Ask HN: Is There Something Wrong with My CV or Skillset?

Your CV doesn't matter. What matters is your approach. Pick companies you want to work for. Research them to death. Imagine a dream role at that company, one where you're generating enormous value for that company while enjoying yourself immensely. Find hiring managers at that company. Pitch them. Listen carefully, refine your pitch. BE PERSISTENT. Until you have a job you love, hit everyone once a month.

Your resume plays virtually zero role in this whole process.

It's a shame no one responded to this comment. I found it insightful.

First, thanks for this comment. You're right -- reframing the problem is exactly what I need to do.

I'm now improving my CV as a second strategy while searching for a company I really want to work for. This, as you can imagine, is the hard-yet-necessary part that I've been avoiding.

At this point I'm just posting on a dead thread, but I just wanted to say thanks to everyone. You really helped me.

Sure. Just be careful you're not ratholing. I'm a hiring manager who's unusually bearish about the value of resumes, but even before I was: they were the least important part of our screening process.

A good cover letter is much more important than a resume.

Sorry, could you define 'ratholing'? I'm having trouble imagining my job search as

a. covertly taking my chips off the table during a Poker game, or b. living in a small, messy room.

Thanks again!

Are you suggesting that one should find hiring manager and email them ? What do you mean by pitch them ? How do you find hiring manager's email address ? Many companies have formal procedure in place where they want you to apply through ATS system ( sucks ! but true ) If you just start emailing hiring manager they will simply mark your email as spam. Beside , how do you know hiring manager's email address ? Unless you know hiring manager in person , which I highly doubt for OP , your advice is most non-sense thing I have ever seen. Many applications that I have sent over are through ATS and 95 % online. If you are hiring manager and you are saying "Your resume plays virtually zero role in this whole process" then I pity you. Hopefully you correct your stupid attitude and don't write something non-sense just for sake of writing advice.

So it looks like you're looking for work in Galway - often called an overgrown village. Galway definitely does have a software development industry but it is not exactly a hackers Mecca. Just be aware that you are not in a big market. In Ireland Dublin is by far the best place to be getting work.

As others have said; get your CV to within 2 pages.

Other local knowledge:

- The objective section of the CV is pretty common in Ireland as an alternative to a cover page.

- Recruitment agencies dominate the market. If you are avoiding them this will seriously hurt your prospects.

- I'd strike out the Austria address if you still have it in there, as an island anything hinting that you are not based in the country will put people off. Also you should get an Irish mobile number, the +43 says "I'm not based here" to me.

- Work histroy is generally the top section (after an objective/about section if you have one). Make sure work history highlights competency for the roles you are going for.

- Don't include a photo, it is the done thing in a lot of europe but is not done in Ireland.

Hi David,

Your CV is bottom heavy: much of the interesting stuff is buried in the experience section below the fold, so to speak.

In the experience section, the line spacing is too big for me to be able to easily and quickly form a mental picture of your experience. I should be able to do this in a quick glance. I wouldn't extend the experience section above 2 pages.

The bottom line is that I cannot quickly determine what you're about. Unable to determining that quickly, and by extension your 'fitability' to the position I'm recruiting for would make me put your CV at the bottom of the pile to focus on if I don't find any suitable candidates in the easy-to-categorize pile of CVs.

I would:

- start with the Experience section (no longer than 2 pages)

- move everything I can from the Experience section to the Skills section (tech used, etc); if I wouldn't want to list some tech I used just for one job, in the Skills section, I would make it a one-liner at that particular job description: "Technologies used: PostGIS, LDAP, etc"

- switch the focus of the Experience section from what I did, to what I accomplished. There's plenty of opportunity for the company to ask me about what I did at the interview; remember: the only purpose of the CV is to get you an interview, not to tell the story of your life. This doesn't mean you shouldn't list things you did that you feel proud of or feel that are very important/relevant.

- get rid of the Objective. It doesn't serve the purpose of a CV. I don't think a recruiter wouldn't select you for an interview because your CV doesn't contain an Objective, so it's more noise at best, at worst it makes the recruiter not select you because of something you've written in the Objective.

- add some color to the CV. Use different fonts. Experiment with different layouts. Make it memorable!

Finally, you are better that you give yourself credit for!

That is so helpful; thank you! E-mail me your city and I'll put you on my beer list :-D.

I've had some more thoughts in the meantime:

- switch from using a word processor to a typesetting system (latex or lout); this is important because of signalling[0]. There are numerous CV templates on writelatex and sharelatex. Email me if you need help with this. I use Gummi on Ubuntu with a template I exported from writelatex.

- recruiters want to avoid risk. this means that the CV they present to the hiring managers needs have a good chance of being liked and selected by the hiring manager but it doesn't need to be the best in the batch of CVs that were submitted to the recruiter. a recruiter will get flak if he gives the hiring manager ill-fitting CVs but is unlikely to get flak for not giving the hiring manager the best CV in the bunch (simply because no one else will go through all the CVs)

- recruiters and hiring managers also want the candidate that gets hired to be able to get the job done because otherwise it reflects poorly on them. keep this in mind always. you know you can get the job done, now you need to signal it to them too. if you see they are undecided, propose to them to give you a 2-week trial project at no monetary cost to them: this tells them you are committed to get the job (and that if they hire you, you'll probably do a good job because employees that are interested in the job do it better than uninterested ones)

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory

What shock says is correct.

Some of my thoughts: You list education and interests before experience, in my circles experience is the first thing an employer looks at and it should be listed first.

Your layout lacks style or flair, you being a sysadmin and programmer, things like typography probably didn't even cross your mind but as it turns out, employers love CVs that looks like some effort was put into it.

The CV is too long, your font is too big and too much spacing between lines and sections. Also sections have different spacing between them that makes it look unprofessional. It used to be that fonts should be large for readability, but that is not the case anymore especially if you can send the CV in as a PDF. If you have to send a printed CV, take font sizes more into account.

There is too much detail on your projects, if an employer is interested in the tech and projects you list they will ask questions. It is true that it is better to leave something to be desired. Entice them, do not force feed them.

I will include my CV in english version (not final version as I got a job in Norway :p) Not to brag but my CV got praised and hung on a wall in a design firm where I worked for a while. I hope you can take some inspiration, but also, research how CVs are expected to look in the region where you apply for jobs, this varies from place to place, sometimes drastically.

Also, if you think you have made a new and better CV and application, it is absolutely allowed to apply for jobs somewhere you applied before, even the same position. This might even boost your image as a person very interested in the job.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4815187/cv_en.pdf

Thanks for this advice, I really liked your CV. I'll take some inspiration from it!

I think your CV is fine. My advice is to just make yourself more visible. It's been a long time since I got a job by applying for it; these days you're in the best bargaining position if they approach you, not the other way around.

My top 5 strategies are:

1. Be active on LinkedIn, make sure your specialties/skillsets are all filled out. Comment in the group-forums regularly.

2. Be active on Angellist, fill out a hiring profile completely.

3. Make as many of your Github repos public as you can. Add more projects in your spare time.

4. Be active on stackoverflow (and careers.stackoverflow)

5. Be active here! (HN). You'd be surprised who is reading these threads.

No actual 'applying to jobs' should be necessary. Just being visible should be enough; you'll be beating them off with a stick in no time.

Normally 'attending meetups' would be near the top of my list, but I have no idea if there is an active meetup community in your locale. If there is, go to as many as you can stomach!

Thanks for the advice! I just showed LinkedIn some love last week; I'll go over it again and make sure it's complete and contains all the relevant keywords. I've never posted in a group; I guess I'll start doing that.

No meetups here, I checked when I moved. I miss Vienna, they had a great hacklab scene full of smart people doing interesting things.

Anyway, I'll implement the rest of your list in the next few days.

Thank you!

Your CV is too long. Maybe not in terms of content, but the layout makes it 6 pages which is very unusual - Most interviewers look at a lot of resume, and don't have time to "extract & filter" out what matters most from the 6 pages: that's your task. I would suggest reducing it to 1-2 pages, only keeping what is most pertinent (caveat: things like 1500 subscribers from your Youtube channel is pertinent, as it shows passion about what you do, being pro-active in it, and giving back to community). That being said, sounds like you've got a lot of experience, and definitely sounds like you're better than you think :) Just make it easier to notice via you CV.

The section on résumés in Butterick's Practical Typography book has some decent advice, not just typography-related:

http://practicaltypography.com/resumes.html

Have your CV edited by a professional editor. I have seen this working wonders - from no responses to competing offers from two top companies in the field. Editing is so cheap compared to its potential effect on your entire lifetime income that it has a good chance of being your best ever investment.