Is my Resume' Crap?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
@IRJ If I put everything down, it would be more than 1 page. Long ago I was told that multipage resumes were not really a good thing, (was told this by HR types). So I keep it as short as possible, and leave the rest up for conversation.
That's something for high school students and college students looking for entry level, non-tech jobs. Has no place in IT.
Can I send you my resume real quick?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
I will say that there's more here:
www.linkedin.com/in/billkindle/
and I'm also using my projects page on SW pretty heavily too.
As a hiring manager linked to that weird SW stuff will send you straight to the dust bin. Avoid that.
So don't even reference them and instead turn them into bullet point lists?
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@IRJ sure
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@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ sure
It's actually a really nice one I think. If I can fork the cash, I will be contacting the guy who made his.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
I will say that there's more here:
www.linkedin.com/in/billkindle/
and I'm also using my projects page on SW pretty heavily too.
As a hiring manager linked to that weird SW stuff will send you straight to the dust bin. Avoid that.
So don't even reference them and instead turn them into bullet point lists?
Yes. Resumes are paper, mostly. Don't send people to weird, non-standard third party websites. That is seriously weird and a hiring manager isn't going to do that and if they do they are going to be confused.
Every large firm I know uses paper for interviews and anything extraneous is stripped out so using SW Projects is the same as just leaving that stuff off of you resume.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
I will say that there's more here:
www.linkedin.com/in/billkindle/
and I'm also using my projects page on SW pretty heavily too.
As a hiring manager linked to that weird SW stuff will send you straight to the dust bin. Avoid that.
So don't even reference them and instead turn them into bullet point lists?
Yes. Resumes are paper, mostly. Don't send people to weird, non-standard third party websites. That is seriously weird and a hiring manager isn't going to do that and if they do they are going to be confused.
Every large firm I know uses paper for interviews and anything extraneous is stripped out so using SW Projects is the same as just leaving that stuff off of you resume.
But those aren't on the actual resume I have right now. It's only where I am recording projects I've done (SW) and the linkedin page is more of a chronical in case someone asks. I don't really drive people there, I only reference it if someone asks for references.
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I guess what I am saying is that I don't drive people to those sites.
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@Bill-Kindle if they aren't on the actual resume you need to get them there. Putting that stuff in "projects" is fine but no one will ever see that. That is just for you.
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As someone that's been in IT a while, you may want to mention some of your major achievements, you know, the real head-grabbers. If they're front and center, they (and you) will have a better chance of getting noticed. 2 pages is the going length for an IT resume.
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@scottalanmiller An eight-page resume? Wow!
@Bill-Kindle When I hire, I love to see that people are active in forums. What a great way to find out how good they are at interacting with others and solving problems. If someone linked to their Spiceworks profile, or any other IT forum, I would definitely read it and would definitely consider it a plus over other candidates. If you're only applying to large firms, then maybe @scottalanmiller is correct and they don't recruit like that, but I really don't understand why they wouldn't. I can only talk about SMBs and startups, which may not be your thing.
I'm not alone. If you look at the job listings for VisualDNA (http://www.visualdna.com/careers/vacancy/?p_id=829), a hip London startup, you'll see that they actually request that applicants give details of where they can read more about you (forums, blogs etc etc). I think this is the future of IT recruitment. Resumes alone are just too limited. I definitely think you should drive people to those sites. I would definitely employ you based on your Spiceworks profile and your blog.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller An eight-page resume? Wow!
Took one entire page of dense print just to list certs. I had over 150 of them.
What I found was that at the beginning of my career my resume was short maybe two pages. It slowly grew as I added more jobs, more certs, more schools, more technologies, more achievements. Eight pages is where I capped. When I was at eight pages I still had a second four page resume that was just a list of smaller jobs that I had worked that I had trimmed from the main resume! So to have the kind of info that most people expect, I would have been at twelve pages.
Now I've started cutting back. I'm around four pages today but I don't include things like certs or education in my resume because I don't see it as very important and actively negative to any job search I might be doing. I've cut a lot of technologies off too. It used to matter if I knew certain things that today are just assumed based on my experience level.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@Bill-Kindle When I hire, I love to see that people are active in forums. What a great way to find out how good they are at interacting with others and solving problems. If someone linked to their Spiceworks profile, or any other IT forum, I would definitely read it and would definitely consider it a plus over other candidates. If you're only applying to large firms, then maybe @scottalanmiller is correct and they don't recruit like that, but I really don't understand why they wouldn't. I can only talk about SMBs and startups, which may not be your thing.
I'm obviously serious about hiring active community participants as well. If you link to a SW, ML or similar profile to talk about social media and your community involvement, that's a plus. If you send people to a quirky online project resume system as a replacement for that info on your resume, that's a negative. One is about showing your value to the industry and your ability to network, one is a substitute for what is expected.
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@scottalanmiller But the project page is sorta like a blog, detailing a project. I also have another blog, which I really need to spruce up as I don't write about anything often enough to be really proud of it. I also don't use Linkedin for much beyond keeping a ready list of contacts of professionals I know or have worked with, and for recommendations that I have received from some for past work. I only started using those because you can't get people to write actual letters anymore.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller But the project page is sorta like a blog, detailing a project. I also have another blog, which I really need to spruce up as I don't write about anything often enough to be really proud of it. I also don't use Linkedin for much beyond keeping a ready list of contacts of professionals I know or have worked with, and for recommendations that I have received from some for past work. I only started using those because you can't get people to write actual letters anymore.
Exactly. Like a blog you would never send a hiring manager there. Maybe you mention it as filler, maybe. But rarely. But never use it instead if good resume content. Assume it will never be seen.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm not alone. If you look at the job listings for VisualDNA (http://www.visualdna.com/careers/vacancy/?p_id=829), a hip London startup, you'll see that they actually request that applicants give details of where they can read more about you (forums, blogs etc etc).
Nope!
Once again, my internet life and my real life are separate, and never shall the twain meet.
Besides, do they really want to read my AdultFriendFinder posts?
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@PSX_Defector said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm not alone. If you look at the job listings for VisualDNA (http://www.visualdna.com/careers/vacancy/?p_id=829), a hip London startup, you'll see that they actually request that applicants give details of where they can read more about you (forums, blogs etc etc).
Nope!
Once again, my internet life and my real life are separate, and never shall the twain meet.
> Besides, do they really want to read my AdultFriendFinder posts?
I guess that would depend on the job you were apply for no?
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@Bill-Kindle said:
I guess that would depend on the job you were apply for no?
When I was at AT&T I got a call from a guy. Was helping him out and needed to email him something, so he gave me a email @vivid.com. I had to ask him if that was Vivid Video. Indeed it was!
He sent me a login to the FTP site. Let's just say I was set for certain videos for years.
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If I were to point someone toward my SW profile, reading some of my posts could come off as bad for my company - or bad mouthing them at the very least... like PSX I don't really like that idea.. but understand what Scott is saying.
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@Dashrender said:
If I were to point someone toward my SW profile, reading some of my posts could come off as bad for my company - or bad mouthing them at the very least... like PSX I don't really like that idea.. but understand what Scott is saying.
The couple of times I have ever been asked I only say that I contribute and have been a part of some product testing panels and online presentations. I'm sure some of my posts would come off bad but there's a lot more good than bad IMHO.
