Comment by ChainsawSurgery | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChainsawSurgery | Hacker News Reader

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ChainsawSurgery

I'm gonna venture a guess here, and there's a decent chance you're going to respond poorly to it and think I'm just being an asshole, or do some rationalization and throw my opinion away. But I promise: I'm not just trying to put you down. At least consider it.

> I can't seem to get my foot in the door anywhere to do anything from level one help desk work to anything else.

Maybe it's how you come across personally; whether that's in interviews, or cover letters, or introductions.

A good hiring process is probably in the 60/40 ratio of talent/personality. If you're a complete 0 in the personality department, you're probably not going to get hired unless you're a Carmack-level talent. Some places will skew that one way or the other, but I doubt it'll ever go more then 75/25 either way unless you find somewhere completely dysfunctional.

Saying things like:

> I always bluffed my way in to jobs I was completely unqualified for and pulled it off quite well

are usually red flags for me, personality-wise. It reeks a little of someone who constantly needs to publicly validate themselves as "the smartest person in the room," and ends up not accepting feedback very well (if at all). To me, self-reflection, the acceptance that maybe you're not as talented as you think, and striving to constantly be better are critical parts of being a professional.

It's sorta like that person in school who constantly made sure to tell everyone that they didn't study and still aced the exam - most people don't enjoy working with or talking to that person for any extended period of time.

Anyway, I'm not gonna sit here and shit on you. We've all got our things. Just maybe some food for thought.

I feel like I should say this. Saying things like: > I always bluffed my way in to jobs I was completely unqualified for and pulled it off quite well are usually red flags for me, personality-wise.

I have worked with people like the person you probably think I am because of how that came across. I was just trying to honestly express one of the few things that I do have going for me as opposed to just listing things that I don't.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying you shouldn't have confidence in your abilities. And if that truly is the case, then I think it's a great quality to have. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're a good person and not a loudmouth jackass.

However, as the quote goes, "That's the problem with first impressions. You only get to make one." People tend to be on their guard when interacting with someone for the first time - even if that interaction is just reading a cover letter. Things that your friends wouldn't blink an eye at can easily become reasons the hiring manager tosses out your resume, and unfortunately you rarely get a chance to explain yourself or even feedback that you did something wrong.

The best part is that fixing this doesn't involve a certification program, or spending more money, or anything like that. Maybe just have a couple people read over your cover letters or do mock interviews with you (not sure where you're getting stopped in the process, so can't give specifics there). Maybe try it with someone not super close to you (maybe a former co-worker?) who'll bring up something you're saying or doing that might seem innocuous but is raising alarms somewhere.

You're totally on-point here. My resume is a disaster because I'm bad at writing them. I think I just filled in the blanks on an old Word template the first time I made one. Lets just say that I haven't gotten better at it.

I do get contacted for interviews and solicited for resumes on a semi-regular basis. I interview well and am quite easy to deal with on an interpersonal level.

Thing is, there seems to always be another person out there who gets in after several weeks of consideration due to a number of reasons (relocation, having no professional experience and another candidate may have done an internship, etc.)

Before you say it, because were this the other way round, I'd say it: It has much less to do with 'me' than it does with a combination of my geographical location, and being a semi-self employed consultant/contractor/whatever they call it anymore, as opposed to having had a regular day job for the last few years. [edit due to being a n00b on how to post here]

Hm, well I'm not going to try and divine the source of your woes here since I'm obviously a stranger who has little context about your life and can only offer broad, general advice, but I will leave you with two thoughts:

> I interview well and am quite easy to deal with on an interpersonal level.

I think most of us know when an interview goes really poorly, but my personal stance towards most interviews is that if I wasn't offered a position after an interview it's because I didn't interview well enough.

Now it may be the case that they had some ridiculous or completely arbitrary standards for the interview, and I may be fine with the fact that the interview didn't go well, but I wouldn't necessarily say I interviewed well if I wasn't offered the position.

I say 'most' because that might happen (I interviewed amazingly well and they didn't pick me for some stupid reason) once or twice, but if it's a consistent pattern than I would start looking at the common denominator.

> It has much less to do with 'me' than it does with a combination of my geographical location, and being a semi-self employed consultant/contractor/whatever they call it anymore, as opposed to having had a regular day job for the last few years.

Again I can't speak for your personal situation or pretend to understand, so take this with a huge grain of salt, but my experience with professional employment (even outside of tech) has been that these are things many companies are willing to overlook for the right candidate.

If it was something they were truly unwilling to budge on, they wouldn't have wasted the time to interview you. You would've been screened out before anyone even picked up the phone to talk to you.

I have considered all of this.

Most likely, what few interviews or solicitations for resumes, then interviews that I have had have been from companies who are willing to overlook my crappy resume (again, I made it this far and never had to really write one before) to interview me. What happens after that is anyone's guess. I just do my best, follow the processes the company has in place and just haven't had any luck as of late. Thank you again for all of your input. I realize I need to update my format and rewrite it. Maybe I have been using an unusual style? I'll have to look in to this tonight. [edit: because I didn't know how I accidentally formatted that text.] Oops.

With all due respect, Chainsaw gave you some wonderful advice about your interview ability that you have seemingly chosen to ignore, instead choosing to focus on your resume's shortcomings. Two things:

- first, if this is indicative of how you usually behave, you may in fact be more guilty of smartest-man-in-the-room syndrome than you realize. - second, if you do get interviews, your resume is likely not the problem, but I would still consider how you come across to others. In what I've read of you, I'm sorry, but you're not coming across very well.

Again, I appreciate you taking the time to comment. It seems though that some of the "tough love" comments are just beating up on me for whatever reason. It's really not necessary or helpful to anyone.

Yes, Chainsaw did give me some good advice. I thanked him for his candor immediately as well.

Why do you assume his advice was ignored and assume that I am one of those "I'm awesome, why won't people hire me?" types?

I understand that, after getting responses assuming I still did low level end user technical support work for example, I should have been more clear about my little back-story.

That's on me. Maybe I am not coming across well. Even so, comments like these that are full of assumptions are making you come across just as badly.

Here's some more feedback. Your description on your profile here isn't so good. It reads:

about: 31 year old unemployed with 13 years experience. Trying (unsuccessfully) to break in to the IT Sec field. Been hacking and learning security in my free time since I was about sixteen. An enthusiast..

First, remove your age. I can't begin to tell you how unprofessional that makes you look. Second, the entire second sentence makes you look bad - like others have screened you and passed. The fourth sentence doesn't add anything. And finally, you should put in some contact info.

Sorry if I'm coming across a little strong, but I know where you are, I know it sucks and I want to help.

Rewritten, not knowing anything more about you than the above:

- Enthusiastic self-taught hacker with 13 years of experience. Currently seeking work in the IT Sec field: drop me an email at xxx@xxx to find out how I can help you.

Thank you

It's alright. I don't mean to come across as ungrateful for the advice, I have just never posted here before. I slapped that in there just because I had to put something in. I didn't give it any thought.

Not because I am careless or think that I am somehow the "smartest man in the room". I was really intimidated when writing the OP. I have a lot of respect for this site and the people who are regular contributors.

That being said, I think that those of you who have been critical without being constructive have done so, albeit unintentionally, due to your own preconceived ideas and assumptions. Perhaps due to your own negative experiences in the past with people you didn't like in your own careers.

All I can really say when responding to negative comments: "first time caller, long time listener. Sorry about the sloppy OP. I had no idea that it would get noticed, much less be this active."

My description on the profile doesn't look good because I didn't know what to put in it as I have been lurking here for a long time but never posted.

I appreciate you all taking time from your lives to try to contribute. Had I known this OP was going to generate this kind of activity, I would have actually put some thought in to this stuff. Please, don't take that the wrong way. I mean all of this with respect.

> My resume is a disaster because I'm bad at writing them.

Make it one page. Stick to things they actually care about. Yes, this means tailoring it to each opportunity. This also means leaving things out... that's okay, I remember in my last resume leaving off some ancient Java experience from college that didn't seem relevant at the time. It became a pleasant surprise for them when they discovered that I knew more than was on the page and we started discussing the usage of JAD.

Your goal is no typos, no informal/slang language and one, neatly written page. It should look neat, clean and uniform.

You should imagine that they have a spreadsheet or checklist (they do) that matches the ad. You want to help them check off as many boxes as possible as easily as possible. Then help them do the same thing in the interview.

When you don't know, discuss what you'd do to find out. Show them what you've learned in the past and how you've figured out problems before that look like problems they're having now.

In my last interview, they started asking me what I knew about REST and I started describing the last RESTful interface I'd made. Things went very well from there.

I hope this helps.

Strong recommendation from a frequent hirer: for each job, you should state what you accomplished, especially if that can be quantified. Supply the quantities! A list of what your responsibilities are is useless: did you actually do that stuff successfully?

For coding type jobs, I have found that relevant personal projects can also help. In the last interview I did a couple years ago, we spent most of the time discussing a relevant one and that was a good thing. When they ask a question like "What do you know about X?" and you can answer "I made an X and this is how it worked" it puts you in a good place.

Absolutely! I really appreciate that.

> I interview well and am quite easy to deal with on an interpersonal level.

This is one thing I would question about your self-assessment. What evidence are you relying on for this statement?

The reason I say this is that, (I believe) research shows that anything beyond the first 30 seconds or so during an interview actually doesn't matter. Obviously this is a statistical thing and may not apply in any given concrete situation, but if you're going to loads of interviews, you probably want to maximize your statistical probability of getting hired.

I speak well and make a great first impression, honestly. I have always understood how important that is.

Having said that, I just realized that what I started considering as the problem (my resume) may not be what needs work. In another comment, the statement was made that companies are willing to overlook certain things for the right candidate.

Perhaps my garbage resume is being overlooked I make it past the first telephone or face to face interview. I make it far enough to get that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when you finally get the news that someone else was selected anyway. I'm sure I am not the only one here who gets that, right? Sorry, to your question, that is my basis for that statement.

> I speak well and make a great first impression, honestly. I have always understood how important that is.

You say and believe that, obviously. But do you have independent and (above all) disinterested corroboration?

(I think the experience you relate in the last paragraph might be a symptom of increasing pressure being put on the hiring part of HR and them, thus, being reluctant to reject candidates earlier.)

Yes, and point taken.

One thing that really helped me with resume writing is learning to think of it as advertising. You want to make it as easy for the person reading it to say yes to you as possible.

I'm involved with hiring pretty frequently and here are some things that help me: -don't bother listing every technology you've ever worked with. It's a waste of space. It doesn't give any context. Mention them in the context of your work history. - talk about the people stuff you were successful at as well as the technical stuff. - don't just say what you did, tell me why it mattered. For example "reduced build times from one hour to five minutes which enabled team to release twice a week rather than one a month"

One thing to remember when you are involved in the hiring process, particularly with technical people is they want to be able to say yes to you. Hiring probably isn't their main job and they have a hole in their team. If you are the right person for the job, it's a win for everyone involved.

Another thing that helps is having contacts that will let you know where opportunities are. The fantastic thing about having experience is you probably know a heap of people who can help. Getting involved with the local community around whatever area you're interested in can help you meet more people. I've also gotten jobs from being on related mailing lists and applying for positions that are posted.

If you're not sure your experienced is quite right, getting involved in open source is an option for building up experience and reputation. It means you can show people what you can do and if your work gets traction and if you contribute to somebody else's project it can be a way to meet more people in the right area.

You may want to engage a resume writing service. I know people who have used them and gotten good results.

I could totally see a "disaster" resume being a big problem. A week or two after the interview, people's impressions of you have started to fade and blend with those of the other candidates, but your resume is still in front of them in black and white.

Absolutely valid. I really appreciate any comment with any advice whatsoever. Thank you!

Or perhaps he was just establishing context so we could better answer his question? There's no reason to assume a personality defect because he was communicating honestly about the situation he finds himself in.

No, I found it helpful. It's good to know what other people get from the post. I was super nervous because it was my first OP and I hit this site daily for a few hours at least. My post was poorly written and I appreciate any criticism as well as any advice or even just busting my chops! Thanks for your input!

Sure, and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he's not a jackass and perhaps just phrased things in a way that set off an alarm in my head. If I really thought he was a total git, I wouldn't have responded at all.

However on the off-chance that some of that is leaking into interviews or cover letters, it's probably worth remediation.

But that's the thing though, there is no way any mention of being unusually smart or capable would not have been received by you negatively. We've gotten to the point where we can't honestly acknowledge our strengths without someone feeling slighted by it and then judging us for it. We see it all the time in fact, anyone who is publicly recognized for a great thing they did must show a proper amount of deference and humility, otherwise they are seen as being pompous or full of themselves. This shouldn't be the case.

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