Ask HN: Could an old CV ruin my chances?
I'm a computer science student and I'm bothering you with a recent experience of mine from an interview. For some of you this may be silly, but I'll give my story a try. I applied for this software developer engineer internship 3 years in row (sounds pretty bad, huh?). The first time I applied, I was in my first year as a student. I was rejected as there were better suited candidates for the positions. A year later, I applied for the job early, passed a test and waited to be called for an interview after a recruiter told me I did well on my written test. I got an answer a month later, saying that the positions were filled, but that there were other positions available, but not as software developer engineer intern. For example, there was a position as a system developer engineer intern. I refused the offer, as I found another job in the meanwhile and was in the process of signing the contract. Third year, this year, the recruiting techniques changed. There is no written test. There is only one interview where a software engineer interviews you for about an hour. I went to the interview and noticed, from the beginning, that the interviewer did not know that I had a job. I found that thing strange, as it was listed in my CV on the first page. How could he have missed it? Taking a glimpse at the CV made me notice it was not the latest one: he had an older version of my CV. I offered to send him the CV from my phone, but he refused. The rest of the interview consisted of solving some pretty easy exercises. In the last few minutes, he prompted me to ask him anything about the internship. I took this opportunity to talk, asked a few questions, and then tried to share more about what my experience is in the field. He did not seem to be very interested in my background. What if he made a bad impression reading my old version of the CV? I have gained a lot of experience and practiced more this past year or so and the old version did not do me justice.