Leonardo da Vinci’s resume
cenedella.com
cenedella.com
You'll notice he doesn’t recite past achievements.
He doesn't mention the painting of the altarpiece
for the Chapel of St. Bernard; he doesn't provide
a laundry list ... (snip)
No, he does none of these things, because those
would be about his achievements, not the Duke's
needs.
Instead, he sells his prospective employer on what
Leonardo can do for him.
And that’s exactly what your resume needs to do,
too. Not the laundry list/standard bio that talks
about you, but the marketing piece that talks
about the benefits to your future employer and
how you fit into his or her needs and desires.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2234231
More recent submissions, less so:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3857531
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4662582
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7497155
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9393330
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9395139
Have HN's tastes changed? Has it simply not been noticed?
Have you tried to work the social media sauce?
At its most scientific it's still just a game of statistics - until you get "a following"; whatever that is.
If you want to work the social media sauce, the best way is to get a few people having an actual conversation with you ASAP, through the intended medium you want to seed. Flickr, Reddit, Quora, etc all started out this way. I suppose it's necessary but not necessarily sufficient.
There is another side to this, which is that many job ads don't provide anything like enough information for candidates to do that.
Most job ads tell us what skills are desired, and a tiny bit about the industry the company works in, and even less about the specific project the candidate would be focused on. It's difficult for me to tell you, "I can bring your galambosian robotics framework to the next level by applying the latest Fibonacci refactoring techniques!" if all I know is "we're a leading-edge company working on bringing killer robots to the masses!"
Furthermore, the cover letter will in many cases be screened by an HR wonk who isn't qualified to judge any of that.
So the approach of a cover letter that points up specific expertise that may apply to the position is often the best a candidate can do. "My work on galambosian robotics frameworks has definite application to the world of killer robots" is at least as much "pointing out past achievements" as "telling what I can do for you", but without a lot more information than companies are willing to give, it's difficult to make it better.
The hiring process is profoundly broken.
> The hiring process is profoundly broken.
Having said that, there is more that candidates can do. They can find out what the company does, for a start. Then if the ad says what skills are required, state clearly that you have the skill and provide evidence.
Those two things along will put you ahead of 90% of other applicants.
"I work well in groups, but also work well alone." - you and every other applicant will claim that. Provide evidence.
Leonardo didn't have a detailed job description to work from, he put in some thought about what his potential employer would want, and then demonstrated that he could provide it.
> we're a leading-edge company working on
> bringing killer robots to the masses!
I agree entirely that the hiring process is broken, but you can get well ahead by being different and relevant. And if your application doesn't get past the HR wonks, is it really somewhere you want to work?
For better or for worse, that's what's so frustrating about hiring/interviewing.
I pay my taxes. I drive the speed limit. I never cheated in high school or college. I signed up for the Selective Service. When I see trash on the ground, I pick it up. I keep off the grass.
Yet when talking to a potential employer, I magically become this shifty-eyed drifter, whose every word is suspect.
"Interviewer: But how many years of walnut do you have? Carpenter: Gosh, I really don't know -- was I supposed to be counting the walnut?" (http://www.jasonbock.net/jb/News/Item/7c334037d1a9437d9fa650...)
The "carpenter" thought he was just doing work. What he didn't realize was that a career in technology means always preparing for when you're next put on trial.
I get it, of course. Programmers are expensive and have a ramp-up time, firing is hard so it pays to be cautious when hiring, etc.
But the net effect, the defaulting to the conclusion that an interviewee is lying or stupid, is toxic.
I can do anything you need.
Of course not. Of course you expect to provide evidence, you just might not think of it like that. You might think of it as showing me your github repo, or listing your previous jobs and/or contracts, or listing your credentials and/or qualifications.
That's evidence. But I don't want to see all of the things you could list. I want to see the things that support your statements of what you can do, because like it or not, I'm not going to take your word for it if all you do is say:
I can do anything you want.If there's an agency involved, this can be anywhere between somewhat challenging and damn near impossible.
"You'll be joining our client who is one of the world's leading suppliers of [meaningless marketing-speak goes here]"
Obviously, HN job posts don't have this problem. But for Plain Old Contracting it can be a serious issue at the CV stage.
Question is, is there enough value in disrupting that particular market?
Seems like to me that the unspoken implication by a lot of employers in how they conduct the hiring process is that they would rather assess that themselves. The candidate lists what they "are" (which is often done as the sum of their past) and the employer decides whether they are a person who will fit what they need.
If your actual resume consists mostly or exclusively of theoretical future accomplishments, employers will be justified in wondering whether you've actually successfully done anything. If your cover letter consists mostly of rehashing what you've done in the past rather than what you can do in the specific role, employers will be justified in being sceptical about whether you've actually considered whether you're actually the candidate they need.
Had he been an unknown nobody, he'd have had to bring additional context to his appeal for employment just like everyone else.
The main point I'm trying to make is that 1400s Europe was a really small world. So different than the one we find ourselves in that, if you want to take anything at all from Leonardo's cover letter, adopting his language will probably get you much farther than adopting his actual technique, which was devised to fit the needs of the 1400s.
But in the 1400s, just being an artist is a huge enough accomplishment that people are going to know who you are.
Artists in da Vinci's day were more akin to craftsmen. Da Vinci himself was basically raised in an artist's workshop (by Andrea del Verrocchio) and worked alongside dozens of other students on their master's projects. This is in stark contrast to today's artists, who are basically expected to be the sole creative genius (barring people like Damien Hirst, of course, who is known to use assistants.)
The author seems to be annoyed by people sending him resumes instead of cover letters. Maybe he should learn what a resume is before complaining about the ones he receives.
A cover letter should address a specific vacancy and explain the relevancy of the candidate to this particular job at this company.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing it, I will rewrite my resume based on this approach.
I wasn't aware of such document from Leonardos's life was available.
Quite interesting, specially since history and languages across centuries are some of my interests.
Also interesting to wonder how a typical HR department would take such a letter in our time.
I like how at the very end he says as almost an aside, "I'm pretty good at this art stuff too if think you'd need some of that?"
Or was his letter looked over because the Duke's assistant was looking for a technology using "sulfur"... and Da Vinci didn't mention it in his resume.