Dear HN,<p>I'm starting to look around for a new job, and need to update my resume.
In my current resume I have a section called "Skills & Competencies" which includes a mixture of languages (C#, python, Go, JS etc.), products (various DB systems, BPM suites, etc.), areas (front-end, back-end, "cloud"/aws, db) but also practices/skills (project mgmt, TDD, agile development methods, CI, etc)<p>To me this feels like a mishmash of things and it does not give a clear picture.
I'm not sure how to "design" this piece of my resume.<p>I guess the main point I want to bring across is that I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job. I'm able to learn/understand tech quickly but this is just a means to an end. I like to focus on the team and there interaction / openness.<p>How would you solve this?
As interviewers, what would be helpful to bring this point across?
What would trigger you to invite me for either a cup of coffee or a job interview?<p>Thanks a lot!
As somebody that has hired a few IT people, it's frustrating when you receive a CV where the main focus is a list of skills. For example, I can receive 100 CVs that all say "I can do JavaScript", but skill level ranges from those who can just about activate a jQuery plugin through to people that could probably build jQuery from scratch. I want to see examples of how you've used those skills, because then I can form my own opinion of your capabilities.<p>So talk about your achievements, and mention the skills you used as part of that. Be specific, and focus on the most important bits instead of listing every single item. Remember to include human skills like planning and leading.
I've started writing my resume in a more prosaic form, and dropping the stilted language of resumes past. I talk about not just what I bring to the table, but also what I'm <i>not</i> looking for in an employer. Check it out if you'd like to get a better sense of what I mean.<p>(It's also worth noting that I have ~12.5 years of experience in the software industry, Seattle—the city where I live—has a hot tech market, and I have focused mainly on iOS software development for the past six years. Relatedly, I never apply for jobs through websites, only through people, meaning that I manage to skip buzzword-skimming front-line recruiters. So YMMV.)<p><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/0tntyr8isf2l47k/Aaron%20Brethorst%20Resume%20-%20SC.pdf?dl=0" rel="nofollow">https://www.dropbox.com/s/0tntyr8isf2l47k/Aaron%20Brethorst%...</a><p>Coming at this from the other side of the table, my first reaction to reading most resumes is "so what?" Tell me why I should care that you increased Flibbet production by 22%, or that you decreased bug volume by 19%. What does that translate into in terms that someone who doesn't work at that company would care about?
I've been recruiting software engineers for nearly 20 years and started a side resume business (resumeraiders.com) a couple years ago when seeing how much people were being charged for sub-par resumes. Your question is somewhat common.<p>A Skills section is usually for the purposes of an ATS (automated resume scanner) or a human that will be looking for certain buzzwords, like a language or a framework that is most important to the job requirement. Recruiters know they can go to a skill section and find those things quickly.<p>I think in your situation, listing specific examples of your accomplishments is going to be even more important. You can tell me "I'm an all-around developer who cares about getting things done..." all day long, but listing specific things you've developed to illustrate that point is much more effective. It's not unlike people who say they have excellent communication skills - don't tell us, show us by writing something or demonstrate it in conversation.<p>Recruiters and HR are looking for those buzzwords, but engineers reviewing the resumes are looking for an interesting project that they can ask you about. Ideally it will involve a problem the company is trying to solve.<p>Start with a summary to quantify your experience - this starts the reader off with a big picture of who you are. Don't trust the reader to figure out you're a full stack dev, because the person first reviewing your resume might not be technical at all. They need to be told specifically what you do, and it's your job to do that. Your summary might start "Full stack developer with n years of experience across a mix of languages and platforms in Agile/TDD development environments. Additional skills in Project Management..." or similar.<p>Next, experience section with responsibilities (the day to day) in a couple sentences in paragraph form, then bullets for your novel accomplishments.<p>Skills, Education, other projects, community involvement, etc. to follow.
It's helpful to list skills at the bottom of your resume for HR departments doing basic pattern matching. However to paint a clearer picture I would:<p>1. Write relevant bullet points that show what value you provided for your previous company and BOLD languages along the way.<p>E.g.<p>- Architected a product that does $X revenue with Y
languages<p>- Stabilized systems of X which allowed throughput of Y% more connections with Z language/framework<p>2. Include a summary/objective in your LinkedIn/Resume. E.g. I'm an all-around developer that isn't afraid of X, Y, Z
<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/perlcareers/how-to-write-a-developer-cvrsum-that-will-get-you-hired" rel="nofollow">http://www.slideshare.net/perlcareers/how-to-write-a-develop...</a><p>Goes in to <i>great</i> detail about exactly what to put in there and why, including a template that will appeal to the recruiter, to the hiring manager, and then to the interviewing developers.
My 2 cents as someone who has interviewed a fair number of people,<p>State your accomplishments. Technical skills can be learned. I feel that learning technology is part of the job, not a prerequisite for the job. on your linked-in, okay list every little thing if you want non-technical recruiters to find you w/ keywords... But as a hiring manager, I want to see someone who can learn and grow into the role. Having technology experience relevant for the role is worth highlighting but not every bit of technical experience. Otherwise highlight technologies you've used in your accomplishments only but focus on the accomplishment itself. Focus more on the activities - what big important features did you implement, not what technology you used to implement the features. The positive outcome of the work is more important than how you got there.<p>Eg having worked on an open source project, managing contributions from other developers, releasing etc is more important than the project itself.
The list of skills is there to catch automated keyword searches. A simple bullet list is fine.<p>Right above the list of skills I have a 'Summary of Qualifications' which explains my overall caliber.<p>> I guess the main point I want to bring across is that I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job.<p>This is what you put in the summary, written for a resume of course, e.g. "Veteran developer with X years of experience using a pragmatic and goal oriented approach to development. Focused on solving problems and shipping software" etc.
I recommend a Summary of Qualifications that talks about what you are able to do. It's the "executive summary" that makes the HR screener want to read more. I can tailor this to the job if I need to do so.<p>Then I recommend listing work experience focused on acheivements. Recruiters want to see how your past experience will translate to future success so don't list job duties. List accomplishments at the job. How much revenue did the apps you wrote bring in? How many active users did the app you built support? Did you mentor other people and were they successful? Did you contribute to an open-source initiative?<p>"Built and maintained web applications using Ruby on Rails and React with over 200,000 active users per month."<p>I do list skills both in context and in a skills section.<p>My résumé has gotten me an interview every place I've sent it for the last 15 years. These things will never hurt you to do on yours. They will only help you.<p>I've heard that objectives hurt, and I know that work experience that reads like a job description hurts too. My wife is in HR and I've asked these questions of her network of people and that's the general consensus. So I hope that helps.
I like to have a clear title and opening purpose statement at the top, to set the direction for the rest of the resume.<p>In fact you already have something to work with in this quote: "I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job. I'm able to learn/understand tech quickly but this is just a means to an end. I like to focus on the team and there interaction / openness." (but fix the sp of "there interaction")<p>If the audience sees something like "Senior Software Engineer" followed by the above paragraph it helps them understand how you see yourself fitting into the organization.<p>Next I would follow with a simple tabular format of skills (languages/frameworks/platforms for example) that is quickly scannable and has been pruned to remove outdated or out of favor technologies.
Recently I've tried an approach where I send two documents when asked for a CV:<p>- a "classic" CV which describes education, skills, work experience, and "miscellaneous" projects (late night hacks mostly);<p>- a second document entitled "friendly CV" but which is actually a short pdf with slides. It is super casual and I explain my previous work with pictures of algorithms and technical stuff. I cut down all the noise and try to speak directly to the inner geek of my potential reader.<p>From my perspective, I'd say I had quite some success with it.<p>I think it doesn't matter if you do exactly that. The point is to wake up your reader if you're the 50th CV they're reading this afternoon.
Consider that your resume is a landing page for you, the product. A list of "Skills" is, essentially, early aughts SEO... though I suppose it can also double as a feature list.<p>How are you going to use this resume? Sending in applications, posted online? Would affect my advice.<p>In general, two types of people will read your resume: hiring decision makers, and their agents/gatekeepers. Ideally the resume speaks to both groups. Gatekeepers use pretty simple filtering, though it won't all be disclosed. For example, if you've got 5 years of experience, and the rest of the applicant pool has 2, and they all went to Harvard and you went to University of Phoenix, you're getting filtered out unless there's something really amazing about you. The "top school" filter may not be disclosed in the job posting, or even known prior to seeing the applicant pool. In some cases these institutional biases are more or less public knowledge, in others not. Worry about passing the obvious, stated filters. It should be clear, in under 3 seconds, that you pass or exceed them. Don't be afraid to ELI5.<p>For the reviewers giving more than a passing glance, tell a short story. This is like pitching your startup idea, or selling anything, really. Quick, punchy, hook them and let them call you for more.<p>The resume gets you the call. The call gets you the meet. The meet gets you the job.
I like to chime in here with my own observations since I run/own a recruiting software company (SnapHop). We make career portals that sit on top of legacy or existing candidate tracking software (aka ATS: applicant tracking software).<p>From an apply process a resume should contain keywords and should be easy to parse.<p>What I mean by parse is that we automatically extract details from the resume and if the resume is too hard to parse this may minimize your chance to be noticed (the ATS does this as well downstream).<p>So ideally you want your resume to be a small plain document. That is either MS Word, or plain text. You do need the keywords because there are some ranking algorithms that some ATS use and sadly it is based on simple keyword matching. I recommend putting this at the bottom of the resume to keep the parsing happy (ie list of technologies used). Or if your resume you think is large perhaps at the top but a short list in case it is is truncated.<p>I stress small because the bigger the document the more likely systems downstream can fail (our system can handle 100MB resumes no problem... and yes people will upload resumes that large but downstream systems cannot).<p>Finally I think including links in your resume of work you have done is also beneficial. I believe it is the future of resumes. We are seeing more folks doing this and we already to some extraction based on this (ie github profile, github projects, blogs, linkedin profiles, etc).<p>In large part the resume doesn't matter once you have made the initial HR/Recruiter pass. So make sure you get past that.
I just recently updated my resume and was facing the similar issue.<p>I did few groups of skills I have:<p>- Currently focusing on (skills I am interested in and best at)<p>- Relevant skills (git, agile development, tdd...)<p>- Also worked with (other tech I encountered during my career: DBs, languages, frameworks...)<p>Hope it helps.<p>ps. I would love to hear some thoughts on this problem from somebody that actually reads resumes
First, write your application for the job you're looking for, or at least interviewing for. Also write it for the culture of the team. The language of the job specification should have plenty of hints there, since a hiring manager (aka, whoever will be your manager) probably wrote it. Blog posts, too, if available. This doesn't mean parroting back their language, just try to figure out what makes them tick.<p>Apply selectively. Construct a narrative about your career that shows an inevitable trend towards the exact role you're looking to fill. Employers are generally looking for someone to shore up a skills gap, or augment an existing team. The job spec generally makes this an open book exam.<p>Really, the biggest thing is figuring out what sort of role you want, and trying to see your career through the lens of the person hiring for that role.
I'm currently recruiting for our startup in Berlin. We receive a pile of applications every day and the ones whose pop in are those who took some care to explain how they used skills on some real projects.<p>If you successfully can describe your current/last positions, point out how you had used technologies and competencies, you’ll highlight yourself.
I don't think there's a good reason to have only one resume. Tailor your resume/cv to the position (or type of position) you're applying for. For certain jobs (for your dream job, for example), it may be worth writing a special resume just for them.<p>Each hiring manager should be able to quickly scan through your CV and check the mental boxes in their head, so that they can move your candidacy on to the next phase. That's really all the resume needs to do. So streamline each resume you submit to make that process as quick and painless for the hiring manager as possible.<p>Later on, when you're getting to know the company (and they're getting to know you), that's when you can bring in your multitude of experiences that aren't directly related to the job. But there's no reason for that initial submission to be an exhaustive list of all your great qualities.
Unless you don't have any experience (fresh grad or something), I would minimize /eliminate the skills section, and focus more on the experience - that way, you are mentioning skills in the context of specific projects and organizations.<p>Skills on their own (9 out of 10 on JavaScript) don't mean much.
I had always assumed that it was buzzword soup to get past HR/Recruiting (it's sad to see recruiters basically admitting this on this thread). As someone who has hired people I care far more about your experience and what you did at your last job(s) than a list of enumerated skills.<p>I would say make the skill section brief. Don't list every flavor of SQL you've ever worked with, just put SQL, etc. Or go crazy, but put it at the end. Honestly, I never begrudged someone doing a word dump at the end of their resume, as long as the rest of the resume was good. We all know that recruiters have no clue and might scrap an application if a buzzword is missing.
Something I do on my CV. I have a prominent section talking about my "specialties". These are the core skills (not only tech ones) that I want to focus on, and the ones that I am interested in a new job.<p>It doesn't make sense to put in the same level "bash" and "JavaScript" if you really want to look for JavaScript jobs.<p>Then, in each of the previous jobs, I put the main tech that I have been exposed to. That gives an idea of the different skills and tools, but making a clear distinction in terms of which ones I am interested or consider that are my core skills.
Why not go with the direct method and say exactly what you mean e.g.<p>"I guess the main point I want to bring across is that I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job. I'm able to learn/understand tech quickly but this is just a means to an end. I like to focus on the team and there interaction / openness."<p>I usually just write working with Java stack / JVM technologies and a few sentences what I (not the team) accomplished in my previous jobs, because I don't think resumes all that important.
For what it's worth, I recently applied for a few jobs, and did get an offer. On the other hand at least one of the places I applied replied with a "we're not hiring anyone this round" - so obviously I missed on that one. Probably due to them using a horrible Web based application system and that I forgot to upload attachments (grade transcript etc).<p>My view is that a CV/resume (non-academic) should list <i>relevant</i> work experience and education. Probably also certifications if relevant for the position.<p><i>Perhaps</i> a section on other experience (leadership/management/responsibilities/achivements in volunteer/leisure activities - eg: successfully guided a hiking trip through a storm, etc).<p>Then the cover letter should put those experiences in context for the position you're applying for. And it probably should be no more than (half) a page for the letter and one to two for the CV.<p>Maybe I'm a bit extreme, but I strongly believe in not wasting the time of people doing the hiring (hopefully for an engineering position they're not full time HR and have other things they'd rather be doing).
I work in tech recruiting but I tell people to focus their resume on what they are most interested in doing and then list other skills/languages they work with. If you have been working as a .net developer that should be very clear from your resume but linking to the node and react project on your github is a great way to show you are flexible.
I did a big write-up for my students on the process of getting/doing technical interviews:<p><a href="http://blog.robertelder.org/50-interviews-with-facebook-twitter-amazon-others/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.robertelder.org/50-interviews-with-facebook-twit...</a><p>You may want to start at the section "How Do I Pitch Myself"
For some months, I have been thinking about the same problem as well. From an employer perspective, Hiring is tough. Very tough! People list down tons of skills and qualities they may or may not have on their resume and problem is you need to have good interviewing skills to evaluate them and spend countless hours to have the right candidate. To me, a good measure of someone's skills is their feedback from their current/previous coworkers (if it can be somehow achieved in a profile and which is not biased so it can be anonymous). This way you are able to screen the employees. Not trying to blow my own trumpet here, but I am trying to address this in my startup PleasantFish where you can get feedback from your coworkers and as a user improve your skills by getting latest content based on your skillset in your personalized skills based newsfeed
I would structure your resume to focus on your projects, giving them detailed descriptions, in which you can describe the languages, libraries, etc... that you used to implement them. That way, you put the technology in the context of the solutions you were delivering. For example (making this up...):<p>Selected Project Experience:<p>Consumer Finance Protection Reporting Database (2014) - Backend Developer. Developed the platform to support a consumer finance protection website that allows users to put a lock on their credit account without navigating customer service telephone lines. Built the backend with Django (Python) and Postgres and implemented a robust API with the Django REST Framework.<p>Etc...
I think the skills-list is not for actual employers. They are more for the first filter of HR people and recruiters who are reduced to checking off lists because they don't have software-specific knowledge.<p>So try to match the list as best you truthfully can to the one in the job description. If they put languages and skills in one big list, do the same. If they have some other format, use that. Just don't parrot their list so exactly that it looks like you are lying.<p>As for your main point: make it directly in a summary paragraph somewhere near the top of the resume.
MY CV - FOR CONSIDERATION TO MR HIRE McHIRING<p>Name: Cody McCoder
E-mail: cody@mccoder.any<p>Profile: "I'm an all-round developer who cares about getting things done and uses whatever means are best for the job. I'm able to learn/understand tech quickly but this is just a means to an end. I like to focus on the team and there interaction / openness."<p>Skills: "a mixture of languages, products, areas but also practices/skills"<p>Portfolio: ...links to your case studies with code, rationale, team contribution and comments...<p>DONE
You should not be creating a resume that you will then send to multiple jobs. You craft individual resumes for each job posting, using that posting's own keywords and required/recommended/nice-to-have skill set.<p>Resume screening is about cutting a stack of 100 down to 10, so it's all about finding a reason to say "No." If the job calls for C# WebApi and Angular experience and you start listing Python or Go projects, that's an easy no.
A format I use that I have received compliments on is just a 2-3 column table with headers like this:<p>New | Proficient | Expert<p>Or something along those lines. Then list your skills in there and it's super easy for people to very quickly see your skills and how you rate yourself. The New column is a great way to show that you are learning new things on your own. Most recruiters I've showed to it like it.
I have a section for skills (project management, leadership, etc...) and a section for Technical Proficiencies (Python, Ruby, PostgreSQL, etc...)<p>I pretty much keep my work experience the same but change around my Skills and Technical Proficiencies to match the job I'm applying for.
I lot of people have various opinions on what does and doesn't constitute a good resume. It'd be nice if some people would post theirs so we could get a nice visual representation of what it would/should look like