Critic my resume

[yllus]

Originally posted by: AmigaMan
Everything you have mentioned I would and have done the opposite of. You really have no clue do you? Not mentioning how much money you've saved your company? That's not important? I agree if it's not accurate, but that information is easy to find out.
Who the fsck cares what specific version of Windows you've used if you're a software developer? Dropping the skills part? Are you insane? That shows the recruiter/hiring manager what you know that can't be listed in your experience section. Education is probably the least important thing on your resume. Unless you're FRESH out of college, recruiters/hiring managers are only thinking, "sure we get that you graduated SuperDuper College, now tell me what you've done."
So you can teach any first year student to program if "directly properly"? I'll assume that your mangled sentence means anyone can learn to program if they have the proper direction. You really ought to tell the "For Dummies" book writers, they'd be interested.

Calm down, Amiga boy. No need to get all butt hurt over another's opinion.

Numbers without context are useless. So Project A generated $60k in its first release - is that impressive? Yes? No? The person looking at the resume doesn't know, and thus I'd consider it wasted space. Better to write "commercially successful" than an arbitrary figure.

Listing the specific version(s) of Windows is important, the specific version(s) of Linux doubly so. If he's got experience in Windows 2003 Server, that's something to put down in its entirety - not to classify as just 'Windows'. Linux - list Gnoppix, Slackware, SUSE. We specifically prefer people with an understanding of Debian because that's what we use - making it both eye-catching for the human reading the resume, and useful to hit upon in computer-driven keyword searches.

I didn't write "drop the skills part", you slack-jawed yokel. I said he should drop it if he wasn't going to make it useful. "Consistently deliver results as an individual or in team environment" is not useful. Do other people list themselves as inconsistently delivering results? There's no need to state something that's assumed. The entire section is full of things that don't need to be said, hence my statement "use it to present yourself as a well-rounded candidate who can contribute in the area of business knowledge as well as technical." His professional experience section covers his technical abilities, now it's time to sell himself as the well-rounded employee that all companies are looking for. Talk about the leading roles you've taken with hard numbers - 3 projects you've led? 4? "Mentor junior developers on their projects" is a good start.

Normally I'd agree that education can be dropped lower, but in this case he's done a good job of taking up all of one line with the statement that he's got a degree. Since a degree is going to be a hard prerequisite of any job he's looking for, I think for the space consumed it's great to let the recruiter tick that off in their mind positively as they take a look.

Yep - programming is for chimps. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but the plain fact is that straightforward programming jobs are being outsourced because it requires a minimum of education. Or why you can pick up what you need to know in the self-help portion of a bookstore. Zombie's overall goal is to present himself as a valuable addition to the company with a mind for business and management, not to simply get that technical position and get typecast as the replaceable codemonkey.

Reading comprehension - I bet there's a 'For Dummies' book on the subject you could pick up! Better luck next time.

 

[Reckoner]

I just threw up in my mouth reading it. WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION, PRIVATE ZOMBIE!?

 

[CanOWorms]

Something just looks wrong about it. I think that you need to reorder the subsections or add something to the beginning. It looks odd with the skills in the beginning.

 

[lokiju]

Create a new section in front of Work Experience with something like the following


Program / Product Manager with 12+ years experience offers expertise in:

· Bullet 1

· Bullet 2

· Bullet 3



* Put the three most important things you offer to a company here; put a job title that tells them what/who you are.

 

[JDMnAR1]

generating $60K in its first release

$60K what...sales, revenues, profits, savings, light bills, legal fees..?

 

[Injury]

I'm going to try and be quick about this and not type 1000 words like I normally do.

Your resume is 2 pages. Unless you've had one hell of a career already or well over a couple decades in the work force, keep it to one page. There's nothing about you here that excites someone enough to read the second page. Specifically on career track, just list your responsibilities with that company and your job title.

The skills section is comprised of things that should be implied of anyone in your career field cappable of doing the jobs you would apply for. I'm not in the same field as you and even I can say "Well DUHHHHHHHHHHHH... I'd hope you can do these or I'm tossing this crap out now!"

You tell us way to much. Save some for the interview. You write paragraphs. You cannot use paragraphs. You want a resume to be something someone can look over in about 30 seconds and tell whether you are qualified.

Those arrows are stupid as crap.

The section right below the contact info is labelled differently from the sections below it...

You have "Languages" and "IDEs/Tools/APIs" to the left with indenting for the items, but you have "career track" centered, bolded and a large font. Pick one. The words "Career Track" seem more important than your own name, FFS!

You also have the first two "sections" underlines, in between lines. Too many lines.

In terms of career development... you need to learn some new languages. You have a BS in CS and the only Non-web Programming Languages you know are C and C++? Is that something that's worthwhile? Not to insult, but you either need to learn some more languages or tell us what makes you better than a guy who knows 5 or 6 languages.

 

[Zombie]

well, C, C++ and Java are used in propbably 70% of software out there. Those are real programming languages rest are scripting languages. I know scripting languages but putting them on my resume would mean I know them enough to be able to answer most questions and that is just not true.

Skills sections represents transferable skills that take time to learn and no they are not expected skills. Try working with 4 different teams in Asia, Europe and US.

 

[CHOPPER GOD]

I just had my resume professionally analized....and one thing that REALLY opened my eyes is this..
The first paragraph needs to list the things that apply to THAT particular company i.e. personal characteristics that they want to hear of why they should even continue looking further down the page to see your qualifications and job history...NOT job history first.
You res has to grab attention first as opposed to the other 20 res's that HR manager has in a pile.

The guy that ripped my res a new A-hole had been a HR manager for Citibank for years and after talking with him, I totally agree with his 'suggestions'
Basically- have a different resume version for each employer you are applying for...

Buzzwords included 'Self- motivated' Honest good at identifying problem issues, want to be part of nth ranked company in the 'x' field

this thread has about 30 reponses by now and all these responses are hung up on the 60k part or bulleting and various word pattern....this proves that thier own resumes would probobly fall into the same 'format' as yours and therefore not 'looking' much different from each other...your goal is to get HR to look at you resume and qualifications further down the page in 30 seconds by telling the company why they should hire you THEN let the data speak for itself.

my 2 cents

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: Zombie
Skills sections represents transferable skills that take time to learn and no they are not expected skills. Try working with 4 different teams in Asia, Europe and US.

... Yes they are.

If you are hired as a programmer, then you should already know how to develop, design, and test software to requirement. Why would anyone expect any less?

Why would anyone hire you expecting to not be able to deliver results? Do they hire people expecting to be let down and see no production?

The third statement is just getting deeper into the first. That stuff is required when designing for a need, right? At best, this statement should be put into your work experience in the company that you did it for.

The fourth statement really just rewords the third, which again, is just being more specific about the first. I could figure out from the first statement alone that you can meet customer requirements. I don't need two more lines of butter on the biscuit to tell me.

I don't know what "legacy codebase" is... but I would expect that if you program something, you have the ability to support it and make changes to the code. Why shouldn't I expect this?

The worldwide thing has some credibility, but again, you need to put this in your work experience instead of putting it where it's not going to get noticed. If you truly did have to coordinate with teams on 3 continents, then you are really underplaying this feat by poor wording. Don't make people have to search for things like this, because they won't.

The last one has slight credibility. Everyone enjoys someone that has experience with training, but again, this is for the job experience. Still I say that this is something that should be expected. In a field such as yours, there are enough people out there that you don't bring in people to train them, you bring them in trained... so mentoring is minimal and expected of all people who have some seniority.


As far as the other languages go, telling you have experience with them is better than nothing at all. Even if it means you know enough to correct syntax errors and make minor changes to existing programs, this can be valuable to a company. I've gotten graphic design jobs because I know web design and I've gotten web design jobs because I know graphic design. I'm wet enough behind the ears to admit that I don't know everything about them, but that added bonus has appealed to plenty of people. Why would you take up space to say something as expected as knowing how to design and code programs, which is a given, but not mention that you know at least SOMETHING about these other languages? Maybe they'd even pay you to learn them. You NEVER know what someone could be looking for until they either hire you, or tell you they aren't going to hire you.

Would it be possible for you to PM me a Word version of your resume so I can make suggested changes and let you see how it looks?

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: CHOPPER GOD
this thread has about 30 reponses by now and all these responses are hung up on the 60k part or bulleting and various word pattern....this proves that thier own resumes would probobly fall into the same 'format' as yours and therefore not 'looking' much different from each other...your goal is to get HR to look at you resume and qualifications further down the page in 30 seconds by telling the company why they should hire you THEN let the data speak for itself.

We all know that already. It is common knowledge that you put a objective type heading at the top which is custom fit for the particular company and the particular job within that company. The problem is that we don't know what job he is applying to. Thus, we cannot make any critical statements about it. If we knew the specific company and specific job, then we could potentially evaluate his resume on this area.

 

[WildHorse]

Good, very simple advice:

General resume tips

What your reader looks for in a resume

Warning Will Robinson- example of bad one

If your school has a resume style guide, follow that exactly.

 

[kalster]

take out the revenue part (atleast the 60k one), talk more about each part of the design of the product you worked on in more detail. almost be a bit more technical info about the project, give some more technical details about the product itself. Also something I have done in my resume is at the end of each project/job I make list of things (tools, languages, platforms) I used /worked on in that project/job. Additionally talk a bit more about architecture of produts/projects. Almost the first question I get asked in interviews is what platform did you work on, was this in a multithreaded enviroment, these sort of things are important in identifying a match with another potential position, atleast in the eyes of recruiters I guess, since lot of search is based on key words. Just glancing over your resume, it doesnt seem very technical, the description of the projects atleast.

 

[AmigaMan]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: AmigaMan
Everything you have mentioned I would and have done the opposite of. You really have no clue do you? Not mentioning how much money you've saved your company? That's not important? I agree if it's not accurate, but that information is easy to find out.
Who the fsck cares what specific version of Windows you've used if you're a software developer? Dropping the skills part? Are you insane? That shows the recruiter/hiring manager what you know that can't be listed in your experience section. Education is probably the least important thing on your resume. Unless you're FRESH out of college, recruiters/hiring managers are only thinking, "sure we get that you graduated SuperDuper College, now tell me what you've done."
So you can teach any first year student to program if "directly properly"? I'll assume that your mangled sentence means anyone can learn to program if they have the proper direction. You really ought to tell the "For Dummies" book writers, they'd be interested.

Calm down, Amiga boy. No need to get all butt hurt over another's opinion.

Numbers without context are useless. So Project A generated $60k in its first release - is that impressive? Yes? No? The person looking at the resume doesn't know, and thus I'd consider it wasted space. Better to write "commercially successful" than an arbitrary figure.

Listing the specific version(s) of Windows is important, the specific version(s) of Linux doubly so. If he's got experience in Windows 2003 Server, that's something to put down in its entirety - not to classify as just 'Windows'. Linux - list Gnoppix, Slackware, SUSE. We specifically prefer people with an understanding of Debian because that's what we use - making it both eye-catching for the human reading the resume, and useful to hit upon in computer-driven keyword searches.

I didn't write "drop the skills part", you slack-jawed yokel. I said he should drop it if he wasn't going to make it useful. "Consistently deliver results as an individual or in team environment" is not useful. Do other people list themselves as inconsistently delivering results? There's no need to state something that's assumed. The entire section is full of things that don't need to be said, hence my statement "use it to present yourself as a well-rounded candidate who can contribute in the area of business knowledge as well as technical." His professional experience section covers his technical abilities, now it's time to sell himself as the well-rounded employee that all companies are looking for. Talk about the leading roles you've taken with hard numbers - 3 projects you've led? 4? "Mentor junior developers on their projects" is a good start.

Normally I'd agree that education can be dropped lower, but in this case he's done a good job of taking up all of one line with the statement that he's got a degree. Since a degree is going to be a hard prerequisite of any job he's looking for, I think for the space consumed it's great to let the recruiter tick that off in their mind positively as they take a look.

Yep - programming is for chimps. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but the plain fact is that straightforward programming jobs are being outsourced because it requires a minimum of education. Or why you can pick up what you need to know in the self-help portion of a bookstore. Zombie's overall goal is to present himself as a valuable addition to the company with a mind for business and management, not to simply get that technical position and get typecast as the replaceable codemonkey.

Reading comprehension - I bet there's a 'For Dummies' book on the subject you could pick up! Better luck next time.

Huh, must have missed your response.

Nice, making fun of my name, real mature. You being the 23 year old student doing website contracts (although I realize your bio page is out of date) knows everything there is to know about the business world? How many real jobs have you had? You think programming is for chimps? I agree, if the only thing you write is simple PHP sites. If you want to do real enterprise-level coding, give me a call in a couple years.

Anyways, I still stand by my opinions. While i apologize for being a little harsh and critical of your response, I still believe I'd do the opposite of what you said.

 

[yllus]

And perhaps that's why you're doing unit testing, and I'm managing multiple projects with my own development staff. *shrugs* Everyone's got an opinion...

 

[letdown427]

I can get you guys a ruler if you want?

 

[AmigaMan]

Originally posted by: yllus
And perhaps that's why you're doing unit testing, and I'm managing multiple projects with my own development staff. *shrugs* Everyone's got an opinion...

Sorry, I really thought you'd be able to read dates. Anyways, been too busy leading a multiple developer team through a million dollar a day website conversion. *shrugs*

 

[AmigaMan]

Originally posted by: letdown427
I can get you guys a ruler if you want?

Mine is bigger.