and bump up their stock prices, while throwing workers under the bus, tanking the industry and destroying our individual bargaining positions. Oh, they also can't take a blame for overhiring during the pandemic, they were simply following the same 'macroeconomic factors' that are the rea…

I agree with many of your points, but the comical levels of unadulterated doomerism make it hard to take very seriously. The world isn’t over because a company decided some unnecessary backend employees didn’t need to work there anymore.

Standards of living have never been higher, worldwide poverty has never been lower, all hand-delivered to each of us via capitalism.

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