Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#61

Post by Surio » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 8:22 AM UTC

v33ra wrote: post #59

Surio wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks nice! I liked it. One (minor?) feedback: Opinion on whether "Ninja" is awesome or uncool is divided even within HN. See recent discussions on "Product is a byproduct" thread. Now, I am trying to imagine how it might be perceived in conservative working environments like Indian workplaces. IMO, keep the wording and ditch the Ninjas. Ultimately, "what matters in life is how you see yourself"[1] There must be a wa…

//There must be a way to highlight which are your best skills, like this OP's resume progressbars?// In fact, I do have one similar to progress bars. Have a look at the skills section in home page ( http://veerasundar.com ) where I show a strength bar for each skill. When I ported the skills section, I just decided not to include the progress bar.. may be I should add it there too.

>> may be I should add it there too

No. That was a good call on leaving it out. For your layout and font size, the progress bars add no value (in fact it has the opposite effect).

For your layout, I would recommend a colour scheme of four colours, with a certain colour denoting expert and certain colour denoting novice, and others in between. Have legend on the top saying what is what and that will provide the same effect.

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#62

Post by Surio » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 8:29 AM UTC

MojoJolo wrote: post #60

I don't get it why you said it's interactive. But I like the simplicity of the design. I also built mine, but not in Github, well here http://jpbalb.in/resume.html Just a thought though, is self picture important in the resume?

>> is self picture important in the resume?

Especially if you're the greatest and the one and only.... Mojo.....Jolo ;-)

OK, seriously though, there is no hard and fast rule on this one.

But in all, it is not a bad idea to keep a portrait with one's CV. There are very good reasons why it will be taken well, rather than why it won't be taken well. If you already have it there, just leave it there. Remember to update it periodically though. That is very important.

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#63

Post by olalonde » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 8:50 AM UTC

You founded two startups, you are an analyst for a VC fund, yet you are still "looking for employment after graduation"? Only on HN...

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#64

Post by Surio » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 9:08 AM UTC

Like a few others, I too found it an average CV (It is something very similar to what I myself have, and I consider myself an average (-; ). To be honest, there are a few others in the comments that I gravitated towards more (It's a matter of personal preference of course). Sure, the Progress bar looks new, but others too have it on them -- see v33ra's response below.

You took a chance and placed it on HN for the self-promotion/ exposure/publicity and you were (luckily) rewarded. As you can see from the comments below, there are a lot of such efforts out there and all of them very commendable as well. They just didn't feel promotional enough like you, to place it here in the first place (and all of them had also placed it on GitHub before you, so open sourcing is not an USP either).

But I felt there there was neither anything "stand-out" about the CV, nor was there anything "interactive". It is a web resume like everyone else's and that's it.

For inspiration, here's what I would consider an impressive (as in look-and-feel) web CV and something close to an "interactive" web CV: http://www.chrisharrison.net/

My two bits.

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#65

Post by calpaterson » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 9:14 AM UTC

I'm confused about the date format. I'm British, and was expecting an American format (even though you confusingly call this a CV instead of a resume) but it looks like it's in British format. Perhaps you could remove the ambiguity by using "January 2012"?

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#66

Post by kami8845 » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 9:30 AM UTC

philip1209 wrote: post #54

debaserab2 wrote: post #53

If you are really that far along with your PHP skills, I don't think presenting an index.php as embedded HTML with a few string assisting PHP functions grants a lot of confidence to a knowledgeable employer about your skillset.

I honestly started with an index.php because that's the easiest way to serve a static site on heroku. I just intended to put up a static site, then built a couple functions for efficiency in formatting. It wasn't intended to be a demonstration of my programming ability; it was designed to be something quick thrown up in a day.

>It wasn't intended to be a demonstration of my programming ability; it was designed to be something quick thrown up in a day.

Well yeah then that's EXACTLY the impression you're gonna give off. This is the first thing a potential employer will see if you're already giving off a "I don't really care about the code" vibe I don't see how that inspires a lot of confidence in your abilities and especially mindset down the line.

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#67

Post by ceras » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 9:59 AM UTC

This is very long and there is a lot of white space (hard to skim). I honestly would not enjoy having to read this, and the lengthy anti-skim style comes off as somewhat arrogant to me.

Resumes are typically one page, so you should really consider either supplementing this with a one-page version or shortening it.

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#68

Post by FuzzyDunlop » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 10:08 AM UTC

mkramlich wrote: post #18

I love those skill bars. Because they say something meaningful, potentially, namely what you're relatively better or worse at, more or less experienced at. Without committing the sin of telling the world what your objectively absolute rating is in some supposedly global but in actuality undefined frame of reference. Example: "I'm a 6/10 on Apples and an 8 on Oranges, and Bob over there says he's 9 on Apples and 1 on…

I disagree, because they're completely arbitrary and a full bar can suggest that you either know everything, or you can't improve any more.

Trying to represent knowledge or skill on a finite scale is a bad idea, I think. If I got this CV in a pile I'd want to see examples to demonstrate that skill in place of this section, not a set of percentages pulled from thin air.

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#69

Post by FuzzyDunlop » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 10:09 AM UTC

miles_matthias wrote: post #38

mkramlich wrote: post #18

I love those skill bars. Because they say something meaningful, potentially, namely what you're relatively better or worse at, more or less experienced at. Without committing the sin of telling the world what your objectively absolute rating is in some supposedly global but in actuality undefined frame of reference. Example: "I'm a 6/10 on Apples and an 8 on Oranges, and Bob over there says he's 9 on Apples and 1 on…

I totally agree. That was the main original thing I saw and I'll be looking through the code to see how those are generated or if they're just static.

They're static:

https://github.com/philipithomas/cv-philipithomas/blob/maste...

Re: Show HN: Built my resume as an interactive website, version-controlled on Github

#70

Post by Surio » Sat, Oct 20, 2012, 10:28 AM UTC

v33ra wrote: post #59

Surio wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks nice! I liked it. One (minor?) feedback: Opinion on whether "Ninja" is awesome or uncool is divided even within HN. See recent discussions on "Product is a byproduct" thread. Now, I am trying to imagine how it might be perceived in conservative working environments like Indian workplaces. IMO, keep the wording and ditch the Ninjas. Ultimately, "what matters in life is how you see yourself"[1] There must be a wa…

//There must be a way to highlight which are your best skills, like this OP's resume progressbars?// In fact, I do have one similar to progress bars. Have a look at the skills section in home page ( http://veerasundar.com ) where I show a strength bar for each skill. When I ported the skills section, I just decided not to include the progress bar.. may be I should add it there too.

Checked your profile some more. You have a good show to back up the profile. Nice.

Since you are also using hResume, why not use http://judy.github.com/ which would do a better job of showcasing your side projects like "twitkural" in a better way?