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How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

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Re: How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

#41

Post by [deleted] »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #38
magoon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may seem like you were dressed OK, but do you really know? Does anybody ever say "we can't hire that guy, he dressed up?"

Yes, they do, and I've seen it once or twice on here from blog posts from company leads/founders talking about their applicants. I don't have it handy, because I don't bookmark that sort of thing, but they believed that you could overdress. They're simply looking for someone who doesn't dress up because they believe that will indicate someone that they'd want to hire. You, as the applicant, may not be aware of this b…

[deleted]

Re: How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

#42

Post by FLUX-YOU »

ryaniscool wrote: post #26
izolate wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you perpetuating the myth that frequent switching of jobs is somehow detrimental to your career? Maybe that's true for corporate megacorp, but in the startup world I feel it's par for the course. At least all the best engineers I've worked with never stuck around long.

As someone who has done a lot of interviewing and hiring, I can say that frequent switching of jobs is a negative and a red flag in general. If you had a business, would you want to hire someone who is probably going to jump to another job in a few months?

So what's the threshold for 'frequent'? Less than 1 year?

Re: How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

#43

Post by wastedhours »

alistairjcbrown wrote: post #14

"Your CV should be about three pages" - I had always been told, keep your CV to two pages, so you can print it on one sheet of paper (both sides). I like it as it ties back into the main message of these slides: "reading CVs is a chore" so keeping it condensed helps me to focus with showing only the most valuable information.

Yep, I never go longer than two pages.

That seems the ideal length - first page is a bit more career context, second page is pretty much keyword pounding - a lot of recruiters and corporate HRs use automated keyword analysis (and are skimming over you anyway), I have bullets listing: languages, technologies, specific software packages and skillsets (no matter how "soft"), so once my experience section has hopefully piqued their interest, they can box tick after that.

Re: How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

#45

Post by hobs »

magoon wrote: post #13
Bahamut wrote: post #5

"...did you wear a suit" I guess it might depend on the industry, but at most interviews I have done, the expectation has been to just wear jeans and whatever. I usually go with jeans and a polo shirt for safety.

It may seem like you were dressed OK, but do you really know? Does anybody ever say "we can't hire that guy, he dressed up?"

After the second interview, the recruiter told me to stop wearing a tie.

Re: How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

#46

Post by ownagefool »

nrzuk wrote: post #4
peteretep wrote: post #2

I wrote this. It's a tiny bit Perl/UK-centric, but I think you could easily apply it to other markets. Happy to answer any questions...

Thanks for this, currently a PHP contractor looking for work in the UK and this certainly opens my eyes up to the issues with my CV. Probably explains why I haven't been getting many interviews! What would you suggest for a contractors CV which is primarily filled with 1-2 month contracts? I usually try get the last years work on the CV, but as you can imagine that starts to take up quite a bit of room when you have…

I put seperate contracts on as seperate jobs and find getting PHP jobs hilariously easy. People do ask why I change jobs so often, but the standard "I'm a contractor and finance dept don't wanna pay our rates" goes down well enough.

This is my CV, I try to be straight to the point and keep it under 2 pages on the word version.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/allandegnan

To be fair the advice is largely still apt.

#1 First step is generally clueless recruiters who'll want you to have 9 years experience with Java 12.

#2 Convince them, your CV goes over. If it has any meat or interesting projects, you'll get called in.

#3 Smile, be likable and be able to talk about $foo at a resonable level and you've got the contract.

Re: How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

#47

Post by kasey_junk »

izolate wrote: post #8
peteretep wrote: post #2

I wrote this. It's a tiny bit Perl/UK-centric, but I think you could easily apply it to other markets. Happy to answer any questions...

Why are you perpetuating the myth that frequent switching of jobs is somehow detrimental to your career? Maybe that's true for corporate megacorp, but in the startup world I feel it's par for the course. At least all the best engineers I've worked with never stuck around long.

As someone who has done a ton of hiring, switching jobs a lot is definitely a red flag. Not an automatic reject, but I frequently have to make choices like "It will take this person N months to become useful here, they switch jobs on average every M months. M-N seems like a pretty short time..."

Re: How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

#48

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

izolate wrote: post #8
peteretep wrote: post #2

I wrote this. It's a tiny bit Perl/UK-centric, but I think you could easily apply it to other markets. Happy to answer any questions...

Why are you perpetuating the myth that frequent switching of jobs is somehow detrimental to your career? Maybe that's true for corporate megacorp, but in the startup world I feel it's par for the course. At least all the best engineers I've worked with never stuck around long.

It's not a myth, at least not in most cases.

If I take you on I want some indication that you're going to stay around long enough for the investment we're going to make in you to be worthwhile. We'll normally pay a recruitment fee and then we'll pay you while you're learning about our product, our industry, our processes and the specific technologies you haven't worked with that we use, and we'll be paying our existing staff to take time out from coding to do those things. That's not inconsiderable.

Obviously your experience may render some of that irrelevant. If that's the case then if you're massively better than the other candidates I may take the risk but if you're not, then I can take you or I can take the person who is as good but will stick around longer. That's not a tough decision.

I'm not looking for gold watch territory or even an indication that you might be around for 5 years, and I'm not looking for a guarantee, but if your CV shows a pattern of you moving every 15 months I need to work out why I think I won't be your next 15 month stint and if I think I think I am whether it'll be worth my while.

Re: How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

#49

Post by peteretep »

Kiro wrote: post #40
magoon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may seem like you were dressed OK, but do you really know? Does anybody ever say "we can't hire that guy, he dressed up?"

An applicant came to our job dressed in a suit and it looked really strange and made us question his judgement and experience.

I'm curious about where your company is, how big is it, and what kind is it?

Re: How to write a developer resume that will get you hired

#50

Post by peteretep »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #42
ryaniscool wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has done a lot of interviewing and hiring, I can say that frequent switching of jobs is a negative and a red flag in general. If you had a business, would you want to hire someone who is probably going to jump to another job in a few months?

So what's the threshold for 'frequent'? Less than 1 year?

Rule of thumb is two years. You're allowed to have one or two where you've left after three months - not every role works out.

But more than anything: get comfortable talking about WHY it didn't work out, in a way that doesn't bad-mouth the company and still makes you look like a professional.

An advantage of applying through a recruiter is that they can have this chat with you first, and then make your case to the employer (who they will have a relationship with). As a Hiring Manager, I've said no to candidates, only to have a recruiter persuade me (rightly) that actually I should talk to them, even though there were things that spooked me about their CV.

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