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Comment by talmand | Hacker News Reader

What I get out of that first statement is that you do tend to disregard unless the candidate knows exactly how to describe the related subjects on their CV in a way that makes you happy. And you don't see the problem that developers might have with that? Especially when they don't know the secret method of describing things to make recruiters happy?

As for the rest, I think it's reasonable to assume that a candidate with commercial experience will favor over hobby experience. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of where that doesn't hold true, but I suppose it's a decent rule.

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The GP is giving helpful advice here. It takes stages to get to the people who will have some idea if your side project is really something or a bit of fluff.

Recruiters don't have the experience to know, so it is your job to help them out with your CV. They are looking at many applicants and can't research them in depth and get through the stack at the same time.

I believe this is essentially true for hiring managers as well, although they will probably be able to tell fluff from something interesting, they won't have the time to do it. And it will reflect poorly on you if you aren't willing to work your CV for relevance to the job.

When you get through those gates to a peer interview, you can talk up your side projects all you want, and these are the people who might look at it and incorporate it in their decision making.

It is helpful advice, to get a job from that recruiter. But what I'm saying is that this is an example of the games that job seekers have to play with different recruiters that have their own methods and agendas. It's also possibly a difference between Europe and United States hiring methods, which could be a misunderstanding on my part.

But you've mentioned part of the problem, "Recruiters don't have the experience to know", therefore there is an issue with some recruiters being the gatekeepers. Especially when they state things that imply if you didn't explain things in the magic way that they want to read it then they'll pass on your resume. That's my issue. It's one thing to say "please phrase your experience in simple terms for a non-technical person might be able to understand and can easily use as a basis for research" as opposed to "write it the way I like it or I may disregard". It's not as bad as the guy who throws out resumes stating he doesn't hire unlucky people, but it is a problem.

After all, if someone writes that they have AngularJS experience and the recruiter can't be bothered to think "I don't know what that is, maybe I should look on Google" then there's a problem. I'm not saying that the recruiter in this thread is that person, but does seem to have something close to that mindset.

Which, I feel the need to point out, I've personally never had a bad experience with a recruiter nor hiring manager. I'm not sure if that means that this problem that crops up quite frequently in the community is not that big a deal as it seems or I'm just lucky. I've also been on the hiring side of the table. It's just my personal experience and it may or may not mean anything to the discussion.

There is nothing magic about it. It's common sense. You first make it through a basic keyword search, then someone sifts through those results for basic relevancy, then you get an interview.

You are the one seeking something here, lost in a pile of other seekers. Why wouldn't you do everything you could to make it easy for the person looking at your CV to pass it on to the next stage of vetting.

Why would someone bother googling some obscure reference on your resume when they have dozens or hundreds of others that fit the bill? The key is learning what it takes, in general, to get to the next stage. While there are always horror stories about oddball reasons for not getting selected, they aren't the norm.

Understand the job you are going for, understand the expertise and expectations at the different stages, and you'll do fine. It is basically a numbers game at that point.

Basing selection heavily on keywords when the gatekeeper doesn't understand the keywords is a problem. That is the problem I'm referring to. I don't know how else to explain this.

I don't disagree with you that using proper keywords is common sense. I'm not complaining about that in any way. But, as it has been pointed out in many places, stuffing your resume with keywords is a bad idea. So, I simply cannot list off every single little thing I know, I have to cull it down somehow. If I didn't find the magic pattern required for the gatekeeper when choosing my keywords then my resume gets passed over. For example, if a developer specializes in AngularJS, among many other things, then they are likely to list that and leaving off Javascript. It's only common sense because AngularJS IS Javascript. Remember, too many keywords is bad. What if that developer happens to specialize in multiple Javascript frameworks? Remember, too many keywords is bad. If the gatekeeper doesn't understand that AngularJS is Javascript, but fails to see the Javascript keyword then they may disregard. That's a simple example but could easily be understood to be possible.

Another example, how many times has a recruiter mistaken Java and Javascript as the same thing? To me, that's a problem that potentially keeps good candidates from being matched to jobs they are good matches for. Good candidates that the hiring manager never even knows about.

I think it's OTT describing it as a secret. If a job spec lists a skill, highlight where you've used it so I can see your experience. That's not difficult or counter intuitive or unreasonable.

Realistically I can't interview everyone and it wouldn't be in anyone's interest to do so. The current stats I have say I will first interview one in four screened CVs. Out of those about one in three will get a second interview and half of those an offer. So I interview maybe half a dozen people per appointment from about 25 CVs).

That means right now if you give up an hour of your time for a first interview (plus travel and so on), you've got a one in six chance of getting a job. If I interviewed more people, your chances go down. I may end up with a better recruit but I'm actually externalising a lot of the costs to the other candidates who don't get the role.

I'm not disagreeing with your first point.

As for interviewing people after the first selection round based off of resumes; that's a totally different situation and I can't say I disagree with your viewpoint.

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