Comment by rsj_hn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rsj_hn | Hacker News Reader

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I'm fine with 2 pages on a sheet, and have never thrown out a resume because of its length, but for long resumes I just skim. But I disagree that you need 2 pages.

Here is a perfectly fine resume that can be half a page for a lead role or higher. Let's say this is a role for a webapp developer and the candidate has 10 years experience. With this resume, which is only half a page, you are probably way ahead of the competition. This is all the info a hiring manager needs.

   position
   Name/email address
   
   Languages: Java, Python, C++, JS

   Experience: 
   
   Foo Corp: 2017-2020. Lead Engineer to Principal Engineer. Web App developer for Foo Authentication System and other microservices. Used standard LAMP stack and then Spring Boot.

   Bar Corp: 2012-2016. Sr. Engineer to Lead Engineer. Worked on backend order fulfillment logic, developed new test infrastructure for WebApps, client side test harnesses, security test suites, and related work. 

   Baz Consulting: 2010-2012. Engineer. Worked as consultant for primarily B2B clients, primarily in Java. Delivered over 30 successful projects to spec.

   Bat Heavy Industries: 2007-2010. Associate Engineer to Engineer. Started as QA hire and migrated to development, responsible for metrics gathering app, qa infrastructure code, worked in python, java, and other languages.

   Education: B.S. Chemistry, Foo State University.

I find it so interesting that you select for that, because that example tells you virtually nothing about the person that isn't generically applicable to a large number of candidates.

Especially those with 13 years experience. Delivering 30 projects is the only item that stood out for me, but everyone with a few years can make that claim depending on what they choose to call a project.

The number of languages listed is laughably small for a 13 year candidate, but I guess they have picked out the ones they think you want to see.

From that resume, I cannot tell even one thing that the person is particularly good at, or any qualities they could bring to the company that would set them apart - other than their decision to write a short resume and avoid telling you much about themselves.

> I find it so interesting that you select for that, because that example tells you virtually nothing about the person that isn't generically applicable to a large number of candidates.

Correct, this is how all resumes work. Remember, nothing on the resume is verifiable apart from the dates and companies the candidate worked for, unless you do a phone screen or panel interview. So the resume selects the candidates suitable for the skills based interview. I know some people think the candidate needs to write "I am passionate about quality" or "I love collecting butterflies and have all of Nabokov's first editions" but those are primarily creative writing exercises that don't end up telling much that is reliable or reproducible across candidates.

> The number of languages listed is laughably small for a 13 year candidate, but I guess they have picked out the ones they think you want to see.

Correct, and one would understand that for someone with 10 years of experience it's not hard to pick up a new language, nor is language particularly important in this role. Neither is framework.

> I cannot tell even one thing that the person is particularly good at

No, you can't tell that from a resume, but you can tell what a person worked on (perhaps poorly). In this case, there is plenty of QA, webapp, and some security experience. This gives you avenues to drill down during the in person interview.

Remember, the only thing you know is true on a resume is the list of prior work experiences. Then you look for a collection of claimed skills. So when reviewing the resume you check whether the claimed skills match your needs and then drill down to verify the claims during the in person interview. That's pretty much all the info you can ever get.

I wish everyone viewed the process like this. I was job hunting a few years ago and increased my hits by roughly 50% by doing one thing: adding more color to the stupid resume.

Like, physical RGB color? (As opposed to metaphorical "color" of fleshing out your statements) That's... pretty funny, actually.

> The number of languages listed is laughably small for a 13 year candidate

Why would you expect a dev have more languages listed? Many jobs involve only 1-2 languages, so why should they have more? (Assuming you don't list languages you've used for a project once years ago, which you're unlikely to have much relevant benefit in vs learning them fresh)

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