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You've decided to get personal. Will top candidates be filtered out based on some issues related to breaking resume norms? Probably not. Bill Gates could write a resume on a napkin in ketchup and get an interview.

It mainly makes a difference for candidates in more competitive situations - give a recruiter two resumes with somewhat parallel experience, and the better resume (based on writing style, obeying stylistic norms, etc.) is probably more likely to get the interview.

As for a "scam", my results are hard to argue with, and most clients seem to think the investment was a good one. Many of my clients come to me after having failed to get interviews for their dream jobs, and after working with me their fortunes often change. Many of my clients approach me trying to get jobs at places like FAANG companies, while many others just are looking to work at places most people have never heard of.

Would you like to be done now? We both have better things to do.

Where do you see anyone suggesting that we actually "filter out" candidates because they use "I"? Nowhere in this thread have I suggested that in any way.

In other parts of this thread, I've explained why we don't use I. Let me gather them for you.

1 - Redundancy. Imagine a list of bullets that start with the word "I".

- I wrote a playbook for product implementations.

- I managed the project...

- I oversaw a team that...

Hopefully by now you see this wouldn't be a fun read.

2 - Necessity - The resume is about you, not others, so we don't need to say that you (I) did the things on the resume. That is understood, and why 'implied' first person fulfills our needs while also reducing the content. If I ask you what you did today, you can just say "Watched TV, mowed the lawn, ..." - you don't need to say "I watched TV, and then I mowed the lawn."

I hope this helps, and maybe we can put this to bed.

You're making some assumptions about people you know nothing about. Some of my clients do have strong feelings on various resume topics, but they know I'm good at what I do and want my opinion. They don't always agree or accept what I tell them.

I'm really not sure what you're talking about with hiring committees, but if you're saying that some people are eliminating candidates because they did or didn't use personal pronouns, I think that's well beyond the scope of what I've been saying. I'm not suggesting applicants who use "I" should be eliminated from contention.

I've been in the resume game in one way or another for 20+ years, have published countless articles about resumes on various websites, and written for thousands of clients from all over the world. I've never witnessed anything resembling "the other camp". I've never had a client question the "I" advice - not once.

You can say it exists, but it would be nearly impossible for me to spend an entire career in this field and not ever come across it.

A search on Google of the words "resume first person" (without quotes) will help, with the first 10 answers pretty much unanimously agreeing with my belief. I've explained why in other responses (mostly redundancy - "I did this, I did that" gets old.

This isn't the #1 piece of advice I give in my job. I'm a writer. I write the documents. I'm not telling them what to do.

I do offer review services, which are a small part of my business. If I get a resume with the word "I" for a review, I will tell them what I've told you.

You seem intent on belittling what I do, as if my job is to walk around telling people "don't use I".

I was trying to be simple and now we've reached the pedantic stage.

If it was a team effort, we may use "Contributed to development of an iOS game that earned $10M in revenue.".

If it was an individual effort, the bullet I wrote earlier could included a term to clarify that, like "Independently...".

As for 'us on HN', about 100 HN users hire me every year. I even have a discount code for HN users on my HN page here (I got 3 HN orders in the past two days, probably from people reading this thread). I'm familiar with how to write accomplishments on resumes, for HN users and others.

I don't think I used "bad" anywhere, but it's something we're generally told not to do. If you Google that specific question about first person, you will likely get the answer "don't do that". (I ran a few searches like this myself already). "The prime consideration" is a bit strong.

Can you be successful with a first person resume? Yes. You can also be success with a third person resume, or a resume that is web-based and includes only a list of links to your code repos.

My evidence is from reading resumes every day of my life for 20 years. Tens of thousands from people all over the world. You can call that anecdotal.

The thing is there are no "official" rules for resumes like there would be for haiku or sonnet. It's not that kind of writing, but there are norms.

As another example of a norm, an experience section is written in reverse chronological order (most recent experience first). Have I ever seen someone write it another way? Of course. But that is also incredibly uncommon.

We typically put contact info at the top. Can you put it on the bottom? Maybe even on the last page? Sure. But that would be unusual, and the reader may be inclined to thinking that you don't know how to write a resume.

I think I've used up all my energy in talking about resumes today, and I need to go write some resumes. Enjoy your day.

I've written for at least a thousand international clients, hundreds in the UK, and this doesn't seem to be a US thing based on the resumes/CVs I see.

I'm not saying people are filtering on seeing "I", but they would be surprised in the same way they would be by seeing third person "Thom is a CTO with..." on a CV.

I have no agenda here. I'm just telling you the facts from someone who has probably read far more resumes than most others. You don't need to accept my expertise. Again, run a google image search on resumes, tell me how many you see with the word 'I'.

You clearly don't value my experience. That's OK. I'm not some advocate for first person pronouns - it doesn't help me in any way that resumes are written in this manner. I'm just explaining to you that it's a fact.

Part of me thinks that the rule is so well-known that the writers didn't both to include it. Like "don't use a handwritten resume" isn't something we need to tell readers.

I could be wrong about that, but the data doesn't lie. I've read far more resumes than the average human being - 20 years in recruiting, 7 years as a resume writer, thousands of writing clients - and definitely <10% of the resumes I receive from clients include the word "I" anywhere at all.

If it's not a given, I guess it would be one heckuva coincidence that 90%+ of the tens of thousands of resumes I've seen all don't use "I".

You can write about accomplishments without using the word I. The I is implied.

Wrote an iOS game that earned $10M in revenue and had 50K downloads.

There is no I there, and I don't think you'd argue that this person contributed.

We may have some kind of disconnect. The most common resume is written in "implied first person", and not "first person", so the "I" in most lines is implied. Examples:

Developed a web app in Python that ....

Authored a playbook for...

So it's still considered "first person" by most, but the pronoun is dropped.

Can I be sure that no using "I" on resumes is a "big component" for my success? Of course I can't be 100% sure, and my ability to highlight accomplishments is probably far more important.

But I was a recruiter for 20 years, and I know that 95% of resumes I saw during my career (easily in the tens of thousands) were written in implied first person, and when you send someone a resume that continuously uses "I" it is a bit of a shock to the system (just as it would be to see third person).

I'll tell you what, let's save us both some time. Go to Google and just search "resume", and use image search. I just went through the first page of results, and I didn't see a single resume written in first person (using "I"). Not one.

If you're saying less than 10% of the resumes you get are written in implied first person, I find that incredibly hard to believe. I work with easily 1000 clients a year (most in tech), and the 'before' resumes sent to me by clients are at least 95%+ in implied first person.

I did a quick search, and the results surprised me too. After reading a couple of the articles, I was less surprised, because they weren't good. Try a search for "should I use first person on resume" (no quotes). That search turned up more of what I expected.

The #1 result in my "rules for resume writing" search did mention first person.

Correct. The "you" here isn't actually "me" (the writer), but rather the decision maker (the recruiter or hiring manager).

I was a recruiter for 20 years, and I've always been a strong writer. As a recruiter I read tens (perhaps hundreds?) of thousands of resumes, and I knew the audience. I had always done some resume editing or helping my candidates with their resumes, and I decided I wanted to see if I could support myself as a writer instead of a recruiter.

I do quite well as a writer. My hourly rate is $100/hr, I also offer flat rate services, and for the past few years I've consistently had a roster of anywhere from 30-40 clients at any given time.

My clientele is about 50% tech, as that's my specialty and I was a tech recruiter for my entire recruiting career. Word of mouth does sometimes get you by if you have a good network. There are quite a few reasons people hire a resume writer. Some just simply struggle to write. Some struggle to understand what the reader wants to know. Some aren't comfortable taking credit for their accomplishments, so a writer makes it feel less 'braggy'.

I hope I answered your questions.

I've written thousands of resumes, and all written using implied first person. My results are pretty consistent with hundreds of clients getting jobs at many of the most selective employers in the world.

I appreciate your response, but implied first person is the industry standard, and has been for as long as I've been in business.

Nope. The results my clients get with my resumes are enough proof for me.

Search for "should I use first person on resume", the articles will explain a bit. One reason is brevity - we want to use as few words as possible.

The other is redundancy - if we use "I", chances are almost every sentence will begin with "I". I did this, I did that.

Not using "I" on a resume is pretty much the first rule of resume writing. If you were to search for rules of resume writing, I expect that would probably appear on every article. If you've had good results with a first person CV, that's probably because your experience is strong enough that the reader forgives you for the error.

Of course you 'can' write a resume in first person. It's just not the voice that the reader expects. Similar to third person.

A resume is certainly meant to try and impress the reader, but typically we're trying to impress the reader with professional accomplishments. I'm much more impressed by someone's professional accomplishments than their choice to use LaTeX.

For someone like this with little experience, being unconventional is probably OK because they aren't being judged by the same criteria as an experienced hire. That said, you can be unconventional and still provide the reader with the basic facts they'd want to know (like 'what are your accomplishments?' or 'did you attend school?').

Professional resume writer here. Quick review.

We don't use first person voice on resumes. We use 'implied first person' (no 'I'). So "Former emergency response driver..."

Mentioning a Twitter handle is only useful if your Twitter has things you'd want people to see.

The professional experience section (Modules here) should be in reverse chronological order - so most recent first. It would be useful to say something that you did while working for RustMinded and maybe tell the reader who the company is. So it might look like:

Software Developer, Rustminded $DATE_- present

RustMinded is a Belgian startup dedicated to the promotion of the Rust language.

As others have said, I don't really get the fascination with LaTeX. I get a lot of incoming resumes from my tech clients that are written in LaTeX. It feels more like "I built it using LaTeX to try and impress you" than "it's the best tool for the job".

The project sections are mostly OK other than some language issues.

I'm a professional resume writer and former tech recruiter, and I'd say "it depends".

Does the side project demonstrate a specific skill that you don't have in your day job that can/will be attractive to the hiring company? (if yes, include)

Does the side project have any popularity or adoption that would potentially make it impressive? (if yes, include)

Does the side project demonstrate your ability to solve problems within the hiring company's domain? (if yes, include)

Does the side project show some level of versatility that your professional body of work lacks? (if yes, include)

The value of side projects diminishes over time for most people, unless the side projects are "significant". For new graduates, side projects or academic projects with publicly available code are often useful talking points in interviews.

After a couple years of work, your day job becomes the primary point of conversation.

I write resumes. For clients that are coming out of school, the project section is often a large portion of the document. For people with a few years of experience, the project section tends to slip down the resume towards the end, and eventually falls off entirely. Experienced professionals with a projects section are usually trying to demonstrate skills they developed outside their day job (e.g. if you want to be a data scientist but are a web dev by day, some data science projects you did while taking a Coursera course will be useful to list).

All that being said, the problem you are describing is real for people who enjoy doing open source work and are employed by companies with restrictions on ownership. When I was a recruiter, I did work with some client companies to alter contractual language for new hires that had a body of open source work.

When Covid goes away, we can assume masking, distancing, and staying home will also go away. In that case, all communicable diseases are likely to increase, from the common cold to STDs.

I write resumes for a living (yes, that's a thing) and have advised many HN'ers on career topics. When you're working by yourself you generally don't have any useful point of comparison as to 'how good' you are, and perhaps more importantly, you don't have anyone to learn from. Both are potential problems.

The best way to get some feedback on how senior you actually are is to do some interviews - practice interviews and interviewing.io is one way to do so in a no-risk setting, and the feedback you'll get will give you some ideas on things to brush up on.

As for long-term career, if you've managed to take home a paycheck for 10 years as an engineer you must be doing at least some things right. Finding a role with a team that truly invests in their employees and finding a mentor might be useful. In your case I wouldn't accept any job where you're the most senior person - if there is nobody at the company better than you, find another company.

Most of my work is fixed price. Probably 90%+.

My hourly rate is $100, which is not the highest, but there are experienced writers for far less. In part because of the cumbersome billing process, my hourly projects are often less expensive. A few minutes here and a few minutes there adds up.

My main advantage as a writer is 20 years of recruiting experience, mostly for east coast US startups. Being a good resume writer (and maybe any good writer?) is really about knowing your audience. And when you've written a lot of resumes it becomes a bit easier. The voice is tricky for some people.

I can't speak for all freelancers, but I do think you're missing some things. I've completed 1000+ projects on Upwork with a 95%+ success rate over the past few years (mostly resume writing and executive bios).

As a freelancer, you can simply refuse the monitoring feature. I would never accept a project where the client wanted screen shots. I use Google Docs so my activity is tracked there pretty accurately as it is, but I think most freelancers aren't taking the monitored projects.

I'm not sure what you're asking about the 'client questions', but you are able to ask questions before accepting an offer or even making an offer. I have had clients make me an offer before any dialogue took place, but that's rather rare, and I always clarify my work process with clients before accepting offers.

Upwork is not my primary source of income - I have a private resume writing business that I run - but I use Upwork because it's brought me quite a bit of business without having to do any marketing (at the cost of 20% of my earnings). I'm happy to give them 20% based on the volume of business that comes my way there.

I primarily have used fixed price projects as well, but mainly because time tracking in Upwork is a bit cumbersome. You need to track in 10 minute increments, and my workflow often finds me in documents multiple times per day, but for short periods of time. That's not conducive to time tracking, so I try to set fixed price agreements.

I've been pleased with my experience on Upwork, but I know part of that is because I've had the benefit of being one of the higher ranked writers there for a few years and I have a larger stream of income from other sources, so I have the luxury of turning down quite a bit of work there if it doesn't meet my preferred criteria.

What you are referring to aren't what we'd traditionally call gaps. Resume gaps are usually periods of unemployment. What you're referring to seems to be some career inconsistency.

I write resumes all the time for people who have bounced between different types of roles. In those cases, having a couple resumes makes sense. For the description you have in your comment, if this person is applying for ML roles, we provide more detail and emphasize that role. If they were applying for a product owner job, you emphasize that aspect and those skills.

As I mentioned in another comment, you can also use a summary to define yourself. If you're applying for product owner jobs, you define yourself as a product owner with skills in web dev and ML. If you're applying for a web dev job, you define yourself as a web dev with skills in ML and product.