Ask HN: How do you guys keep your resumes updated? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you guys keep your resumes updated?

I recently spent a lot of time updating my resume that made me think to try to build a tool to make updating resumes less time-consuming, with the design of the resume already taken care of.

Also, I've read that it is useful to tailor resumes to job applications, so I was thinking of adding a feature where you can create "branches" from resumes to tailor specifically for a position/area I just don't know if that would be something useful or if there is already something to do it.

I know people usually make a resume in LaTeX and commit it to a git repository, but seems like a massive time investment to learn LaTeX just to make a resume there.

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I have an elaborate set of scripts cobbled together to feed and operate resume-cli

What I glued together let's me do this:

- Write independent versions of each partial of the resume (introduction, experience, skills, etc.) in discrete files. These are JSON files, with seperate versions tailored for different profiles, ie. "introduction (consulting).json", "introduction (ex-founder).json", ...

- Assemble selected json files to dynamically generate a merged version under a specif codename (usually company name or profile type)

- Live preview the assembled version

- Archive a specific merged version using that codename as a complete and static json

- Export as pdf, rename, upload html version and open a preview

Motivation

In essence - parts of my resume progress in a straight line infrequently, while other need to be re-written for different positions and are single-purpose. I had a hard time writing and rewriting different versions of the resume and keeping track of versions, so I decided to divide the content into partials.

I'm skipping the presentation layer, as the PDF export and theming is a seperate topic, particularly problematic on the intersection of HTML and PDF rendering.

Oh, wow, that's cool, do you have this in a public repository?

I don't, but if you really think you'd need it, I can wrap it up and share.

Caveats - it relies on resume-cli to actually generate the resume and it badly glued together.

If you think you still could use it, let me know

Every decade or so I remove the obsolete technologies from contact information, for example UUCP, and add anything new such as email.

Every couple cycles there may be a address change or promotion, and maybe a couple new technological proficiencies.

One of these days I'm thinking about going digital, but for now it's not worth the 10 minutes it takes to retype.

I’ve used the same google doc since google docs existed. I spend about 10 minutes per year updating it. I do very little tailoring, but that little may go a long way.

I don’t worry about design. The aesthetics I care about are consistency, organization of content, and understandability.

I hate writing about past and current projects in the corporate world where it feels like you own three lines of code in a project of 10 million lines that could probably be refactored to 2000 lines. Instead I describe my work history in terms of responsibility instead of technology.

I showcase my personal projects on my resume but nobody cares. They only seem interested in employment history, which is stupid frustrating when you write 10x more code outside of work and your work work feels extremely entry level.

I just recently found a solution to this: a section of the resume dedicated to recent achievements. There I can mention my accepted pull requests to major OSS projects, how I am a director level manager in my part time job, major technical problems I have solved. All these gems already existed on the resume, but were ignored because they are in the corporate employment history. Now, suddenly people find my resume excited.

I should add in bold red letters at the bottom (for clarity): No experience writing ReactJS.

I hate writing resumes. So I found a job I like and haven't felt the need to apply to anything for thirteen years and counting

Brevity also helps. More than one page, possibly two... more than two sentences per gig is not getting read.

It helps to focus on accomplishments and achievements that are relevant to the company you are applying to. I've always tried to show initiative, competence, and skill/career growth. Early on, it's good to show the responsibilities you were trusted with. As your career progresses, it's more about what you brought to the table. I've always assumed that the reader is spending less than two minutes scanning my resume. I evaluate every sentence by asking why the reader would care about these details. I can always fill in more at the interview if asked.

I use my LinkedIn profile as single source of truth. And then I update the PDF file. But this is actually a bad strategy...

It would be great if there was a tool where I could just click "Include this..." and that way to update/add/remove points from resume.

Please add these features

1. A list of field forms which transforms into header and footers. So email, name, educational details and Github profile will automatically be placed left, right, and center; up and down. Automatically hyperlinked wherever possible. Accomplishments boldened wherever possible. Photos autocorrected for good contrast with background and clarity of face. This makes menial time cut down.

2. An annotation or hint that asks us to quantify accomplishments per gig/task wherever it thinks we are vague. This pins down my mind while updating and cuts a lot of time.

3. The tool should be able to give us hints or strongly suggest us to remove details or add some that are required by law of the state or country. EU format requires photo but California requires none. That way, I don't have to google these things much. There...time saved.

4. If the tool could pull a set of Glassdoor/anonymous reviews on a panel right side, so that I could disclose/withhold my ethnicity, GPA, age, etc. on resume as forewarning, or take hints based on something like "lacking certain specialization" that they planned to contract away, but I were better match, or if it is a "constant hire and fire" company like Amazon, etc. so that I can modify my resume and prepare accordingly. There are many more possibilities when research comes to you rather than you going around. I mean look at TeamBlind.com and Product Hunt.

5. A confusion resolver. Someone asked me how I combined a noSQL and SQL in one project. All he did was skim my "tech I know" section and asked me that. I had to clarify that they were used for two different projects respectively.

6. Provide markdown language hints/suggestions as we type so that we learn markdown while we make our resume.

7. Definitely intelliSense/predictive-typing of "English words", and voice typing.

8. A monthly reminder to update the resume. For example, usually we guys forget what we have done whenever 4th Saturday comes, which is a holyday for our side of financial sector. Sometimes we forget the potential juicy and small details that warrants a discussion in the interview and sometimes we forget how we resolved a bottleneck/bug as if its a daily chore. Even these maintenance details are marketable. Sometimes it doesn't occur to us to put down that task on a good tech we worked on when another team takes that project forward. Or vice-versa when we don't think we learned something when we took the baton and finished the task from someone other team.

Thanks for the suggestions! I may not be able to include everything here but I'll definitely take it into account.

Most of the time, you need ot add/edit your recent work experience. Rest of the things stay same (in general). Not hard to do that once in a while Although, I update only when I apply for a new job.

I have been using LaTeX for decades, so it is very little effort for me

There are a ton of decent LaTeX templates out there - not hard to simply edit in your own content without having to learn more than the bare minimum.

Rarely and only when I need a new job.

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