Darren New wrote:

> Do you think others applying for the job are going to downplay 
> their skills?

Now there's an interesting problem. These guys will have stacks of 
people applying to them who are *lying through their teeth* about their 
actual capabilities. How do I distinguish myself from these frauds?

>> Is anybody going to care that I wrote a program to copy some files 
>> around? I mean, we're talking about a few dozen lines of code here. 
>> It's not exactly GCC.
> 
> Yes. It's an important backup and data access utility. When you get to 
> the interview, they may or may not ask you.

M'ok, whatever you say...

>> Heh. Should I include the anicdote about the time I got so bored that 
>> I learned PostScript in my lunch break just for something to do? ;-) I 
>> think it's a great story, but I'm not sure whether I should actually 
>> mention it.
> 
> Mention it at the interview.

OK.

>> Hmm, this is difficult. I've been programming for decades, but I don't 
>> really have anything useful to *show* for it. I suppose I could try to 

>> BackupExec license (although that really is flexing the truth somewhat 
>> severely).
> 
> Yes. That's exactly the attitude to take. Redo the whole resume with 
> that sort of thought in mind.

What, severely exaggerating the truth throughout?

>> Well I'm *supposed* to work with the US dudes, and I'm *supposed* to 
>> be responsible for planning future upgrades. 
> 
> You're responsible. You don't have to downplay that either. :-)

Heh, OK.

>> You realise that the grades I mentioned are just the good ones, right? 
> 
> That's the point of a resume.

My point being that only a few of my grades *were* good. Most of them 
weren't.

>> Most of my grades were far less stellar. (E.g., for Accounts & 
>> Auditing, I think I got a D-. The Research project was an F+. And 
>> several 1st year modules I failed outright.)
> 
> As an aside, I've never heard of an F+ before. :-)

IIRC, work was graded on a scale from A down to F, with U meaning 
"ungraded" - i.e., you failed completely.

> Pipe organ recitals!

LOL! As if anybody is going to care... but sure, I can put that in. ;-)

> Eighteen year history of .... then list every language you could write 
> Hello World in. :-)

Erm, I can see this getting me into trouble. It's unwise to claim 
extensive experience with something unless you really do *have* that 
experience.

> Passion for teaching and mentoring, with a strong track record of 
> explaining complex topics in understandable ways. Samples available on 
> request.

Er, dude... like *what*? :-P

> Responsible for keeping the UK computing center operational for 30 staff 
> members using 50 workstations. The systems included four servers, a 
> local LAN, and Internet connectivity. Responsibilities included ensuring 
> compliance with extensive government regulations,

Do I mention the precise regulations in question? In case somebody might 
have heard of them?

> saving 8000 via automation in the year 
> they were implemented. <Like they're going to check that?>

No, but they're going to quizz me about it, so I'd better have a good 
story to tell them.

> Created and maintained computer policies and procedures, documenting 
> same. Documents were approved and even complimented by the auditors of 
> <insert company/government agency here>.

I don't think I'd actually be able to track down exactly which auditors 
specifically mentioned my documents. (I don't think it survived in 
documented form, it was just mentioned informally in the final 
debriefing, which isn't recorded anywhere.)

> Created and executed client surveys to <what?> gather data on new yadda 
> yadda, resulting in retention of several major clients.  <You can't just 
> say you did it - add in what the result was, even if you have to stretch>

We're talking about a vuluntary sector company with a grand total of 3 
employees (not including me) and about 14 "customers". There's nothing 
"major" about it. :-P

What I *could* claim is that the data I produced helped them 
successfully secure additional government funding. (This is why they 
wanted the stats - but I have no clue whether they actually got any 
extra funding as a result.)

> 1998-2002
> Smalltalk and Java, a pure interpreted OO language and a popular 
> powerful compiled OO language.  Also classwork on theory and 
> practicalities of database design and organization, as well as a 
> practical unit using the Oracle database product.
> 
> Also studied interfacing these technologies to the WWW, with detailed 
> studies of both run-time performance and developer efficiency. Classes 
> on operating systems covered file system design and scheduling dispatch. 
> Computer graphics covered both high-quality ray tracing and high-speed 
> polygonal rendering with modern graphics cards.

The last two there being particularly relevant for the company I'm about 
to try to get attention from. (They design stuff like low-end 3D 
hardware and MPEG decoders.)

> You can't just say "I did C and Pascal."  You have to say what *you* 
> did, not what Ritchie and Wirth did. :-) Pretend the person looking at 
> your resume didn't go to school for computers and doesn't even know what 
> any of those words mean.

Whohewho? o_O

> Also, at least in the USA, a lot of places now will just filter on 
> keywords. If they're looking for someone to do Oracle databases, they 
> toss any resume that doesn't have to word "Oracle" in it without looking 
> at it.  So at the bottom of my resume, I put in fairly small print all 
> the OSes, languages, frameworks, etc that I'm familiar with, just as a 
> list of "technology summary".  It gets you past the automatic 
> resume-spam filter.

Maybe I should construct a finite-order Markov model from past 
successful CVs and use that to auto-generate apparently valid English 
content? :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message