On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:05:12 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Uh, guys...?
>>>
>>> What *is* the largest project I've completed to date? :-/
>> 
>> Not knowing every project you've ever done ever, it's hard to say. 
>> Maybe some of the auditing preparation you've done?
> 
> Well, I can give you a list as long as your arm containing items like
> 
> - Built a recursive Turtle-style fractal plotter. - Built a Lambda
> calculus interpretter. - Built a mini-Mathematica engine.
> - Built a modular software sound synthesizer. - Built a collection of
> data compression modules. - Built a Mandelbrot generator with multiple
> colouring options. - Built a mini-Prolog interpretter.
> - Built a simple ray tracer.
> 
> ...should I continue?

Sure.

> Every single one of these has been a small one-man project totalling
> less than 1,000 lines of code, I would estimate.

Size isn't important.  The result is important.  You could've written 
some of these in more lines of code, but they wouldn't have performed as 
well.  Sometimes smaller is better (especially when coding).

> Alternatively, I could say something about stuff I did at work.
> "Prepairing for audits" generally just consists of checking I've signed
> everything I'm supposed to sign, and hoping that the auditors don't find
> any problems. I could perhaps mention the Disaster Recovery Plan I wrote
> completely from scratch (and which client and government auditors love,
> by the way). But not massively relevant to this specific application.
> (Or maybe it is? Maybe I'll end up writing technical documentation for
> these guys? Who knows...)

Doesn't really matter if it's relevant to the positions they have open 
(you don't know what they are, do you?).  They're asking about projects 
you've worked on to get a sense of your capabilities when dealing with.

The DR project might be a good one.  You'd do well, I think, doing 
technical writing, and that type of project shows an aptitude for it.

But like I've said before, don't try to do the thinking for the 
prospective employer - they are capable of doing that.

But while you're at it, if there's a place on the application to list 
things like that (such as the part to provide code samples - you could 
zip them up and supply them there), include some of the ones like the 
language stuff, the mini-Mathematica engine, that sort of thing - that 
shows an aptitude for the sort of thing they look for in coding - but 
even if you don't end up doing coding, you're demonstrating a knowledge 
in the area that can tie back to being able to write technical documents 
about it.  It's much easier to write technical materials if you 
understand what you're writing about.

Jim

Post a reply to this message