Comment by scarface_74 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scarface_74 | Hacker News Reader

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I worked at AWS for three years (Professional Services). Using Amazon as an example of a good corporate culture and how companies should behave is not the argument you think it is.

But I see a few scenarios.

You have a strong network and the resume is a formality. In that case it’s easy enough to tailor your resume for the job. I don’t need to put that I wrote FORTRAN and C on VAX and Stratus mainframes in the mid 90s. There is no need for an 8 page resume. The year before last I had two offers for strategic positions based on my network.

The second case you are targeting a company where you know you have a competitive advantage, again in that case, you only need to have a resume that focuses on what gives you a competitive advantage. In my case, now I focus on strategic cloud consulting positions that focus on app development. In that case, I only need to focus on my job at a startup in 2018, talk in broad strokes about my time at AWS (working there automatically gets call backs by the way), and when the day comes, when I leave my current job as a “staff architect”.

The worse case is if you are spamming your resume far and wide and you are looking for any generic job. I look at an 8 page resume and then I have to take the time to see what is this person trying to communicate - it goes in the trash and I move on. I have hundreds of other resumes that I can get through quickly.

Of course if the company is reaching out to me, it’s even easier to tailor my resume for the job requirements. I have my “career document” to pull from either way that is as long as needed.

But even then I’m not going back even to the low level work I did in 2012 for Windows CE devices.

I am not talking about general Amazon corporate culture so your caveat makes no sense. I am talking about the practice of one specific technique which leads to better decision-making and which has also been validated by other people adopting it. Here is Jeff's own words - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYb5pBVBXEg

I consider 2-page resumes no better than a powerpoint presentation (i.e. almost useless) and furthermore when i see people tailor it to what they think i should know i consider it maybe trying to hide something. This is because by omitting companies they take away a vector for me to check references and more. Note that this is different from highlighting relevant experience/knowledge.

Your scenarios are nothing new from what you have already mentioned earlier; And spamming is not what i am talking about. That is a policy decision made by each person based on his circumstances.

You and most folks are simply parroting current practices in HR/Recruiting which are broken and need to be rethought from the ground up. To repeat once more, all details matter at some level in recruiting. As they say "measure twice and cut once" and "slow is smooth and smooth is fast".

Well, since most people at least in the US don’t do 8 page resumes and yet they get hired everyday and most managers aren’t asking for 8 page resumes and aren’t complaining about two page resumes, you ever thought you might be the outlier?

On the other hand, do you pay top of market? Would anyone be clamoring to expand their resume to eight pages because you prefer it?

Well, did you ever realize that you have a "bee in your bonnet" regarding the number 8 which is not the point of my example resume? It could be any number smaller/larger as long as it gives all the details (at varying levels) with nothing omitted. The rationale has already been pointed out viz. a) Different job fit than applied for job b) background reference checking c) indicators of self-motivation/adaptability/breadth of thought etc. all of which are very relevant.

As i already mentioned, the current HR way of doing Recruiting is broken. So being a outlier in this case is good. Also in a paradoxical way, this breaks the ice and becomes a conversation starter. When i do send in my CV, recruiters invariably call me back which then helps me to prime them with specific relevant experiences listed in the CV which they then forward to the actual interviewers. It allows one to stand out from the crowd.

Finally, most 2-page resumes look all the same with keywords/boiler-plate sentences/paragraphs with nothing giving me any additional insight into the person. The self-imposed page limit causes them to self censor their words/sentences unnecessarily leading to loss of info. For example; compare "Expertise in C++ programming" vs. "Expertise in C++ in Multi-paradigm designs with focus on performant code". A few additional words but orders of magnitude information.

Well, seeing that my success rate over 25 years (not counting my first job the i got via a return offer from a internship) is also 100% across looking for a job 9 times as far as send my email to a recruiter -> get an interview with only two pages at most, I think I’m doing pretty good.

Admittedly before 2020, those were local recruiters with local jobs.

> It could be any number smaller/larger as long as it gives all the details (at varying levels)

Let’s say I was looking for a job next year. I wouldn’t want to use my one hour I have with an interviewer to talk about anything I did before 2016. I’m looking for high level staff roles at small to medium companies. I want the entire conversation to be about signaling that I have competencies with leading a project from initial discovery with stakeholders to implementation and getting it done on time, on budget and meets requirements.

I also want to signal that while my breadth in my chosen domain is wide and I’m going to highlight projects that show that breadth, I’m not a paper tiger who can’t do hands on keyboard software development or “cloud engineering”. I can demonstrate that easily in 2 pages by leaving off anything before 2016.

Within those 10 years I can demonstrate a steady growth from being a barely competent lead developer, to being an architect at a startup, to consulting and working on projects with increasing “scope”, “impact”, and “ambiguity”.

https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html

> As i already mentioned, the current HR way of doing Recruiting is broken.

Even if recruiting is broken , it’s a “gravity problem. Just because you may not like gravity, if you jump out of 50 story building, you will die. While I’ve avoided the leetCode grind, I’ve played the “how to be successful at system design and behavioral interviews” game with aplomb. You adapt to the reality

>So being an outlier in this case is good.

Or you can just be an outlier by having a skill set and experience that sets you apart from the crowd in whatever niche you decided to pursue.

> Also in a paradoxical way, this breaks the ice and becomes a conversation starter.

The last thing I want to do is discuss how cool it was programming in Fortran in the 90s. I once had an interviewer ask me a “trick question” about C in 2014 for a C# development position. Even at the time I was six years removed from any C programming. I answered it and got the job. But that was a distraction from the narrative I was trying to convey. My single focus at an interview is to demonstrate that I have both the soft and hard skills that make me fit for the role.

> For example; compare "Expertise in C++ programming" vs. "Expertise in C++ in Multi-paradigm designs with focus on performant code". A few additional words but orders of magnitude information.

Not really, the latter sounds like the fluffy “I work well with people”. I communicate my expertise on my resume by telling how I used my knowledge to achieve an outcome.

Again, you are not saying anything new at all with this wall of text. You can claim any competency you want but that has to be evaluated and judged by the Interviewer's (and his team's) standards. This is the key; since your opinion of yourself does not count for that much, you provide all the info. you can to the Interviewer so they can pick up on it and dig deeper on all aspects (coding, designing, requirements specification, system architecture etc.) as needed.

Also a lot of words/phrases you have used above are general platitudes. By themselves they mean nothing unless you can tie them to a specific usecase/experience from your CV which should contain the details. Both the "Forest" i.e. big picture/business need/overall system/architecture/etc. details and "The Trees" i.e. languages/tools/libraries/frameworks/techniques/etc. matter.

You have to deal with Reality even if it is broken but you can do it differently than the norm (but stand out on the positive side) and get excellent results. To paraphrase a wellknown saying; "It is no measure of health to be adjusted to a profoundly sick [recruiting process]".

> The last thing I want to do is discuss how cool it was programming in Fortran in the 90s. ... But that was a distraction from the narrative I was trying to convey. My single focus at an interview is to demonstrate that I have both the soft and hard skills that make me fit for the role.

This depends on what i am interviewing you for. As pointed out above, my requirements/needs trump your view/opinions of the role.

As an example, my very first job was implementing a Personnel Information System using Cobol85 on a Cyberdata mainframe. Using Structured Analysis and Design methods (this was before OO became mainstream) I implemented a RDBMS inspired design using ISAM files and also a UI using ansi escape codes. So even though i do not remember much of the Cobol language itself i remember the design which is still useful today. Hence i can demonstrate knowledge of Relational Theory/RDBMSes as needed. This is only possible if it were listed in the CV in the first place.

> Not really, the latter sounds like the fluffy “I work well with people”.

You have failed the test. This only shows you have no business evaluating any resume for a C++ developer. It is actually an advanced expertise which most good interviewers understand and appreciate and design teams need.

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