Programmers: you should be founding not applying. Don't waste your time on other people's ideas. Bag groceries if you have to. As an employee you will probably get nothing or some small token amount if the company is sold.
The Startup Resume
31–38 of 38 posts
Re: The Startup Resume
#32This is the resume that has gotten me at least a call-back from every startup I have ever sent it to: [paraphrased since I type the email every time anew] Hi, I'm a coder from Slovenia. I like writing JavaScript and Python. I'm learning Haskell. Here is my github: http://github.com/Swizec I have a blog at http://swizec.com Most recently I did cool thing X Cheers, ~Swizec
Has it worked? Which startup are you with now? I see from your blog you are interviewing with Google (not a startup anymore), but still not bad. Are you still open to finding the right fit with a startup? Are you "startup friendly" (appropriate expectations of work hours, pay, and equity)? I find the latter to be the biggest hangup in folks that we're looking to add to our team. They like the tech challenge, but can'…
I'm currently focusing on graduating by the end of the year. But I do work with startups on a freelancing basis (10-ish hours a week).
Which startup I'm "with" changes every couple of months.
As for the Google situation, they came to me and I decided to go along with it. To see how far I get and have some external benchmark of my programming prowess. If I do end up getting an offer, I'll then decide whether I want to work with them. Before that I ask every engineer I get to talk with about their working environment to gauge whether Google is the type of company that has retained enough of a startup spirit for me to feel productive there.
Re: The Startup Resume
#33The irony of having three separate points that all say the same thing... and that thing is keep it brief, don't use filler.
Re: The Startup Resume
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has it worked? Which startup are you with now? I see from your blog you are interviewing with Google (not a startup anymore), but still not bad. Are you still open to finding the right fit with a startup? Are you "startup friendly" (appropriate expectations of work hours, pay, and equity)? I find the latter to be the biggest hangup in folks that we're looking to add to our team. They like the tech challenge, but can'…
I'm not sure why but the phrase "Are you 'startup friendly' (appropriate expectations of work hours, pay, and equity)?" just rubs me the wrong way. Joining a startup is a two way street. If you are considering joining one, you should do as much diligence (or even more) than they are doing on you. I, personally, love startups -- the energy, the diversity of problems, the ability to learn and grow. But, I've also been…
I think you have it reverse -- I'm not in search to join a startup, I'm in search of others to join me. Basically, what I'm finding is that many of the candidates I'm interviewing have entirely the wrong expectations for joining a startup... at least in my geographic region (mid-Atlantic US). I'm sure it's different in your locale. But around these parts, many candidates for the startup positions simply aren't "startup friendly".
Re: The Startup Resume
#35The principle applies elsewhere, too. He's right - tailor your resume. Also, make sure what you rock at is big and clear and up-front and featured. Because you hope your resume is being read by somebody who doesn't just read resumes all day. Then put keyword soup at the bottom for recruiters, if you need to.
I've been reading Land the Tech Job You Love [1] recently, and he says the same thing about putting "keyword soup" at the bottom. But he also recommends naming the section something like "Buzzwords" so that human readers know to skip that section. "Oh, this is obviously to satisfy the automated resume screeners." I'm not so keen on the idea, but probably because I usually apply to companies that are too small to use…
It makes it clear what it's for. Intent is good.
You can improve signal-to-noise by listing in categories ("best", "okay", "seen it before", "academic-only") and then humans can get something out of it too. Or you can call it a loss and treat it like what it is.
Re: The Startup Resume
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been reading Land the Tech Job You Love [1] recently, and he says the same thing about putting "keyword soup" at the bottom. But he also recommends naming the section something like "Buzzwords" so that human readers know to skip that section. "Oh, this is obviously to satisfy the automated resume screeners." I'm not so keen on the idea, but probably because I usually apply to companies that are too small to use…
It makes it clear what it's for. Intent is good. You can improve signal-to-noise by listing in categories ("best", "okay", "seen it before", "academic-only") and then humans can get something out of it too. Or you can call it a loss and treat it like what it is.
The idea of listing categories is fine, but don't rely on those descriptions to give enough detail. What you think might be "good" knowledge of X might be strictly amateur to someone else. Better to tell stories and give descriptions of how you've used the technology in question.
Also, if you know something good enough to say that you're good at it, there better be multiple bullets up above explaining how you've used that technology. I've had resumes where someone says they have expert knowledge in a given technology, but nowhere in their work history do they have anything that says that they've used it. You know Oracle? Then you have to have it in a bullet up above.
Another way that you can get those details in the resume about what you know is by quantifying as much as possible. Instead of saying you wrote a Ruby app to do such-and-such, say that you wrote an N,000-line Ruby app to do such-and-such. The numbers give a sense of scale that's missing without it.
More from my blog about the importance of numbers: http://petdance.com/tag/numbers/
Re: The Startup Resume
#37The principle applies elsewhere, too. He's right - tailor your resume. Also, make sure what you rock at is big and clear and up-front and featured. Because you hope your resume is being read by somebody who doesn't just read resumes all day. Then put keyword soup at the bottom for recruiters, if you need to.
I've been reading Land the Tech Job You Love [1] recently, and he says the same thing about putting "keyword soup" at the bottom. But he also recommends naming the section something like "Buzzwords" so that human readers know to skip that section. "Oh, this is obviously to satisfy the automated resume screeners." I'm not so keen on the idea, but probably because I usually apply to companies that are too small to use…
It's not for the human readers to skip the section so much as to simply acknowledge that you're doing it for the machines.
If I'm a human and I'm reading a skills section that includes PostgreSQL, PL/pgSQL, SQL and RDBMS, I might think "Aw, she's padding her resume, those are all related." But if I slap a "Buzzwords" section on there, now it's clear why it's there.
And I do think that's important. Say you've got an HR drone who is told to look for candidates who know SQL. He might see a resume including Oracle, Postgres and DB/2. We all know those require knowing SQL, but the HR guy doesn't. He won't see the magic word "SQL", so there's a good chance your resume will get ignored.
That example is also why I suggest that no hiring manager ever let HR screen resumes. It's just too important to be left to a filter that doesn't have the proper knowledge set. Sure, your recruiters at Google and Microsoft and other big operations know these tech things. But most tech jobs aren't at tech companies like that.
Re: The Startup Resume
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been reading Land the Tech Job You Love [1] recently, and he says the same thing about putting "keyword soup" at the bottom. But he also recommends naming the section something like "Buzzwords" so that human readers know to skip that section. "Oh, this is obviously to satisfy the automated resume screeners." I'm not so keen on the idea, but probably because I usually apply to companies that are too small to use…
It's not for the human readers to skip the section so much as to simply acknowledge that you're doing it for the machines. If I'm a human and I'm reading a skills section that includes PostgreSQL, PL/pgSQL, SQL and RDBMS, I might think "Aw, she's padding her resume, those are all related." But if I slap a "Buzzwords" section on there, now it's clear why it's there. And I do think that's important. Say you've got an H…
>It's not for the human readers to skip the section so much as to simply acknowledge that you're doing it for the machines.
Yes, exactly. That's a much better way of wording it.