Leonardo da Vinci's Resume | Hacker News Reader

Leonardo da Vinci's Resume

cenedella.com

96 pointspeteforde25 comments

Original posting to hacker news [1] mentioned in the updates of the post, I had not seen this however so thanks for the repost.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1086391

We read this in high school. I remember thinking, "Wow, you have to sell what the buyer wants to get to the point where you can do what you want."

So Leonardo was a defense contractor. I think the lesson is that no matter how big a genius you think you are you still have to get out there and sell something.

Did anyone else notice how repetitive this was. He basically took an entire page to say, I can blow stuff up, build bridges, am a capable artist/architect. I guess even Da Vinci needed to add some fluff.

In a lot of cultures, being concise is not a virtue. Eloquence is valued, and demonstrating a facility with words is a marker of status. Using a lot of words to describe something shows the amount of attention or value you give to it. So spending a long time and a lot of big words on his accomplishments is an indicator of how cool they are.

A thing to note here is that at that time probably almost everyone that mattered in Italy had heard of Leonardo da Vinci's past works. So yes of course he could leave out past achievements.

In short I don't think this is good advice to people that haven't made sufficient name for themselves yet, or that are coming from other fields... Though focusing conveying value offered, is of course a good idea.

(Disclaimer: I am no expert on resumes)

How do you know that? If he was already famous at the time, why bother list his abilities? He would need not more than say "Leonardo Da Vinci, at your service my Lord".

Because he received a reference from the Medici's (a very powerful family), and already had done some notable work by that time, if I remember correctly.

In any case upper class Italy was a small world at that time, and personal recommendations, as well as informal sources of information would have been much more important than resumes for conveying past achievements...

(but I'm no expert on da Vinci or his time, apart from an essay in my undergraduate years, common sense, and the general gist of a history undergrad...)

Anyway, the main point I wanted to make is that the information- flows that are not recorded are often more important, than those that are, especially in historic documents...

Actually, when da Vinci wrote this resume, he wasn't well known. In fact, he'd done relatively little (did some commissions, worked in a workshop). The reason why every single one of those points is 'I could' or 'I know how' is because he hasn't -yet-.

Also, at the time da Vinci was applying (he was basically trying to get a gig as an engineer), it was expected that an engineer have a solid grasp of -all- of engineering at that time... which more or less was military engineering (seigecraft and defense), and civil (bridges and canals being the biggies).

This always impresses me, but the important question is: did it work, i.e. did the Duke employ him? Wikipedia says "Leonardo continued work in Milan between 1482 and 1499" but otherwise is mum whether he was sponsored by the Duke or not.

the italian used in the resume is seriously fun by today's standards...

How so?

"Ho modi di ponti leggerissimi e forti ed atti a portare facilissimamente".

Today: "So costruire ponti leggerissimi e forti che si possono trasportare facilmente".

And so forth.

Completely understandable but funny.

reminds me a lot of the kinds of spellings you see in the original writings of shakespeare. I guess this was done before strict spelling in Italian had been standardized also?

I imagine that "Q" from James Bond's resume would read similarly.

Leo focusing on value offered!

Imagine a programmer resume. None of this "have you worked with ruby"... "I know how to construct complex system that are able to scale such that the cost per given unit of load declines as load is increased", etc.

This is my own resume... it is similar to the format you mention. I worked this up trying to maintain a single page resume. I have had good luck with getting interviews.

http://spoon16.github.com/

Assuming that you're open to feedback if you're posting it here.

- while subjective, paragraph justification is generally considered to decrease readability (and it's objectively ugly!)

- use bold/caps/emphasis less and it will stand out more

- it strikes me as odd to list so many references

- consider paring down the references and LinkedIn stuff and replacing that freed space with your non-coding hobbies and interests (my #1 hiring consideration)

- it's illegal in many places to discriminate based on appearance (stuff you can't change) so many employers will discard resumes that contain a photo of the applicant to mitigate future risk

> - it's illegal in many places to discriminate based on appearance (stuff you can't change) so many employers will discard resumes that contain a photo of the applicant to mitigate future risk

So they see his appearance, then discard his resume from consideration. That's Orwellian/paradoxical, boggles my mind actually. On several levels. I mean, it's almost guaranteed they're going to get to see him in person and learn his gender/race/body-condition/approximate-age at some point before a hiring decision is made, anyway. Hilarious!

I actually like photos because it makes it more human and realistic. And yes, because sometimes you can see (at least a statistically significant correlation with) certain desired qualities in the way someone's face and body look. Most smart/fit people tend to look it, and vice versa -- not 100% correlation, of course, but statistically significant trends are noticeable over the course of real life experience.

"sometimes you can see (at least a statistically significant correlation with) certain desired qualities in the way someone's face and body look"

Sadly, this is exactly the kind of idiocy that has been used to excuse racism and sexism for centuries. It's the same nonsense that had victorians measuring criminals' ears and is no different to a late-nineties British start-up I knew that would only employ female staff that had a breast-size bigger than 36B.

> Sadly, this is exactly the kind of idiocy

rude

the cut of the picture that makes you look like a vulcanian is invaluable.

Your spelling of Vulcan is highly illogical, Captain.

However, I must point out, even if flawed there was a logic in the spelling, as I'm native of a planet called Italy in the gamma quadrant, where people are called "<planet_name>ian(i)".

I find this excellent. I'm going to unashamedly imitate your resume :)

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