resume night b4 Stammtisch

Wed Aug 19 02:20:04 MST 2015

THIS.

On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 1:30 AM, David Schwartz <newsletters at thetoolwiz.com>
wrote:

> Resumes are a horrid way to communicate one’s skills. Unfortunately, they
> seem to be the best thing anybody has come up with.
>
> I had a screening interview with a recruiter yesterday. He spent 1/2 hour
> going through my resume with me on the phone. He called it an “in-depth
> look at my experience”. It was a farce.
>
> The position was for a “senior Delphi developer”.  This guy apparently
> knew nothing about Delphi, so he spent most of the time looking for
> evidence of stuff that he DID know about, which seemed to be MS SQL Server.
>
> I have done so many different things over the years in the course of my
> work and other side gigs that I have lots of talents I’ve accumulated that
> cannot ever be expressed in a resume.
>
> For example, for over 10 years I managed my own Linux server that I had
> set up at a co-lo facility. After it died the 2nd time, I dumped it and
> just went to a reseller hosting account and have managed that for nearly a
> decade now. At the moment, I’m switching over to a VPS.
>
> I’m pretty good at Linux admin, php, html, and related stuff. But I have
> never had a “job” doing it. I’ve never been able to convince anybody to
> even interview me for any kind of role where these skills are a
> requirement. I’m no “superstar”, but I’m certainly competent.
>
> Why? I learned Unix back in the mid-80’s working at Motorola on the team
> porting Unix System V Rel III to the 68020. They gave me a box and said,
> “Here, learn how to make this sing and dance!” I did. Today recruiters say,
> “1985? Man, that was 30 years ago!” Yeah, so? I still work with Linux
> systems regularly, and it’s one reason I prefer working on Macs rather than
> Windows, which I’ve used for over a decade now.
>
> I’ve had clients here and there where I helped them fix problems on their
> wordpress sites that required me to use these skills. I’m working with
> someone like that this week, in fact. I got referred to them b/c someone
> posted a question in a wordpress forum asking for someone with Excel
> expertise. Oh, there's another one … Excel.
>
> Anyway, when you “open” a .csv file, it usually opens in Excel, so this
> person naturally figured it was an Excel issue.
>
> It turned out the data was wonky, and it took someone else 4 months to
> discover it. I could see it the anomaly in the data after about 10 seconds.
> This guy needed someone to fix it. Not at the spreadsheet level, but inside
> the custom wordpress plugin that they paid a guy to write (in php) 6 months
> ago; it’s counting things wrong, and the reports it’s putting out have a
> column with incorrect data in them.
>
> It’s a nice little 30-40 hour project. If I included every one like this
> on my resume that I’ve ever had, it would be 15-20 pages long!
>
> Nobody takes stuff like this into account. It’s impossible.
>
> I’ve yet to find someone who can suggest how to make it visible in any
> useful way in my resume.
>
> I’m mainly a software developer. So they look for programming languages
> and specific software tools. I learn new tools in a few hours when I need
> to use them. Recruiters and HR people look for a job where you were using
> them regularly for 3 years!
>
> Eg., I got denied a programming gig b/c the recruiter said the client was
> insistent that they hire someone with at least 3-5 years of “demonstrable
> hands-on experience using git”. I kid you not. This was just a programming
> job where they used git as their VCS.
>
> Do any of you guys call out your VCS (git, svn, sccs, rcs, etc) experience
> on YOUR resumes, other than in passing?
>
> This guy I talked to yesterday acted like he was looking for a MS SQL
> Server DBA. All he seemed interested in was how much expertise I had with
> SQL and TSQL. Not one single question was directed at Deplhi. But it was a
> Delphi programming role. I doubt I’ll hear back; he simply didn’t know what
> to look for, or what he was looking at, in my resume.
>
> When using Delphi to do what the job req seemed to describe, you spend
> about 15-30 minutes composing a SQL query or stored proc, then about half a
> day building a form to work with the data. But when you don’t understand
> the role Delphi plays, all you can focus on is the SQL part, which in this
> case is minimal. Yet it’s the gating item for this job — according to THIS
> particular recruiter’s background.
>
> This is why resumes suck. Too often, the people reading them initially
> have no clue what they’re looking at. These tend to be the same people who
> are deciding whether to pass your resume along to someone who DOES know.
>
> So this guy will find someone with a shit-pile of SQL and TSQL expertise
> who’s got some Delphi background and THAT person will get hired.
>
> BTW, he told me they’ve been having a difficult time keeping this position
> filled. Anybody wonder why?
>
> -David "The Tool Wiz" Schwartz
>
>
>
> On Aug 18, 2015, at 9:43 PM, Alan Pratt <alan at azdev.com> wrote:
>
> I am an IT manager. When I have a position, the HR department scours
> several sources for candidates the meet the criteria and requirements and
> presents the resume of potentials to me. A resume is an absolute
> requirement and needs to be complete, concise, accurate and is your face to
> the hiring manager before you even get an interview.
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Stephen M <smelheim85 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I agree with Jerry. Although yes it is good to have some type of
>> presence online you still need a resume.While social media has gotten
>> bigger over the last few years nothing beats telling someone about
>> were you been like a resume.  I have a Linkdin profile and I will
>> change it once in a while but I also update my resume every month or
>> 2.  Just depends on what you are looking for.
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:27 AM, Jerry Snitselaar <dev at snitselaar.org>
>> wrote:
>> > On Tue Aug 18 15, Bryan O'Neal wrote:
>> >>
>> >>   Do people still use resumes? Seriously though LinkedIn and github
>> >>   professionals seem to be the modern trend.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Even with those I think you still need a resume to pass along into
>> > their system once the process starts. At least that was the case for
>> > me with Oracle and Red Hat.
>> >
>> > If I was searching, I would probably tailor my resume to the position
>> > while my Linkedin profile wouldn't change.
>> >
>> > Jerry
>> >
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Stephen Melheim
>> 602-400-7707
>> SMelheim85 at gmail.com
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