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Ask HN: Why aren't I getting responses to my Who Is Hiring applications?
Hi everyone,
I've applied for dozens of jobs in the Who Is Hiring Jan 2018 thread, like I do every month. As always, I am ignored 95% of the time, with the other 5% of jobs responding "nice stuff, we'll keep in touch". The sentiment is nice, but obviously doesn't pay the bills.
The reason I'm asking is because I consider myself pretty talented. I do fullstack dev and I also design. (If you're curious you can see my resume here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VijR1MF6xDNzH9IPrsv2UxLeC8sZ8nSF2Eux7lkuYQ8/edit and my design work here: www.beaver.digital).
Are other applicants just ridiculously more skilled than I am? Or am I doing/assuming something wrong? What has been the experience of others?
Thanks.
- tlb 9y agoMy suggestion: be prouder of the fractal lens and Beaver design companies. Both are impressive. Get rid of the "limited work experience" footnote at the bottom -- you have plenty for someone 3.5 years out of college.
- nikkwong 9y agoThat's extremely helpful. Thank you so much!
- scott_s 9y agoSeconded. Fractals is probably your most relevant work experience (a business you started and run yourself), but it's listed last. Put it at the top! Talk about the technical and business challenges you solved to make it happen, and to keep it happening.
- nikkwong 9y agoThank you!
- anitil 9y agoI with this. You could replace the whole resume with "I built https://beaver.digital/ https://beaver.digital/ and https://www.getfractals.com/" https://www.getfractals.com/" and I think it would be 10x better. You've done great work, but the resume doesn't highlight it.
- nikkwong 9y agoHahaha. Thank you! I appreciate that. I'll revisit.
- chubot 9y agoHm I have interviewed hundreds of people and looked at hundreds of resumes... The thing that stands out to me is that you say since 2013 you've been the founder and sole employee at Fractals, and if I'm reading correctly, it's at least $200K in revenue a year. I didn't check out the business, and I don't know how much profit you're making. But I wonder how you divide your time between that and a "normal" job? As far as the "Who's Hiring" threads, they are mostly 9-5 jobs (or more). I don't know why people aren't contacting you, but I will say I have looked at a lot of resumes, and that's not a common thing to see. I think it should be a positive sign, but it might also be a signal that your interest is split. It's expensive to hire someone, so maybe they think you might leave if your business takes off (and maybe they wonder why you even want to work at a normal job if you have that much revenue). Honestly, a lot of companies don't want to hire generalists... they want to hire specialists. I imagine startups should want to hire generalists more.
- nikkwong 9y agoThat's true, and I can attest to one company that I really wanted to work for not hiring me specifically for that very reason (interest being split). Fractals is mostly passive income, but revenue != profit; and doing it full time would not give me much of a chance to meet interesting people in software, or—well, focus on software, which is my main area of interest. I do agree with you that I should aim the resume towards more of a single specialization instead of an "I do it all" approach—so I will revisit that. Thank you so much!
- whatyoucantsay 9y agoIt's because the "talent shortage in tech" meme is a lie. Nobody wants a competent employee in 2018. They want badass, unicorn, ninja rockstars! There's nothing "wrong" with you. It's just that the minimum bar is higher than you imagined. Keep hustling and you can clear it. Suggested reading: Average is over, by Tyler Cowen
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nikkwong 9y agoI've always somewhat believed that internally. The trade isn't the most approachable—but there are definitely a lot of smart people in the world and in effect the job market ends up being crowded. Thank you!
- lsc 9y agoI think the standards on HN are higher (for the same money) and in general, the standards for remote work are higher (again, for the same money.) - From interviewing people for sit-down in-person contracting positions at big companies in silicon valley proper? Finding someone who is just competent is quite difficult, even when offering much better money than 'startups' tend to offer. As for the unicorn ninja rockstar thing, I'm pretty sure that's just startup talk for "We want someone enthusiastic and confident" - which usually means they have to lower their expectations in other areas (which is part of why they shoot for early career folks;)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- goelakash 9y agoOne thing I find is that you're description of your work-experiences is very curt. I know you want to keep it long enough not to bore the recruiter/manager types, but you may as well brag a bit more in depth so that they may expect the amazing things you are wiling to do for them.
- nikkwong 9y agoThank you!
- JonRB 9y agoThe one thing I can recommend making your resume more visually appealing. In its current state it's a very bare document and to me looks more like a bullet outline of a resume. This could mean you come off as not having put a lot of effort into making it. Obviously don't overdo it, but making it look like a professional document will give you a much better starting point. When I opened the link, I had to come back to the Ask HN post to see if you had stripped the styling from your resume. You clearly have a wealth of experience in a number of fields, don't let the formatting let you down. Your resume is supposed to advertise you and make you sound appealing. I agree with tlb's suggestion to get rid of the 'limited work experience' footnote, it's not doing you any favours.
- nikkwong 9y agoThank you! I hadn't visited the formatting since college so I suppose it's time to give it another look :-). Appreciate the tip.
- bko 9y agoDon't put education first. At quick glance it looks like you majored in business so the reviewer would think that you have little experience in web development. I would put work experience, then skills and then education on the bottom. Move up Fractals up top and rephrase this: > revenues of multiple 6 figures annually. With revenues of $100,000+ or similar. An actual number would stick out more. Also as someone else has noted, get rid of the apologetic footnote.
- JonRB 9y agoI also second the reordering - You have lots of interesting experience, make it the most prominent thing there by putting it at the top!
- nikkwong 9y agoExtremely helpful. I think I have a habit of thinking my design choices are "good enough" and then totally neglecting them—even if they were flawed to begin with. I'll revisit—thank you!
- cosmie 9y agoNot specific to your resume itself, but be careful of your phrasing when speaking to potential employers. You mentioned in your OP that you do design work. And here you’re throwing out a statement that could instill doubt related to your competency with design work. Others have given you fantastic feedback on the resume itself, so I won’t go there. But I wanted to point out how easy it is to add in extraneous details while speaking that can undermine otherwise solid interviews. The above could have the entire middle cut out and say “Extremely helpful. I’ll revisit - thank you” and an interviewer would see it as being open to feedback and a net positive. With your original statement, they’d see “lacks confidence in design skills, but mentioned design skills. Wonder what other listed skills they’re not sure about” and the positive component of being open to feedback would be lost. Your openness may just be due to this not being an interview environment. But wanted to point it out just in case. :)
- lykr0n 9y agoExpand on the line items under work experience and reduce the skills/interest. You need info on what you did during the position. > Web application development (ReactJS & VueJS). Java API development. ^^ Doesn't really tell me much about what you did. Java API? What framework? Did you design the Interface or just implement it? Details!!
- nikkwong 9y agoInteresting—my general belief always was that those kind of details would be disclosed later in the interview process (as to not 'crowd out' the resume). But that makes sense–I guess I'll have to give that belief a revisiting. Thank you!
- znpy 9y agoThink about it: you are explicitly saying what you are using on the front-end (React, Vue) but you skip doing the same for the back-end. That does not make sense.
- lykr0n 9y agoFor Resumes, this is what I've been told by multiple people. - One page for cold or warm leads, such as whose hiring threads or online application. Two pages at most, for familiar leads (such as 2nd day interviews), such as "hey, we're looking for someone like you, if you shoot me your resume I can pass it on". The difference here is detail on positions. - Keep education short and to the point. School, degree, program, and anything of note. GPA if it matters (say Business and Accounting) or is of note (3.5+) - Highlight competent skills. Angular JS implies Javascript. Only list stuff that you are fine jumping into doing. I can do networking, but at a Jr. level. It's not on highlighted on my resume. Nobody cares about something you can kinda do well. You're not being hired on that. - Buzzwords, in moderation, are your friend. People, myself included, will scan until something pops out. - Focus on work experience. Describe what you did at the role. Describe your responsibilities. Describe your performance and accomplishments. Describe why you remained employed. Think of this as the 30 seconds to pickup someone at a bar. Give information, but leave room for them to be able to ask you about yourself. This is what you will be interviewed off of. When you are talking to someone- they have seen your resume and think you can work for them- they are trying to figure out if you have what they need. If your resume doesn't appear to be what they are looking for, they will move on. "Java?" "API Development?" "Spring Framework?" "Increased application performance by 20% in some cases while rewriting ORM" will not only be impressive, but the person reading will want to know more, like how and what you did. The previous statement shows an impressive accomplishment, while implying you know what you are doing and you can bring it to them, and also brings a tangible number. Follow ups could be, "What did you do to increase performance?" "How did you rewrite the ORM?" "How did you measure the performance increase?" "What cases did you see a performance increase?" "Build a Java API" leaves too much to question and doesn't tell much about what you did. There is too much to follow up on, and there is a good chance that they won't waste the effort. A better line would be "Implemented a high performance Java API using the Spring framework on top of an existing application for internal customers." That gives more information, some details, and leaves room for the interviewer to ask questions.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoRemove this from your resume entirely: My work experience is limited because of my involvement with Fractals. I am a highly trained and experienced software engineer—please don’t take my limited experience as a reflection of skill. Remove the word "interests" from the section titled Skills/interests. Remove repetitive and vague phrases. You say over and over that you have substantial experience in various things. It is a meaningless phrase to start with, made worse by overuse. Move the education section to the end of the document. You currently have it at the top. It isn't irrelevant, but it isn't the first thing people should see either. Remove this: Passionate about learning and using technology to solve problems. It is not useful on a resume. Replace that line with one specifying in a nutshell what your qualifications are, such as Programmer and designer specialized in Fractals.
- nikkwong 9y agothank you!
- zapperdapper 9y agoAgree with all of Doreen's comments plus "Fluent in server-side technologies such as non-relational databases; NodeJS, etc" - sounds vague. Don't use 'etc.'. I would consider removing all this and having a SUMMARY section and KEY EXPERIENCE section and expanding on specifics in the work experience section. Try a few different formats. I think the format of you current work experience section could be greatly improved - the dates could come first - at the moment they appear to wrap over on to the next line - not good for a designer! There are a number of other ways the CV could be greatly improved. Once you've sorted your CV then I would consider where you are applying. You should perhaps consider applying through agencies or directly for advertised jobs. Also use tools like GlassDoor and Stack jobs. Good luck!
- nikkwong 9y agoThrough agencies or directly for advertised jobs, as opposed to what? Those are the only things I would consider. Thank you!
- kogir 9y agoThese are just my opinion, but when I'm looking at resumes I want to see what the applicant has done. Tangible, real accomplishments. Describe what you've done with your skills. What have you machined? What hardware did you design? What did you weld? At the companies you worked at, what specifically did you do? A feature for the website? Which one? If you're applying for a programming role, don't lead with your seemingly not-directly-related BA. Put it at the bottom. Basically, after reading your resume I don't feel I know anything about what you've actually done. That's my biggest problem.
- nikkwong 9y agoThat gives me a lot of insight—thank you!
- nexus2045 9y agoYour skills section says you know everything, but your resume basically contradicts / trolls itself. Get rid of these red flags first. Work experience should be at the top. Heck, I'm sure you've done some software development work even as a solopreneur; others here have made similar points. Job hunting is essentially marketing yourself (in this case your relevant skills and experience) for a specific audience (engineering manager that wants to see what things you've built, HR that wants to look for tech buzzwords).
- nikkwong 9y agoGot it, thank you. Maybe part of the problem is I just haven't seen many 'good' resumes. If you google 'resume examples'—most of the examples are pretty laughable. I'll rethink it in the light you've presented. Thank you!
- bjourne 9y agoYour CV is very unattractive. I would even say ugly. Learn Latex and make a good looking one. You also need to write more for each position you have held. "Web application development (ReactJS & VueJS). Java API development." Doesn't cut it. Instead, write a paragraph describing your role in detail and exactly what you did there. Your site has blinking headlines, which imho looks very amateurish. Also, skilled web designers are a dime to a dozen. Skilled programmers on the other hand are much rarer. Good luck with your job hunt! Not giving up is the key!
- nikkwong 9y agoHaha. Thank you—I will definitely revisit the design. :). Is it true that skilled designers are rarer than skilled developers? Having done both I'd say they both present their own unique challenges.
- matt_the_bass 9y agoI think it is fantastic that the HN community is taking the time to provide constructive feedback and recommendations. Kudos to all those replying in this thread.
- nikkwong 9y agoYeah, did not expect to get any replies whatsoever. What I'm getting instead is extremely enlightening and will cause me to rethink my approach completely. Very lucky to have the opportunity to participate in such a great community.
- matt_the_bass 9y agoAlso, having your resume as an example, these comments can probably be applied to others with similar questions.
- nikkwong 9y agowould love for the help for me to translate to others :-)
- andrewstuart 9y agoI have read about 120,000 resumes. "Fluent" "Proficient" "Substantial" "Professional experience" are all "filler" words/phrases that add no value, remove them. A resume should be clear about: 1: exactly what sort of job are you wanting? "Seeking full time salaried JavaScript/Java developer". Be clear so that the reader knows if you fit that job that they have in mind whilst they are reading your resume. 2: What are your current, primary technical skills that you have substantial skill with - do NOT list every technology your have written a few lines of code with. Focus. There's no right or wrong about this, but I don't like ultra short resumes. If you spent time getting educated or working on large projects then this is your opportunity to sell me on yourself. I feel like short resumes mean you haven't done much or are not very good at articulating technical topics. It makes no sense to me that someone would have a dry, ultra short, black and white resume which includes a link at the bottom to the folio of an apparently entirely different person. Why not have screenshots and discussions of your projects in your resume. Where is the phone number? Hopefully you are not applying for jobs by sending a link to this online document. When you apply for a job, email the resume document in PDF or Word format and make sure it includes a phone number. As a recruiter I am far too busy to be bothered emailing people who provide only an email address as their primary mechanism of contact. 999/1000 resumes include a phone number.
- jenscow 9y ago> do NOT list every technology your have written a few lines of code with Right! I've been on both sides of a question based on an old/weak skill, in an interview.
- chris11 9y ago> exactly what sort of job are you wanting? "Seeking full time salaried JavaScript/Java developer" I've heard conflicting advice on that. Is an objective really necessary? I have more than one thing that I"m interested in, so there's more than one reason I could be really excited for a job. It seems like that statement might be too specific for general applications, and not specific enough to explain why I'm excited about that one job. It sounds like something I would put in a cover letter or email.
- lsc 9y agoMy experience has been that when you are looking for a job working for other people after being self-employed is that the boss thinks you were "self-employed" - you have to get over this idea (in the mind of the hiring manager) that being self-employed is just a euphemism for being unemployed. Some things you can do: Write about technical projects you did for your company... write them up a little like they were different jobs, formatting wise. At least in the sysadmin world it really helps to make sure you include the keywords for the tools you used in those projects. Remove the apology for the lack of experience... if you can list good projects you did for fractals, you won't need to apologize or plead, it will show what you were doing. One way of thinking about it, depending on what sort of job you are applying for, is that you are trying to re-cast your experience at your company as employee work. I mean, I technically have been an employee of prgmr.com for the last decade. That's absolutely true, and the IRS can verify, even though I have also been majority owner for most of that time. Most technical jobs don't actually care that you are 'entrepreneurial' - they care about your technical abilities, so recast on that, if you are applying for an employee job. Fundamentally? that's the problem with trying to get employee work after working for yourself. You need to convince your boss you actually were doing something during your period of self employment - that you weren't just unemployed. The next problem, of course, is convincing the boss that you will focus on their company and not yours, but in my experience, that comes up after they are already interested. You need to be prepared for the question, though; I've definitely bombed some interviews because I was not.
- fern12 9y agoAdd a link to your LinkedIn profile. I just searched for you, and came up with a over a dozen guys with the same name, many with a similar background.
- znpy 9y agoImho we should have something like an once-every-two-months thread in which we publish an anonymous version of our CV and can get constructive feedback.
- mindcrime 9y agoTwo points stand out to me: 1. You have a very broad and varied background, with experience doing a lot of different things. This is a Good Thing in general, BUT... a lot of companies just don't know how to use (or hire) somebody like you. Usually they have a req for a (very) specific position, and a list of (very, maybe overly) specific skills and experience they are expecting to find in the "right candidate". It's hard for them to translate from your resume to their way of thinking. It's an indictment of the company more than you, but you have to accommodate reality. My advice would be to pick some "thing" that is going to be your specialty (front end development with React, backend development with Java, hardware stuff, whatever) and make that the clear focus of your resume, with everything else mentioned as just sort of an "extra" or "bonus". Hell, go so far as to even put a "Bonus Skills" section on your resume and say "In addition to the above, you'll also be getting somebody who can do: <foo>, <bar>, <baz>, <etc>". Note that if you take this approach it's probably even more true that you may want to tailor your resume to match the position your applying for. 2. Your work on Fractals. It's not clear from your resume how important that is to you and how much of your time it takes up. A potential employer may be wondering if they're getting somebody who's going to be more focused on their own thing, than their work for $EMPLOYER. I don't have a definite answer for how to deal with that, even though I've had to deal with the exact same issue. All I can say is, try to find a way to make it clear that you truly have full-time availability (assuming you actually do) and will be committing to work at $EMPLOYER full-time despite the presence of Fractals. OR, if you really don't want to work full-time, say so outright. Just note that not a lot of companies want to hire part-time people. If you really want to go that route, you might have more success setting up shop as a freelancer and do corp-to-corp contracting. Edit: It just occurred to me that, while most resume experts in this day and age recommend against having an "objective" on your resume, you might well benefit from that. Imagine this: Objective: full-time employment as a front-end web development specialist using React, Javascript and related technologies. That would serve two ends: by putting "full-time" in there explicitly it could help assuage concerns about your availability w/r/t Fractals, and the rest helps nail down exactly what it is you're looking to do. Then tune the rest of your resume to provide support for the idea that you are, indeed, qualified to do "front-end web development specialist using React, Javascript and related technologies" (or whatever you put down in the objective).
- IncRnd 9y agoAfter reading the resume, I'm not sure what you have done or could do to help. For example, "Fluent in Javascript ES6. Proficient in Java, other common languages, and several web frameworks," tells nothing about what you actually did to benefit an employer or use a technology.
- tootie 9y agoLast time I sprayed my resume I got zero responses. Then 3 months later I got offered 5 interviews. Sometimes recruiters are just slow.
- dsego 9y agoYou need to write a convincing and enthusiastic email (cover letter). Highlight things from your resume which are most relevant for that job. Do you have a github account? List it and push some code, anything you have, even exercises and toy projects. In your resume's experience section write in more detail about what exactly you did. Did you use redux with react? What TDD software or tools? Which parts did you actually code, the login page, the whole UI, or something else? What have you learned? Which Java framework did you use amd so on.
- nikkwong 9y agoThank you!
- purplezooey 9y agoIsn't the problem that nobody really reads resumes that come in without a referral. Sad, but true.
- nikkwong 9y agoMy experience would suggest that this is true.
- bewe42 9y agoKeep in mind that HN is just a small window to the whole IT world. Look at other, less narrowed places.
- lee101 9y agoI spent a bit of work on my resume which i made open source: http://leepenkman.appspot.com/ http://leepenkman.appspot.com/ Your website www.getfractals.com and https://beaver.digital/ https://beaver.digital/ looks beautiful and works well, with your C.V. your marketing yourself just as you would market a company, make your C.V. hip like your websites Also do as many comments suggest here, reorder things, i think your website and fractal experience is a huge selling point, My games probably got me a job here at Weta doing visual effects, Also Weta is hiring https://careers.wetafx.co.nz/jobs?search=&sort=recent https://careers.wetafx.co.nz/jobs?search=&sort=recent Your experience developing fractals would be useful e.g. in writing Shaders here in Visual effects i'm sure. I agree you should try and tailor to a specific job e.g. that might mean removing things about hardware/fabrication if its not relevant to a job and adding other things that are.
- nikkwong 9y agoHey, thank you so much, very helpful. Working at somewhere like Weta looks like it'd be extremely fun but I can't seem to find a job on the site that matches my skillset. I'll stay on the look out, though. :-) thank you!