The Resume Is Dead • Hacker News Board

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#11

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:37 PM UTC

wtn wrote: post #9

stcredzero wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the advice boils down to "be famous"? I don't think that's fair. Why is "be famous" a better decoding than "be awesome?" Are you seriously telling me that you know of no one who, while they don't have celebrity status, isn't known in your community or subfield as someone awesome? there's a finite amount of fame out there: it's a zero sum game. I'm calling bullsh#t on this one. How in the world can you justify ther…

hahaha... if there's a finite number of people, there's a finite amount of attention.

Oh, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It's not effectively a zero-sum game until you near saturation. Before that point, the dynamics are the same as for an infinite resource.

How's about a game of poker with grains of sand as chips?

Second, you already admitted that the amount of attention can grow. There's only a finite amount of wealth represented in the balance sheets of everyone alive on the planet right this second, but no one claims wealth is a Zero Sum Game because there's no clear upper bound.

Oh, and BTW, hahaha...

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#12

Post by randallsquared » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:38 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #6

luu wrote: post #2

This is 2011. Resumes are how your daddy got interviews at Dunder Mifflin. HR reps get forwarded hundreds of resumes a day. My friends who work in HR tell me its actually the really crappy resumes that get noticed - but only so they can make fun of them and then toss them in the garbage. The good ones don't even grab attention - they just look like the hundreds of other good ones they've got on file. Apparently, in 2…

So the advice boils down to "be famous"? I don't think that's fair. Why is "be famous" a better decoding than "be awesome?" Are you seriously telling me that you know of no one who, while they don't have celebrity status, isn't known in your community or subfield as someone awesome? there's a finite amount of fame out there: it's a zero sum game. I'm calling bullsh#t on this one. How in the world can you justify ther…

In 2011, there are a finite number of people whose attention a person could have. Each of those people has a finite number of seconds of attention to devote. Wealth cannot yet increase that number, though it can enable you to devote attention to other things.

Fame and status are not like wealth; they are zero sum.

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#13

Post by mishmax » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:40 PM UTC

Is this really the best article that HN has to offer today?

Resumes are not dead. It's just a summary of your accomplishments. If your accomplishments are outstanding, you'll get noticed. Otherwise, you don't.

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#14

Post by synnik » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:44 PM UTC

The trend for HR to be inundated with so many resumes that the good ones fall through has much more to do with the current unemployment rate than with the resume being "dead"

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#15

Post by gsivil » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:44 PM UTC

wtn wrote: post #9

stcredzero wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the advice boils down to "be famous"? I don't think that's fair. Why is "be famous" a better decoding than "be awesome?" Are you seriously telling me that you know of no one who, while they don't have celebrity status, isn't known in your community or subfield as someone awesome? there's a finite amount of fame out there: it's a zero sum game. I'm calling bullsh#t on this one. How in the world can you justify ther…

hahaha... if there's a finite number of people, there's a finite amount of attention.

As he rightly points zero sum would mean that whenever something attracts our attention something else is losing its share to fame. But the 'axiom' that fame is a zero sum quantity is be now measurable way true. In some cases if something excite as that means that we will loose interest in something else. But this is not general true. And this is the beauty of new ideas. They can generate interest from zero.

In addition he did not say that fame is infinite so as to make your laughter justifiable. He just pointed and I agree with him that fame is not by default a zero sum thing

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#16

Post by aurem1 » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:44 PM UTC

if you don't have a strong resume, then follow the advice rather than give up. But first at least try to make sure your resume looks good :) the two are not really mutually exclusive

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#17

Post by codexon » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:46 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #11

wtn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hahaha... if there's a finite number of people, there's a finite amount of attention.

Oh, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It's not effectively a zero-sum game until you near saturation. Before that point, the dynamics are the same as for an infinite resource. How's about a game of poker with grains of sand as chips? Second, you already admitted that the amount of attention can grow. There's only a finite amount of wealth represented in the balance sheets of everyone alive on the planet right…

There are babies born every minute but the number of famous people an average person cares to remember remains relatively constant.

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#18

Post by sown » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

When I first graduated, I took all of the interesting things I had made over the years in my spare time (non school work material: a crappy threads library in C, a packet injector for an exotic network protocol, a patch to the linux kernel that got committed, etc) and put them on a web page and made sure people looked at it.

It was instrumental to help get me a job early in my career. I had no contacts and I do not interview well at all.

However, such portfolios need to be kept current with newer and better code. I've discovered that in my most recent job search, it did not help so much because most of the code is stagnant.

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#19

Post by burgerbrain » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #11

wtn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hahaha... if there's a finite number of people, there's a finite amount of attention.

Oh, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It's not effectively a zero-sum game until you near saturation. Before that point, the dynamics are the same as for an infinite resource. How's about a game of poker with grains of sand as chips? Second, you already admitted that the amount of attention can grow. There's only a finite amount of wealth represented in the balance sheets of everyone alive on the planet right…

A finite number is always finite, even if it's so large that you can't comprehend it in normal human terms.

Oh, and arguably the amount of fame there is to be had is nowhere near unfathomable. I can list off the top of my head probably hundreds of "famous people", and I don't give a shit about celebrity. The only limit there is my memory, not a lack of famous people to think about. Our culture is absolutely packed with famous people, it's pretty clearly saturated.

"no one claims wealth is a Zero Sum Game"

Objectively wrong.

Re: The Resume Is Dead

#20

Post by kellysutton » Sat, Jan 15, 2011, 7:56 PM UTC

Any company that lets HR do the screening of the engineers is probably doing it wrong.

Every job I've gotten is from networking. Submitting my CV has just been an after-the-fact formality.