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CPColin
Sep 9, 2003

Big ol' smile.

Keetron posted:

Those people suck and you are better off without them.

Oh, for sure. My reaction to the lay-off, after the initial shock, was a roll of the eyes. (And annoyance at the COBRA and unemployment people for sending so many individual pieces of mail.)

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smackfu
Jun 7, 2004

Our QA code is also terrible. But our devs all hate writing selenium so it's just the worst "copy-and-paste until it works, then push it" mindset.

Vincent Valentine
Feb 28, 2006

Murdertime

TheCog posted:

Warning, this is a vent post.

ARGH.

I too had zero professional experience, no degree, and sent out hundreds of apps. I was clearly technically skilled, I had plenty of projects to show that. I did fine in tech challenges, so we're in a pretty similar boat.

Where we differ is that you got WAY better returns than I did. I only got a handful of interviews before I got an offer.

If you're going through that many and not getting an offer, I'm guessing it's one of two things.

1) your resume is misleading. This can be entirely unintentional. One of my interviewers saw a personal project I did(which was clearly labeled as such), was very impressed, then asked what it was like at the start up that owned the project. Once I explained it wasn't a start up, they were far less happy. Make sure your resume isn't hinting at more than you have. Certainly talk yourself up, but things like "I have two years of experience programming" means "paid, professional experience" to an interviewer, even though you were just saying you've been programming for two years without indicating context. Once they find out their expectations don't align with reality, you get the "Sorry, we need someone with more experience" cop out.

2) Your personality/interview skills need work. People in tech looking for junior devs don't seem to care much about capability, you'll learn as you go and they know that. What they want is for you to be pleasant to be around and talk to, because if you're junior, they're gonna be talking to you A LOT. About potentially frustrating things. Don't interview like a robot trying to hold logical, calculated conversation. Talk to them like you just met them in a bar, and you found out both of you like some band. When they ask about your hobbies, don't say "I like to code", say guitar or Batman or something. Be friendly, bright and enthusiastic. The image of the programmer being some guy hunched over a keyboard in the dark who hates people is long gone.

Try to do mock interviews with your friends, get their feedback. I know it's embarrassing and awkward, but it helps.

Outside of that, there's not much to say without more details. Just keep at it.

teen phone cutie
Jun 18, 2012

last year i rewrote something awful from scratch because i hate myself
^^^ yeah my current employer literally said to me "we don't think you have enough experience for the role you're interviewing for, but we'd like to bring you on for another position because we like you."

Jr Dev roles are all about personality

BigPaddy
Jun 30, 2008

That night we performed the rite and opened the gate.
Halfway through, I went to fix us both a coke float.
By the time I got back, he'd gone insane.
Plus, he'd left the gate open and there was evil everywhere.


Grump posted:

^^^ yeah my current employer literally said to me "we don't think you have enough experience for the role you're interviewing for, but we'd like to bring you on for another position because we like you."

Jr Dev roles are all about personality

I have hired a bunch of Jr Dev roles recently and it is all about personality and attitude. I want people who want to learn and do stuff.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


I keep wondering if I'm still considered a junior dev. I'm like, 26, so it's a bit embarrassing to still be considered junior - I would have expected to be further by the time I hit 3 years experience. Still, my resume looks sparse as hell for the time I spent and I have no idea if it's a personal failing or if I just haven't gotten the right opportunities yet.

I wanna put something really good on my resume, so people don't keep questioning my capabilities. That should make me valuable/desirable, right?

NewForumSoftware
Oct 8, 2016

by Lowtax
If you have three years of experience you shouldn't really apply to Junior positions

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


NewForumSoftware posted:

If you have three years of experience you shouldn't really apply to Junior positions

They're not, though, they're either unstated rank or mid-level. I still got a "sorry we're not hiring junior devs" response yesterday though.

NewForumSoftware
Oct 8, 2016

by Lowtax

Pollyanna posted:

They're not, though, they're either unstated rank or mid-level. I still got a "sorry we're not hiring junior devs" response yesterday though.

Don't list yourself as a junior developer at your last job.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


NewForumSoftware posted:

Don't list yourself as a junior developer at your last job.

I'm not though :confused: Lemme just get home and share my resume later, that might help.

feedmegin
Jul 30, 2008

B-Nasty posted:

Integration tests that pound on the database are the best. Let's be honest, 99% of what we do is CRUD nonsense

I've been in this industry 20 years and maybe 1 of those has involved a 'the database' or any sort of CRUD.

NewForumSoftware
Oct 8, 2016

by Lowtax

feedmegin posted:

I've been in this industry 20 years and maybe 1 of those has involved a 'the database' or any sort of CRUD.

I'm assuming you don't work in web dev

feedmegin
Jul 30, 2008

NewForumSoftware posted:

I'm assuming you don't work in web dev

Yep. Mostly embedded Linux. There's quite a lot of variety out there in what programmers do, is what I'm getting at.

NewForumSoftware
Oct 8, 2016

by Lowtax

feedmegin posted:

Yep. Mostly embedded Linux. There's quite a lot of variety out there in what programmers do, is what I'm getting at.

Unfortunately these days prolly like 90% of programmers are doing web dev. Or at least it feels that way.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Might be good to get some feedback on my resume, which I think is kind of lacking. It doesn't feel fleshed out enough for ~3 years of experience, and I feel like I should have more than this on it. Anyone willing to give me some advice?

http://www.filedropper.com/resumeanon

Also:

quote:

MUST HAVES:
  • 5 years of experience of SQL database integration
  • 5 years of development in an Agile environment
  • 2 years of JSON experience

A lot of these companies make it really hard to write that "send a note of introduction to this company!" pre-requisite blurb sometimes.

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Apr 30, 2017

Vincent Valentine
Feb 28, 2006

Murdertime

Pollyanna posted:


A lot of these companies make it really hard to write that "send a note of introduction to this company!" pre-requisite blurb sometimes.

Those are some weird requirements.

What in the world are you supposed to get with two years of json experience that you don't get in the first 8 hours?

huhu
Feb 24, 2006

Pollyanna posted:

Might be good to get some feedback on my resume, which I think is kind of lacking. It doesn't feel fleshed out enough for ~3 years of experience, and I feel like I should have more than this on it. Anyone willing to give me some advice?

http://www.filedropper.com/resumeanon

Also:


A lot of these companies make it really hard to write that "send a note of introduction to this company!" pre-requisite blurb sometimes.

How do you only have 1 to 2 bullet points for each job? Especially for your <current place> since you've been there for over two years now.

Your name is huge.

I'd say just go back I'd say go black and white with your resume since anyone who prints it out will only see it that way anyways.

Take English off of your skills unless you know more than English... your resume is written in it.

Can you come up with more than just your 3 skills? I'm guessing at <first place> you used HTML and CSS at least. You mention JS in your resume but not in your skills.

Your bullet points are horribly vague. "Developed and implemented cross-application analytics feature." Imagine you're hr and you're reading that. It tells you nothing.

I'm guessing as you make suggested changes, you're going to realize that giant white space in the bottom right corner needs to be removed so you might need to restructure your entire resume.

Bruegels Fuckbooks
Sep 14, 2004

Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

Pollyanna posted:

Might be good to get some feedback on my resume, which I think is kind of lacking. It doesn't feel fleshed out enough for ~3 years of experience, and I feel like I should have more than this on it. Anyone willing to give me some advice?

http://www.filedropper.com/resumeanon

Also:


A lot of these companies make it really hard to write that "send a note of introduction to this company!" pre-requisite blurb sometimes.

1. Don't use a two column format - it screws up copying pasting the resume into a text field.

2. Education should be last section as it is least relevant. Get rid of the language section as well. Skills section is also pretty weak - people are expecting that you've worked with some kind of database, some kind of source control, unit test framework, Puppet/docker/virtualization software...

3. Chip-8 interpreter should have a link.

4. "Head developer" and "Developer apprentice" are two different things, and it seems dissonant to list official title as developer apprentice and then say "head developer of"

5. Should have more detail about the projects you worked at each job - e.g. "worked on FizzBuzzer, a web application that fizzes buzzes, developing new APIs for the front end in Ruby."

6. Concrete details are better than general details. e.g. "performance enhancements" - did you cut 1 second off page load time? If so, say that. Similarly, "Guiding dev team towards modern development practices, including testing and agile methodologies" is the most generic, buzzword-y sentence I have read in my entire life. A sentence like: "introduced integration testing methodology to the team using selenium which resulted in 20 automated tests that could run in 5 minutes, had 55% code coverage and caught twenty potential regression issues" is much more concrete and easier to ask questions about.

Mniot
May 22, 2003
Not the one you know

NewForumSoftware posted:

Unfortunately these days prolly like 90% of programmers are doing web dev. Or at least it feels that way.

I would expect 100% of web devs to be on StackOverflow and smaller percentage of other types (for example, our main iOS developer rarely used it). Despite that, and a very wide definition of the "web dev" job description, only 72% of their respondents used that job description. You might try going to some local meetups outside your own area if you're interested in getting a better perspective.

NewForumSoftware
Oct 8, 2016

by Lowtax

Mniot posted:

I would expect 100% of web devs to be on StackOverflow and smaller percentage of other types (for example, our main iOS developer rarely used it). Despite that, and a very wide definition of the "web dev" job description, only 72% of their respondents used that job description. You might try going to some local meetups outside your own area if you're interested in getting a better perspective.

Honestly 72%, 90%, I feel like I got it pretty right. Beyond that plenty of mobile and desktop apps are just CRUD bullshit.

FAT32 SHAMER
Aug 16, 2012



NewForumSoftware posted:

Unfortunately these days prolly like 90% of programmers are doing web dev. Or at least it feels that way.

In Detroit everyone is an embedded developer, then the rest are EE's that do a lot of C/C++ or mobile app devs

I do mobile app dev/automation next to embedded devs and it's crazy all the stuff you pick up just from listening in on their conversations

lifg
Dec 4, 2000
<this tag left blank>
Muldoon

Pollyanna posted:

Might be good to get some feedback on my resume, which I think is kind of lacking. It doesn't feel fleshed out enough for ~3 years of experience, and I feel like I should have more than this on it. Anyone willing to give me some advice?

http://www.filedropper.com/resumeanon

The bullet points needs to be more specific. It's not the place for a general job description. Each bullet point should be, "I did specific thing to fix specific problem," or, "Used technology to do task, accomplishing business goal." And include numbers. Lines of code, percentage of errors reduced, clients handledz

I was going to rewrite a couple of your bullet points for you, to show what I mean, but it's hard to do that when I don't know what you actually did. Which is kindof the whole problem.

csammis
Aug 26, 2003

Mental Institution

Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:

1. Don't use a two column format - it screws up copying pasting the resume into a text field.

I've used that exact template for two job searches now and no one's complained about it :confused:

If it screws up recruiters copying-pasting the resume into some mutable field, that's a bonus.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Thanks for the feedback on my resume - I'll be sprucing it up a bit and incorporating the feedback I've gotten.

huhu posted:

Your name is huge.

I'd say just go back I'd say go black and white with your resume since anyone who prints it out will only see it that way anyways.

I'm guessing as you make suggested changes, you're going to realize that giant white space in the bottom right corner needs to be removed so you might need to restructure your entire resume.

This is a new template I used for my resume, which I'm still trying to figure out a good style for. I can go back to an older, more straightforward one if this isn't a good one to use?

lifg posted:

The bullet points needs to be more specific. It's not the place for a general job description. Each bullet point should be, "I did specific thing to fix specific problem," or, "Used technology to do task, accomplishing business goal." And include numbers. Lines of code, percentage of errors reduced, clients handledz

I was going to rewrite a couple of your bullet points for you, to show what I mean, but it's hard to do that when I don't know what you actually did. Which is kindof the whole problem.

Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:

5. Should have more detail about the projects you worked at each job - e.g. "worked on FizzBuzzer, a web application that fizzes buzzes, developing new APIs for the front end in Ruby."

6. Concrete details are better than general details. e.g. "performance enhancements" - did you cut 1 second off page load time? If so, say that. Similarly, "Guiding dev team towards modern development practices, including testing and agile methodologies" is the most generic, buzzword-y sentence I have read in my entire life. A sentence like: "introduced integration testing methodology to the team using selenium which resulted in 20 automated tests that could run in 5 minutes, had 55% code coverage and caught twenty potential regression issues" is much more concrete and easier to ask questions about.

The problem with this is...I haven't really accomplished much at all. My current role at my job on the hell-project I've been assigned to right now is 1. work with the product owner to figure out what they even want to do and if what they want to do makes any sense and is possible 2. implement what they really can't let go of in React 3. babysit/outright fix our broken and slow Jenkins pipeline and 4. whine and complain loud enough that somehow, our development practices get better. Similar setup for the last project I was on. The job before that, I only barely got one major thing accomplished before layoffs and management missteps made me wary of staying there any longer.

A lot of the work I do feels like ticket grinding, and like I'm not really accomplishing anything I can be proud of - sometimes I feel like I don't do anything worth putting on my resume. That's why there isn't much of note on my resume, and it's why I want to try and do something new.

Nippashish
Nov 2, 2005

Let me see you dance!

Pollyanna posted:

The problem with this is...I haven't really accomplished much at all.

Focus on being specific, not on being impressive. Really specific bullet points about really mundane things are a lot more effective than you'd expect. Use numbers (seriously, people love numbers).

teen phone cutie
Jun 18, 2012

last year i rewrote something awful from scratch because i hate myself
I feel like you have accomplished more than you're giving yourself credit for.

Like it sounds like you're managing people and rewriting old code in React and making your code more reusable.

Sounds like two solid bullet points to me

RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS
Dec 21, 2010

Grump posted:

Had a phone screening today. The woman asked me the reason why I was looking for another job.

I said:

1) Pay raise
2) More opportunities to develop vs. doing QA and customer service stuff
3) Learning new front-end tech, specifically JS frameworks.

I thought these were all solid reasons to look for a new job. Right now, I'm 5 months into my first job after college and making below the AVG and MED wages for my field. I'm fine with this because I'm learning and getting experience.

The screening woman said, "If you were my nephew, I'd smack you. You should never tell a hiring manager that you're looking for a pay raise because entry level people usually expect more than they're actually worth and it just ends up pissing the hiring manager off."

Like :confused:. Lady, obviously I want a pay raise. Why is that such a taboo thing to bring up? I was even told by my current employer that you should always discuss compensation in every interview you take.

I was pretty confused, but I'd like to hear other thoughts about this? Is "I want to make more money" really a bad point to bring up in an interview?

Well, of course everyone is looking for a raise when they switch jobs, but from her perspective, probably:

1. It's a little odd to say you need a raise from the wage you accepted five months ago (it's a little bit of a warning sign for them if you're looking for a new job after five months at all).
2. It kind of goes without saying that you want more money and bringing it up this early is kind of violating the unwritten etiquette of interviews.

Anyway, wanting a pay raise is normal but it's probably better to say something anodyne like "my current position hasn't really turned out to have as much front-end as I expected" or whatever. Sometimes the less detail the better with this question, to be honest.

You don't have to wait till the very end of the interview process to start talking numbers, but you probably do want them to have some level of investment in you before you start to really get into it.

denzelcurrypower
Jan 28, 2011
First day today in my first junior developer position doing asp.net and SQL back end web development. Any tips?

csammis
Aug 26, 2003

Mental Institution
Congrats! This is your experience-building time. Learn absolutely as much as you can from the people you work with.

Hughlander
May 11, 2005

Pollyanna posted:

Might be good to get some feedback on my resume, which I think is kind of lacking. It doesn't feel fleshed out enough for ~3 years of experience, and I feel like I should have more than this on it. Anyone willing to give me some advice?

http://www.filedropper.com/resumeanon

Also:


A lot of these companies make it really hard to write that "send a note of introduction to this company!" pre-requisite blurb sometimes.

Some comments that haven't been mentioned yet that may have issues in the future:
From graduating to now has been 4 1/2 years. Of which there's a 20 month gap from College to First place.
6 months gap from First to Last.
2 of 3 jobs, 2 months then 10 months.

If you want we can talk line by line but even the description of First place, "Head developer on a primarily static, mobile-safe responsive web page for client."
Doesn't tell me the reader anything of what you did, what was the tech, was this a contract and that's why there's a client? If so that should be clear. What's a head developer Apprentice? What's 'mobile safe'?

I'd ditch the entire thing and contract a professional resume service. Even your objectives line doesn't fit the rest of the resume. You say you're full stack but there's not a single line in the resume that leads me to believe you've touched anything on the backend.

If I was hiring even as a junior I'd give the resume a pass within the first 7 seconds.

NewForumSoftware
Oct 8, 2016

by Lowtax
There's also the fact that the only language in the bulletpoints is Javascript and yet it somehow doesnt make it to the languages list

camoseven
Dec 30, 2005

RODOLPHONE RINGIN'
I agree that a professional resume service would be a really good investment for you. There used to be a guy that advertised on the forums that did great work.

lifg
Dec 4, 2000
<this tag left blank>
Muldoon
Two more resume points:

Get rid of the objective. It's not used inside of tech, and barely used outside.

Backup your skill list with bullet points. If you JavaScript in the skills, make sure it's listed once or twice in bullet points.

Hughlander
May 11, 2005

camoseven posted:

I agree that a professional resume service would be a really good investment for you. There used to be a guy that advertised on the forums that did great work.

He sold it and the service went downhill a notch or two.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Here's an updated version of my resume:

http://www.filedropper.com/pollyannaresumebetter

I tried to incorporate some of the advice given here, but it's still not looking too good. The stuff about bringing in numbers and metrics is tough when you're covering jobs you haven't been at for years.

Nippashish posted:

Focus on being specific, not on being impressive. Really specific bullet points about really mundane things are a lot more effective than you'd expect. Use numbers (seriously, people love numbers).

Grump posted:

I feel like you have accomplished more than you're giving yourself credit for.

Like it sounds like you're managing people and rewriting old code in React and making your code more reusable.

Sounds like two solid bullet points to me

Well, I could use some numbers for the bullet point about our internal team coordination tool - basically, we went from something like 20% of employees using it to >80% of employees, which was lauded as a huge accomplishment for some reason. But I feel bad putting that on my resume - that was a team effort and not something I did myself. What I could claim is writing the feature that got everyone to start using it more in the first place, but that still feels like bending the truth. There's very little that I can claim I, specifically, did - there's a lot of contributing to an established codebase and dealing with other people's lovely code.

Anyway, a lot of my "accomplishments" amount to "did really good at finishing the tickets I was assigned". Like, the praise I've gotten from our product owner/project manager/agile lead has been "Pollyanna has been a huge asset to the team for accomplishing our goals on time and getting poo poo done, especially while the supposed team lead has been off vacationing during our crunch week, she's kept this team together!!!" and while I appreciate it and understand my worth, it's not really the kinda thing that impresses people.

And dammit some of those bulletpoints I barely loving did, that one about Chef/Docker was basically a paint-by-numbers implementation that I never touched again, but I wanted to include it because it was something different from the Rails/Angular monkeying I did 90% of the time. It shouldn't be on there because I didn't learn jack poo poo from it, but again, the resume looks too small otherwise.

NewForumSoftware posted:

There's also the fact that the only language in the bulletpoints is Javascript and yet it somehow doesnt make it to the languages list

I have experience with Javascript, yes, but I don't really want to do front-end work - my experiences with doing front-end professionally have been pretty negative. My first one was with Angular and I hate Angular; the second is with the current hellproject that's the worst React project ever made and although I like React, it's kinda given me an allergy to Javascript and front-end in general. My coworker suffering horribly from trying to work in it has also turned me off of claiming JS as a skill.

I changed it in the new version, though.

camoseven posted:

I agree that a professional resume service would be a really good investment for you. There used to be a guy that advertised on the forums that did great work.

The more up-to-date resume I shared is based off of a resume they put together for me in the past, and I've just kept it going since.

Hughlander posted:

From graduating to now has been 4 1/2 years. Of which there's a 20 month gap from College to First place.
6 months gap from First to Last.
2 of 3 jobs, 2 months then 10 months.

Strap yourselves in for More Bullshit About Pollyanna!

- Graduated from college, tried to find a job in what I majored in, failed for like a year straight, moved back in with parents
- Started an online Masters in Bioinformatics for half a year, realized I hated it, started learning web dev on the side
- Sent out emails to startups where I lived asking if I could apprentice anywhere, and was at First Place for two or three months before they let me go (they went bankrupt like a month later)
- Decided I wasn't gonna give up what I had already been working towards and went to a web development bootcamp for 12 weeks up until Christmas of that year
- Started at Last Place after job hunting for a month after new years, left after 10 months because of disagreement with management and burnout
- Started at current place immediately afterwards and I've been there since, but now corporate has gotten its hands in the pie and people are ditching the place and I'll be hosed if I stay here

I hope that clears up my timeline. TL;DR I did a lot of schooling, which wasn't always successful, and a couple jobs turned out to be duds. That doesn't seem so strange to me.

quote:

If you want we can talk line by line but even the description of First place, "Head developer on a primarily static, mobile-safe responsive web page for client."
Doesn't tell me the reader anything of what you did, what was the tech, was this a contract and that's why there's a client? If so that should be clear. What's a head developer Apprentice? What's 'mobile safe'?

The only reason I continue to include that job is because 1. it was stuff I did actually do and 2. loving resume padding, I don't know. It was the SWE version of an internship. I want to drop it, but then my resume looks really barren. Hence my anxiety over "what the gently caress have I accomplished these past two-three years".

quote:

Even your objectives line doesn't fit the rest of the resume. You say you're full stack but there's not a single line in the resume that leads me to believe you've touched anything on the backend.

The grand majority of what I do is backend, and yeah, that might not be well explained in the resume as is, so fair point. I'm just not often given the opportunity to work on the back-end, though. I keep getting stuck into front-end roles and I don't really enjoy front-end (or poorly executed front-end, anyway). So, outside of Rails monkeying, it's hard to claim I do back-end stuff as part of my job based entirely on what I've been assigned and been put in charge of.

quote:

If I was hiring even as a junior I'd give the resume a pass within the first 7 seconds.

Ouch. This is the kinda poo poo I wanna head off - I want to be taken seriously and actually build a career, and I don't think I'm going down that path right now. That's why I want to do more hard-core work where I solve interesting problems, but those places want me to have that stuff on my resume already before they'll let me do that.

Space Gopher
Jul 31, 2006

BLITHERING IDIOT AND HARDCORE DURIAN APOLOGIST. LET ME TELL YOU WHY THIS SHIT DON'T STINK EVEN THOUGH WE ALL KNOW IT DOES BECAUSE I'M SUPER CULTURED.

Pollyanna posted:

Well, I could use some numbers for the bullet point about our internal team coordination tool - basically, we went from something like 20% of employees using it to >80% of employees, which was lauded as a huge accomplishment for some reason. But I feel bad putting that on my resume - that was a team effort and not something I did myself. What I could claim is writing the feature that got everyone to start using it more in the first place, but that still feels like bending the truth. There's very little that I can claim I, specifically, did - there's a lot of contributing to an established codebase and dealing with other people's lovely code.

No no no!

Every worthwhile thing you'll do in this industry is a team effort. You made significant contributions. Without you, the effort wouldn't have been as successful. Put that poo poo on your resume. It's not dishonest, because you were part of the effort. Don't try to claim that it was only your efforts, but you're absolutely justified in bragging a bit about what your team did with your help. When you're hired next, you'll be asked to do the same thing: take part in a team effort, deliver on your part, and help make the whole thing a success.

Once you get into the interview, you get more room to explain about exactly what your role was, the challenges you faced, and how you contributed to the overall effort.

Just for an example - a while back, I stepped into a role where I helped manage a project with a very large dollar figure attached. That number was mostly thanks to our dynamite sales team, the developers who actually built the whole thing, and the permanent management on the project who set it up for success, and I'm happy to say all that in an interview. No one person could take credit for the success. But I was one of the people who helped with getting it over the finish line, and it's a sign of trust from leadership that they let me touch it. drat right I put that $bignumber on my resume. Everyone else on the project should put the same thing on theirs and talk about their specific role in making it a success.

teen phone cutie
Jun 18, 2012

last year i rewrote something awful from scratch because i hate myself
Here's two things that I'll say just by taking a glance at the updated version.

1) Be more concise. As a rule, I usually limit myself to 3 bullet points for each position to save space and ensure your resume is one page long. Be as descriptive as you can in those 3 bullet points, while being concise.

2) I feel like you're leaving out a lot of skills. If a skill appears in a bullet point, put in in the skills section. AND VICE VERSA. You have AngularJS in one of your bullet points, but don't list it in your skills. You need to format your resume in a way where an employer can skim and then go back and read more closely if they want to know more information. Also, skill with workflow tools, such as Git, Agile, ticket-management systems, etc are as important as programming languages. Get that poo poo in the resume!

Hughlander
May 11, 2005

Pollyanna posted:

Ouch. This is the kinda poo poo I wanna head off - I want to be taken seriously and actually build a career, and I don't think I'm going down that path right now. That's why I want to do more hard-core work where I solve interesting problems, but those places want me to have that stuff on my resume already before they'll let me do that.

Looking better...

Clojure / Elixir only appears in your skills not in your work history.
AWS appears only in Last Workplace, but from your bitching I know you use it at Current Workplace.

'Interpreted and wrote the markup and styling for the site based on design documents and style.' What? I can't even. (3 ands, 2 styles, no idea what it's trying to say.)
'Heavily customized the Foundation framework for a personalized, responsive experience.' Foundation Framework isn't a skill then? how responsive is it/
Heroku isn't a skill? Maybe break out Cloud Experience: AWS, Heroku

WTF Chef and Docker experience but not called on the skills? Bold those things.
Fix keyword matching and call it Ruby on Rails at least once if not both places. (This also would address ruby only mentioned as a skill that I didn't call out above.)
'Wrote cross-application analytics feature for AngularJS business analytics application.' How many cross applications was it used in? (Include those integrated after you left)

Mniot
May 22, 2003
Not the one you know

Space Gopher posted:

Every worthwhile thing you'll do in this industry is a team effort. You made significant contributions. Without you, the effort wouldn't have been as successful. Put that poo poo on your resume. It's not dishonest, because you were part of the effort. Don't try to claim that it was only your efforts, but you're absolutely justified in bragging a bit about what your team did with your help. When you're hired next, you'll be asked to do the same thing: take part in a team effort, deliver on your part, and help make the whole thing a success.

Once you get into the interview, you get more room to explain about exactly what your role was, the challenges you faced, and how you contributed to the overall effort.

Just for an example - a while back, I stepped into a role where I helped manage a project with a very large dollar figure attached. That number was mostly thanks to our dynamite sales team, the developers who actually built the whole thing, and the permanent management on the project who set it up for success, and I'm happy to say all that in an interview. No one person could take credit for the success. But I was one of the people who helped with getting it over the finish line, and it's a sign of trust from leadership that they let me touch it. drat right I put that $bignumber on my resume. Everyone else on the project should put the same thing on theirs and talk about their specific role in making it a success.

This excellent post deserves attention, and the last paragraph is a fantastic example of how to talk in an interview: humble (but not too humble!) about their own contributions, excited about awesome stuff they did, and heaping praise on everyone they worked with. When I interview someone like this, I'm immediately imagining hearing these nice things said about me. Or the way that this person will tighten the relationship between sales and dev. Or how, since they worked with all these great people they'll probably bring some good lessons and advice over. When we circle up to discuss I'm now on the interviewee's side, which can either balance out a few slip-ups with other people or pump the offered salary when the manager keeps hearing "when can we hire them already?!"

When you hear advice about not being negative about your last company (even if it was a poo poo-hole) this is why. It's not because of lawsuits or the need to be an obedient worker-drone. It's because we all want to be around happy, smart people who like their coworkers.

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Death Zebra
May 14, 2014

So I was sniffing around this thread because a list on careerbuilder featured programming on a list of jobs that didn't require people skills but this thread, especially the OP, indicates otherwise. I take it there's basically no point in learning programming if you don't have people skills (except for non-career use)? It's not like I'm bad in that regard or dysfunctional in any way, I just ain't the smiling or socialising type.

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