Show HN: I wrote a book on writing good developer resumes

Just a friendly suggestion/question - wanted to get that clarified before I link those friends to the complimentary copy page.

What exactly do you hope such a requirement is going to achieve? Surely not to prevent piracy as I found a working PDF link to the final release in seconds.

I assume you have some other motive for the LinkedIn requirement and am genuinely interested in what it is.

A few points you touch on that I really like:

* Leave out extraneous stuff... photos, references, etc. I don't need to know where you went to high school (assuming you are a college grad). I'll ask for references after I hire you.

* Check typos and formatting. I know some hiring managers who will let typos, formatting issues and grammar mistakes slip. Personally, I look for them and will likely disqualify you if I see them (I'll be more lenient if English isn't your first language). If you can't keep bugs out of your resume, which is a one to two page document, how can I expect you'll keep them out of your code? Also pro tip: always PDF resumes so formatting is consistent and doesn't show the squiggly lines that word document spell checkers show.

I general, I'm always surprised by resumes that try to stick out with gimmicks like charts or color, or whatnot. I've looked over high hundreds (or low thousands) of resumes and the ones that stick out are usually black and white, well formatted, straight to the point, brief and don't have glaring errors.

I've been building out a tool to make resumes that let you zoom in to different topics, would love to get your thoughts on whether you'd like to see something like this: https://prototype.profiled.app

Looking forward to reading this in any case! I lost my contracting role due to Covid and I think it's great that you're giving away those extra copies to those in need.

The nice part is most of the time your resume just needs to be good enough. Not having any major red flags is enough for a conversation if you have some experience under your belt.

Anyone who feels the pain on how broken the system is: please, try to not forget this. And when you'll have the opportunity, try to improve it.

I see solutions along not immediately rejecting when the resume is not a "fit", but carrying on looking for signals.

As of today - in 2020 - the best way to not have to rely on a resume is to have a referral. The first part of the book stresses this a lot. A trusted referral "I know this person" will probably make a resume redundant, at least for smaller places.

Therefore, As a society, I think we've reached the point of needing to add extra weight to our real-life connections. They say making deals in business has always hinged on "who you know," and going forward, I think being anonymous is going to actively count _against_ people, rather than personal connections being a plus.

Maybe that'll mean having less "meta-work" to deal with, because your real work will stand on its own, and you'll have professional connections who can back you up. This change will make it harder to break into the system, though, and will make it harder for under-performers to succeed.

If anything gives me hope is a world with more devs!

Easy solution: Ask your recruiting team/hr department if your company has something like this in place. There are only 3-5 major ATS's that are used by ~80% of companies.

You can normally find the ATS for a job application by taking a quick peak at the source. Most companies are using a handful of ATSs and if you check their offerings, they don't include automated rejections.

https://www.askamanager.org/2020/10/your-job-application-was...

I talked with the recruiter I quoted later on, and while they think eventually the industry will go towards having more automation, she also confirmed she did not see any automation like this, today. I probably should have made that more clear!

That might seem like a joke, but it isn't. I have seen that many times.

Another popular one is people that put "CTO" or "CEO" on their resume because they did freelance work for their cousin's friend's brother's pizza restaurant once. They started a company called "AAA Software Enterprises" and made themselves CEO. Then closed the company after that project finished.

These people need to realize that overembellishing your resume can often hurt you more than under-crediting yourself.

I have also noticed that the 2-3 year experience gap is a dangerous gap in Software Development. Developers have learned enough at this point that they are walking all over the other junior developers that are doing basic bug fixes. They feel like a God and feel like they can do anything. But what they don't realize is that they might have too much experience for the Junior Developer position, but they don't have enough experience to realize how much they actually don't know yet, because they have never experienced it. So some developers fall in this trap of never being pushed hard enough in their early years and not realizing how much they still have to learn. So they think they know it all and tend to overembellish, without realizing how dumb they look because they have no idea how niave they still are.

For the contrast: you have a good point. I'm seeing if I can do something, but I am seeing a good variety of sales across packages. I might just leave it for today, come back to it later.

For pricing: I'm aiming to optimize for reach over revenue for this one. I'd like to keep the book affordable, and give people a good deal. But by people paying, I'm hoping to target those who will actually read it, over just download numbers. I especially would not want to overcharge as resume advice is... a subjective field, and no one can guarantee results (maybe some gurus say they can, but I don't want to be that guru).

Originally, the whole book was supposed to be two pages in the next book I'm (still) writing on growing as a software engineer, in the job search section [1]. I just hope the other parts won't expand as much as this one has :)

[1] https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/book/

I have a small sample size - about 15 responses - and everyone reported getting higher response rates. Some said it was much much higher, some said it was somewhat higher.

I will add that almost everyone who has responded are people with 2+ years experience, many of them having 5+. So I cannot vouch if the advice here significantly helps people with less experience, where the market is more competitive and it's harder to stand out.

All of this is anecdotal, though. I have a few people who agreed to share their names on the site, with reviews. And I have more emails in my inbox saying thanks for seeing higher success in going through the resume screen. There are also people who got more recruiter calls, but still have not been able to get an offer, struggling on the later parts of the process.

I do live near a border and YouTube thinks I'm in the other country all the time. I suspect European borders may have more resolution than Californian algorithms.

The endpoint returning the string of "Looks like you're based in Netherlands" is a nodej.js script that has this defined in the top:

    const MESSAGE = "Hey  - it looks like you're based in $countryName."

    module.exports.getDiscountData = function(countryCode, countyName, etc) {

    // Fetch the right message

    let message = counryValues[countryCode]; // We get MESSAGE

    message = MESSAGE.replace("$countryName", countryName) // oops - we overwrote MESSAGE with a new value!

    message = MESSAGE.replace("$otherVariable", etc)

    return message; 

And for each country, I have keys /values listed, like: "GB": MESSAGE, "NL": MESSAGE, "HU": MESSAGE_2

The problem was that once the first request replaced the country name, MESSAGE was mutated, and it now had the value "Hey - it looks like you're based in Netherlands." instead of "Hey - it looks like you're based in $countryName."

I had no idea this would happen. And that a "const" in Javascript is a mutable thing. I fixed it by deep copying the string of the original message.

The super interesting part is that I did not notice this problem, as when I was testing, I did low frequency testing. As I am using Lambda, I probably got a new container created, where MESSAGE was re-initialized. But with the HN traffic, the containers stayed alive longer, making this mutated string issue a problem.

Yes. If there is work that you would like to specifically highlight, group your achievement(s) into your summary. If someone says not put a summary in your resume (beginning or end) you are making a mistake. Having an (albeit brief) identity helps you remain memorable in a sea of similarity. No need to list jobs 10 years ago, but saying you have written forum software or worked on a banking app is relevant to your career.

In Europe, I've had a hiring manager tell me he actually reads longer resumes. Another recruiter in the UK told me for exec profiles he's seen 3-4 pages long ones that were not great, but passable. The other 23 recruiters and hiring managers all suggested to fit it into 2 pages.

I would say, make sure everything important is on the first 2 pages. The book has an example of a person with 20+ years' experience refactoring their resume to a 2-page one, cutting off 10 years of less relevant experience, and getting a lot more callbacks.

Ping me at hello@thetechresume.com referencing to this comment and I'll hook you up with a copy.

[1] https://gumroad.com/a/901313651/vBcuK

[2] https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/

This is my workaround for you not to have to pay VAT: I lower the price by the amount, so the full amount will stay the same for you (even though VAT is added).

It's not a generic discount: I add it to all EU countries with higher VAT rates. Many of these countries have (e)books without VAT, but Gumroad still adds the VAT.

The hiring pipeline setup is probably similar for other tech roles, but I cannot vouch for anything else. I've had a technical program manager and a tech writer tell me it helped them somewhat. Two product managers read the beta, but when I reached out to ask if they found it helpful, I never heard back: so I assume it was not that useful for them.

What I would assume applies to other tech roles as well is this: - Try to get a referral, where you can. This will 10x your chances of progressing from the resume screen. - Use a clear format that hiring managers can scan easily. - Aim to tell a story with your resume. This is your sales pitch. - Be specific and use numbers, where you can. Talk about the impact you made and the business results you enabled. - Tailor your resume to the job description if you cold apply, over sending the same one, over and over again.

[1] https://thetechresume.com/samples/the-hiring-pipeline.html#t...

I used the advice to spruce up my resume a bit and tailor it to specific employers. But more importantly, it helped me know when I was “done”. I had spent a lot of time making small optimizations without knowing how effective they were. After reading the book, I knew when to stop.

Highly recommended!

[1] https://thetechresume.com/#reviews-section

Hope you'll be able to use the advice and good luck!