Ten Tips For A Slightly Less Awful Resume

If he wants to see resumes with fewer buzzwords, then he should take ownership of the screening function.

At too many big companies, HR is used to screen, and all they know how to do is match buzzwords.

And that's just for starters (there's more to say on the topic of why job search is broken).

Employers need to realize the system is broken largely because of what they demand from candidates.

This is a really great post, and Steve Yegge is always fun to read.

I think that this post reveals how programmers are in the process of speciating - ie., diverging into seperate groups that are no longer capable of reproducing, resulting in different and incompatible branches of an evolutionary tree. Why? Because resume that Steve recommends will keep you from getting a job doing java for the accounts recievable department of a big corp, and the resume that will get you that big corp java job will prevent you from getting an interview with Steve.

Big corps are, first and foremost, looking for a pliable, good natured person who will follow directions and largely do as told. Within that context, they'd like as much talent as they can get, but they aren't willing to break the obedience requirement to get it.

Negative indicators for a big corp are: contributions to open source projects, an interesting an opinionated blog, microISV work, startup experience, substantial side work, passion for (or borderline obsession with) "obscure" programming languages (like LISP, ruby, smalltalk...) These things show that you might be trouble.

Positive indicators for bigcorp are: buzzword bingo resumes, weasel words, long lists of mainstream programming languages, databases and operating systems (like Java, C#, VB, MSSQL...), vendor certification in the above list. These things suggest to the big corp that you'll play their game the way they like it played.

It turns out that you can't really cover both bases, which is why I call this speciation. We're rapidly moving toward a point where these two groups will no longer be able to interact or cross-pollinate. You can't be a bigcorp programmer and an innovative hacker at the same time, any more than you can be a sea cucumber and a clownfish the same time. One excludes the other.

Fortunately, you get to choose - and you can change.

I thought the whole point of this website (YC), was so you would never have to write another resume.

Best quote:

""Lead" is ... the present-tense verb meaning "not doing any coding""

This is a funny and well-written essay on a pedestrian topic. I wish he had been this pithy in the sheep-wolves essay, which I think has an important meaning that I can only guess at.

Definitely note that point he made about it being his experience with the software industry. Other areas you often have no f-ing clue what format is expected. Sometimes application processes are bizarrely complex. Cornell, for example, lets you apply to multiple positions, and lets you update your resume and cover letter, but doesn't tell you what exactly gets sent to the relevant parties. That is, it's not exactly clear whether you're allowed one authoritative version, or if your current 'live' resume gets forwarded to the reviewers when you click submit.

At least, that's what it was like a year ago.

A lot of places just say "email a resume" and don't specify whether they mean send an "email resume" or an "email with a word doc attached" or an "email with a text resume attached" or "html-email" or "email with html attachment" or "pdf." You just have to guess. I typically would send a rich text, informal email cover letter with a few lines, then I'd attach the resume as html and word doc.

Now let's see if I got this right...I can either

a. prepare paperwork that completely neutralizes my differentiating assets just to satisfy the automated processes of mindless drones

OR

b. start my own business.

DYHAQFM?

A blogspot-templated blog; how cute. I always find it slightly humorous when people who profess to be "programming gurus" use something like a blogspot (or WordPress or MoveableType) template to dispense their expert programming guru knowledge. FTA:

"You listed HTML under programming languages, didn't you? Argh!"

IMHO, there's absolutely nothing wrong with listing HTML on one's resume, especially if one actually knows the context and how to use HTML to do something besides make text (for example, render) bold or italic.

Plain text resumes can indeed work to get information across, but if ever there were a way to demonstrate actual ability to code electronically, a resume coded in HTML would be that way. Resumes are about presentation. HTML, coupled with CSS, is a valuable way to demonstrate ability to present plain text.

Actually, thinking about it, most programming is essentially about presenting or rendering or parsing plain text, is it not? I would rather see somebody's hand-coded text/HTML resume than a plain-text text/text resume with (undemonstrative) HTML listed as a skill.

More on why job search is broken (and part of my startup philosophy):

There is a lot to be said for the meaning of irony when companies who claim to want creative and "out of the box" thinkers request that potential employees visit their website in order to submit the info on their resumes via little, pre-formatted text boxes.