Comment by gregdoesit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gregdoesit | Hacker News Reader

I’m excited to share The Tech Resume Inside Out: a guide on how to write a developer (or engineering manager) resume that represents you fairly. The book is free for any developer currently out of a job [1].

COVID was what triggered me writing this book. At the beginning of the year, I was in the middle of writing a book on growing as a software engineer. However, as COVID started and the tech the layoffs followed in April and May, I found myself wanting to help people impacted. I’ve been a hiring manager for a few years, so I offered to do resume reviews for those laid off or applying for positions[2]. I had more than 300 developers take me up on this offer in a few days.

I did in-depth reviews for the first few dozen people, then copied-and-pasted common observations for the next batch, and finally sent over a 15-page PDF with the most common advice, with a few pointers for the bulk of the people. Here’s an early version of this PDF[3] - which also was the basis of this book.

I wasn’t that happy with how little backup I had for the advice in that guide, so I started to reach out to tech recruiters and hiring managers for more feedback. I also asked people to share back how their improved resumes worked out, applying the suggestions, and started adding this into a growing guide.

Four months and 55,000 words later, the book is ready. I tried to give level-headed, but practical advice, with lots of examples from actual resumes (that are all anonymized). Happy to answer any questions here.

[1] https://thetechresume.com/complimentary-copy

[2] https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1263855589861580800

[3] https://thetechresume.com/A_Good_Tech_Resume.pdf

Great job. I didn't read everything, but skimmed some of your materials online and most of this seems to be right on point in my view (having done hundreds of interviews and looked at thousands of resumes).

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 heard PDFs aren't great in automated resume filters because the OCR doesn't work as well. Is it possible that you prefer PDF because of a survivor bias (PDFs that get past the filter are better for you but fewer PDFs get past it)?

OCR is only an issue if it is an image PDF that came from a scanner.

I'm in the staffing industry and deal with automatic resume parsing tools. They have no problem with text PDFs that are saved from the source.

I’m the founder of a startup that has eliminated the issue you mention. Our documents-to-database service handles arbitrary rotation, skews, and offsets.

Example of it handling a scan of a document that’s rotated ~100 degrees and physically cut in half with scissors here: https://siftrics.com/hydra.html

Re: typos, I think you’re shooting yourself in the foot if you bin a resume for one little mistake. But, yes, if it’s more than a couple, that’s probably not a great sign.

I don’t want a resume that “represents me fairly,” though. I want one that gets me interviewed for high paying tech jobs. Those are related concerns, to be sure, but I’d much rather get interviewed for a job that’s a serious stretch for me than not. I want my resume, which is a marketing document, to get me in the interview room, where I represent myself.

Seems like you could fix that by not relying on what hiring managers think and say, since neither of those necessarily correspond to what they actually choose to hire. After all, no hiring manager will admit to discriminating on race, age, caste, etc... But all of those have been newsworthy factors in the recent past.

It is a shame the complimentary copy for those out of work requires having a LinkedIn profile.

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.

This was the easiest way I came up with validating people who are actively looking for jobs. As a software engineer, LinkedIn is a place you can also get a bunch of inbound interest (I got my last 3 jobs on this platform, from inbound messages). I don't use it for anything else: the data is deleted after I manually validate them.

But you raise a good point, thank you. I updated instructions, so anyone with no LinkedIn profile can email me directly with some other proof of their online presence.

Originally, I got a lot of spam requests from throwaway emails that I could not validate.

People who get the book this way also get access to updates: which will be fixes, corrections, and additional content.

I've seen first hand that offering something for free for people experiencing hard times is rarely abused so long as you require someone to ask for it.

"Email me if you are unable to afford this book and would like a free copy" for example, will rarely be abused. (And if it is, it isn't a lost sale, because they wouldn't have purchased it anyway.)

I suspect it might actually increase overall conversion rate, because it may trigger many people to consider that they actually can afford the product, and it shows that the merchant has a heart.

I originally had this message up. However, after the first 30 requests - a few which had no information, and seemed like one-time emails - I opted for something I can automate easier.

I now added the email option for people who don't have a LinkedIn account (or don't want to share it), thanks to the original suggestion. I love the Show HN crowd!

Just my opinion but it sounds like you're making a lot of additional manual work for yourself with little to no benefit.

I could understand if you were able to maybe monetise the contact information you collect but as you said you delete everything once you validate it seems you are validating just for the sake of validating?

For example how would you deal with someone out of work due to COVID and wanting to use this time to retrain and get into the software engineer field? I can't imagine they would care about (or even know about) having a LinkedIn profile with zero related employment, no contacts to network with, etc.

I know I am being a little 'difficult' with my question and I am not criticising I am just interested on your thought process more than anything.

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Update: Just realised you edited your original reply so my reply doesn't make quite as much sense now :)

I think your direct email option is good. If it were me I would automate the direct email with a little bit of weak validation such as "please explain in one or two sentences your situation" then anyone who emails with a few words are automatically validated and any blank or one word emails are either auto-deleted or put aside for manual validation.

Just an idea though. I figure posting to HN means you wanted a little feedback :)

Best of luck with your book. I don't have a need for it right now (thankfully) but I hope it helps others as it appears you have a put a lot of thought and work into it.

I love the auto-replying-to-the-email suggestion. I didn't think of this: I might do this next time!

My goal with the form was to have people explicitly confirm details (like their role and employment status). Beforehand, I got a few requests for free copies from non-developers, and some people outside tech. This book is not really helpful for them, and I wanted to reduce this kind of support burden, by adding an automated message with the form (you can see it in action).

But finally, let me admit that I was just excited to build (what I thought was) a sensible dynamic form, automate storing the data in DynamoDB, then deleting it when the validation script runs, running the backend on Lambda that I played with for the first time. Trying out new tools: any opportunity is a good opportunity!

That sounds like a good time to me!

Thanks for making this. As someone on the spectrum for whom the job application process is extremely tedious, I will be reading this cover-to-cover.

I'm hesitant to spend money on something that may be useful but probably won't save me from homelessness (I'm so unemployable that glowing internal referrals don't even get me a 15-minute phone call), but I don't qualify for your complimentary copy and I really, reallly don't want to out myself (because this will destroy even the tiny bit of employability I might have remaining).

So I bought it. Sure hope it's useful.

You might benefit most from speaking to a counselor to work on your self-image.

I have a few friends who were unfortunate to graduate either right before or during the pandemic, and have had trouble finding jobs since. Would they be eligible for your free copy offer? I know one of the criteria is “lost job due to COVID-19”, but perhaps that could be extended to “...or have been unable to find a job due to COVID-19”?

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

Yes, please have them send it through. Anyone who has graduated qualifies.

I just clarified it on the site as well: "Lost your job during COVID-19 and are actively looking for your next position OR you have already graduated and are actively looking for your first job."

You’re awesome. Thanks for updating the site!

P.S. I plan to buy this book when the student version goes live, as I’m a bit away from graduating still.

Hello, I found out about the "Purchasing Power Parity" thing on your site and I want to thank you for that consideration, it helps. Also thanks to all the people who think and then act on such ideas.

Thanks! I added Purchasing Power Parity the day before yesterday [1]. I'm originally from Hungary, and $15 there feels closer to $30 in the US.

I am now thinking of building a service to enable integrating PPP easier for creators [2], as I had to build everything from scratch, including calculating the "right" amount of discounts for 140 countries.

[1] https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1315699026445074434

[2] https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1315768527895302144

What do you think about digital/interactive resumes?

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.

Most companies use an ATS to organize inbound applications and ask job seekers to upload their resume. Here, recruiters/hiring managers later view this resume.

You need a PDF or Word doc here (PDF preferred). When applying for larger tech companies, this is the use case 90% of the time.

As a hiring manager, I want to see details quickly. The less "fanciness", the better. I can scan traditional resumes much easier than this one. So my view is the same as when choosing a fancy template: you make the job of the hiring manager more difficult, thus lowering your chances.

With software developers, boring and simple format is good. Your resume content should sell you, not the presentation.

As further anecdata: where I work, the interviewing system doesn't support random urls to stuff, and only shows the uploaded doc (if any). So unless we checked the linkedin link (almost never provided) and clicked through to projects (or followed links in docs, neither of which I or any I've talked to have ever done AFAIR), we'd never see it.

It might be workable for last-round or very small + "high contact" interview pipelines, but it's probably useless earlier or at larger companies.

> You need a PDF or Word doc here (PDF preferred).

Both. You need both. Because their system or their HR dept may ask for the Word version and you should have it ready on hand.

One thing about resumes is different companies often like different things. Possibly something that is useful is if you build a digital resume, then have print options that are optimized for different things (even specific optimizations for specific large companies ). This way you can generate whatever Resume you like targeted to different things. For small/mid type companies where I have interviewed 100s, I like extra detail, and I'll look at links if initial content looks promising.

IMHO no one reviews resumes like that. You're almost always going through a huge stack of resumes, spending very little time on each one.

This is fantastic. Thanks for making it. I sent you a dm on Linkedin about licensing it.

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