Lessons people really shouldn't have to learn

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First off, it's really amazing how much you can get done first thing in the morning when you're the only one in the office... as I was, from 7 to about 9 this morning.

Second off, what is up with people and their resumes? You wouldn't think writing a good resume would be that hard, but damn if we don't get in the most useless resumes anyway. I mean, if you just do the following 3 things, you'd be better than probably 75% of the resumes I've seen in the last month:

  1. Spell check your resume. Grammar check it too. I've seen people use "where" when they meant "were", I've seen them spell "design" "desing", I mean come on, people! The worst are the ones where they've obviously just pasted their resume from Word and it still has spelling errors! Look for the red squiggly lines!
  2. Make sure your skills and your experience match up with each other. I see these resumes that have page-long lists of skills -- but their work experience is two tiny paragraphs, neither of which mentions any of those skills. All that does is make me wonder why you didn't put down those experiences. Are you lying about the skills, too lazy to type up your experiences, or just dumb? I've got a stack of 100 resumes in front of me, and when I decide who I want to call, you can be very sure I'm going to pick the guy who took the time to tell me exactly how he's done this stuff before.
  3. Make sure your experience listing is detailed, and tailored to the job. If I'm interviewing for a job about administering Windows servers, then I want to know when you've done that before, how complex the situation was, and how well you handled it. I don't want a one-line description of each job, even if it means the resume goes over 1 or 2 pages. Describe the job, then list (with details!) major project accomplishments. Impress me.

8 Comments

sandy said:

That's too cool that you do interviews now. Talk about a big step up in the world from Boeing!

Whta's this grrammer stuff yer talking about tho? I mean, who kneads it anymore?? Word has a spelll check now?

Jenny said:

Dude, Sandy's talking like a true St. Louisan now... I hear you all don't need grrammer thurr. :)

Jenny said:

Oh my god, you actually made it post my comments in my handwriting. That is SO DAMN COOL.

Eric said:

Jenny's handwriting font can be downloaded here for those so inclined. :)

Eric said:

Yeah, I'm doing all kinds of crazy stuff I wasn't allowed to do at Boeing. ;) Earlier this week I wrote a whole Software Requirements Specification from scratch, and yesterday I started trying to estimate the software. Unfortunately with all of the interviewing madness, I haven't had much time to sit down with the boss and the other developer and finalize the spec, let alone discuss estimates. Hopefully the week after next will be better for that.

sandy said:

Careful there, you're starting to sound like MANAGEMENT.. GASP :)

Jenny said:

Well, he sort of is management. He manages himself. Which I know from experience is pretty damn impossible. So more power to him if he can do a good job. :)

Eric said:

Last I checked, management didn't get to write code. ;) I like the architecting thing, and the estimation is pure self-defense; if I estimate it, at least I won't be surprised. :)

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This page contains a single entry by Eric published on January 21, 2004 12:31 PM.

Handwriting on the computer was the previous entry in this blog.

Lessons people really shouldn't have to learn, part deux is the next entry in this blog.

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