8 ms·

Once a Dynamo, the Tech Sector Is Slow to Hire

47 points by j_baker 16y ago

carbocation 16y ago
The author concludes, "The experience of Ms. Mann and others like her suggests that the technology industry may not be the savior of the American job market and a magic bullet for a moribund economy — even though the Obama administration has called for a revival of math and science training and emphasized the need for American companies to take the lead in fields like clean energy." She assumes that insights from a subset of the tech sector (programming) will hold true for the entire sector. However, she has given me no reason to believe this assumption of hers to be true.
- kingkawn 16y ago
  Anything to find a kink in Obama's plans.
- petercooper 16y ago
  She also has a disconnect in the time periods involved. When politicians talk about "re-educating" the work force, it's a mid to long term project. You can't just roll out hundreds of six month PHP courses and expect tens of thousands of smart, qualified developers overnight (or bridge engineers, or machine operatives, or whatever).
j_baker 16y ago
Personally, I think the majority of the issue is that hiring is still considered an open problem in the tech world. We know a lot about who not to hire, but little about who to hire. I don't know what the solution to the problem is either. Tech companies can't just open up the floodgates to every idiot who says they can program.
- kranner 16y ago
  The principal of a research lab I used to work at had 80%-solutions to common management problems, which he stuck with and which seem to have paid off remarkably well on average, at least at the scale of that lab. His technique for hiring programmers: (unpaid) probation for 30 days, no exceptions. He almost always confirms sooner than that, but 30 days is the limit for someone who isn't working out. edit: to stress: I AM NOT recommending this as general business practice.
  - j_baker 16y ago
    You mean he honestly recruited only programmers who were willing to work for 30 days without pay? Sorry, but I'm a human being with bills to pay. I don't offer a "try before you buy" period.
    - kranner 16y ago
      Whoops, I should have stayed around to field replies. I should have mentioned that most programmers who look to join are grad student aspirants who want to enter the institute's prestigious PhD program via that route. The alternative to that is the mainstream route which has an entrance exam and a huge amount of competition. The other thing is that this is a world-class research lab in an area attractive enough to hacker-types that the young people who apply are not too worried about the money. These are of course young folks with no dependents. You get free or cheap housing and food, and access to a wonderful library, etc. It's about as exploitative as grad school, let's just say. This of course voids any suggestion you might think I made to adopt this as a general business practice.
  - oconnore 16y ago
    That guarantees you find people who are desperate. Personally, I would walk out. A month of my time is very valuable, and I am not keen on giving it away. Especially when the risk is subjective and not necessarily under my control.
  - tokenadult 16y ago
    How was that research lab organized? Organizations that aren't bona-fide nonprofit charities trying to hire volunteers get themselves into really bad legal exposure under Fair Labor Standards Acts and other regulations. Maybe the desperate workers have never called him on that, but an unpaid month of work from every worker the lab hires adds up to a lot of legal liability, unless there is some specific exemption here you haven't told us about.
    - kranner 16y ago
      You're assuming it's in the US, it isn't.
- petercooper 16y ago
  Looking at online presences is an increasingly common way to find solid developers. 37signals wrote about how they only hire people based on their open source contributions in Getting Real: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch08_Actions_Not_Words.php http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch08_Actions_Not_Words.php It's far from a universal technique, but you can tell a lot about someone's sincerity and true skill level by seeing books or blog posts they've written, their open source contribution and projects, their Twitter account, screencasts they've made, citations to talks they've given, and what not. Geeks cut from all cloths who want more doors to open in future need to keep their digital "footprint" in mind and strive to maintain and build a good image and do great public work.
- Tamerlin 16y ago
  That is, however, precisely what they did during the .com boom.
ericflo 16y ago
This article doesn't seem to match up with reality. There are so many companies out there looking for talented developers, it's staggering.
- il 16y ago
  I think that's the problem. Everyone wants talented developers. Many companies can no longer afford to hire less talented developers who many have been able to get a job in a booming economy. And I'm not mentioning the millions of liberal arts majors who used to be quietly employed but now are finding that many companies simply don't want or need them. That's why I think the recession and unemployment will persist for a very long time- many of those lost jobs just aren't coming back.
  - smokinn 16y ago
    I think you hit the nail on the head. Everyone wants talented developers because companies typically pay them only incrementally more than lousy developers even though they're vastly more productive. Perhaps the reason people are having trouble finding jobs and companies are having trouble finding people is because both sides are realizing this but companies are still offering the same terms which the talented developers are rejecting either by seeking out the companies offering more pay, the companies offering better projects and teams or by rejecting the system entirely and starting their own companies where they can be the ones that reap the rewards of their efforts rather than the often disproportionately paid executive staff.
    - mkramlich 16y ago
      And as the most talented developers increasingly realize they get shafted pay-wise working at most companies, compared to running their own business, more of them will start their own, stay indie, become an ISV, a consultant, co-founder, etc.
  - muhfuhkuh 16y ago
    "the millions of liberal arts majors who used to be quietly employed but now are finding that many companies simply don't want or need them" Come on. I know the general disdain for liberal arts amongst this crowd, but couldn't you instead pick on, oh I don't know, those who never even went to college or even finished high school? The unemployment rate for those with college degrees _of any kind_ is 4.5%. Among non-degree holders over 9%, and among non-diploma holders over 12%. Yet, you're assuming it's all those philosophy majors that make up the bulk of the unemployed? Case in point, I'm an English major who has been working for a major mid-sized public software company for over 8 years now making about 40k above the median US household income, not including bonuses or stock options. Believe me when I say I'm not one of the luckier ones, as I have colleagues in the same field (technical publication writing, course developers, or technology journalists) that make US$110000 or more depending on the region and experience level. Employers look to a degree - _any_ degree - for proof that a candidate has discipline and is a generalist who can adapt to fast-moving actions and targets all under tight deadlines; a person who, through creativity _and_ technical prowess, can solve business problems and work with clients, partners, and fellow associates. That seriously can't _just_ be CS majors. In fact, what makes you think you're safe, if _FTA_ it says you'll have to bring more to the table than just a CS degree with some C++ or Java skills? You're just as vulnerable if you're an average coder than if you're an average desktop support jockey or technical writer.
locopati 16y ago
Once upon a time, companies trained competent people to do specifically what they needed.
- j_baker 16y ago
  That only works in certain fields though. For example, would you see a Doctor whose only training was on-the-job?
  - maxawaytoolong 16y ago
    Doctors pretty much are trained on the job during their residency.
    - kranner 16y ago
      But they do go to medical school before that. Grandparent said : whose only training.
    - akshayubhat 16y ago
      Wow, Doctors are different case altogether Their supply is limited and controlled, anyone can come and say that they are "web programmer" after reading HTML/CSS/Ruby, Even Universities increase class sizes arbitrarily. All this is not possible in medical profession. Doctors are few, they are trained extensively, not anyone reading anatomy book can go for a residency!
      - Tamerlin 16y ago
        That's exactly the problem, IMO -- the bar for entry in the tech industry is altogether too low. The glut of unqualified but formerly employed tech workers is symptomatic of that. And if anyone ever had any doubt about the veracity of claims that the bar is too low, they have only to spend some time reading the Daily WTF... though I suspect that most people outside of the tech industry would prefer to remain blissfully ignorant and assume that the content at the Daily WTF is the exception, rather than the rule.
  - 16y ago
ojbyrne 16y ago
“I’m sending out lots and lots and lots of applications, to everywhere within a 50-mile radius,” says Rosamaria Carbonell Mann, 49.... ... We are firing up our college recruiting program, enduring all manner of humiliation to try to fill these jobs,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin" No disconnect there.
- tptacek 16y ago
  The disconnect is called "572 miles of Interstate 5". Unfortunately, if we were talking about, say, Intel instead of Redfin, the disconnect would be called "81 miles of Interstate 5 to Portland", because this woman's problem is that she lives in the middle of nowhere.
  - maxawaytoolong 16y ago
    I have to agree with this. A startup I worked for long ago sold a contract to HP in Corvalis, Oregon. I spent two weeks getting things set up and training the staff. It took an hour to get there from Eugene, which required a 2-connection flight from Boston. I was surprised there was such a huge campus out there where programmers could work. It would have been great to work out there while it lasted. One of the software engineers I worked with had a pretty typical programmer salary and owned a small ranch, horses, an expensive BMW motorcycle, could support 3 kids and a wife who only worked part time, etc. Unfortunately, I think this sort of situation is rare and a bit risky to your career... if your job disappears there aren't many alternatives unless you move far away.
    - ojbyrne 16y ago
      The key part of the article might be this bit: "The experience of Ms. Mann and others like her suggests that the technology industry may not be the savior of the American job market and a magic bullet for a moribund economy." Fred Brooks told use quite a while ago that there's no magic bullet.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
chubs 16y ago
Why don't more americans simply start your own business? If i was laid off for an extended period, that'd be what i'd do.
- forkandwait 16y ago
  See my rant at the top. We in the US don't train our young to be entrepeneurs anymore.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
forkandwait 16y ago
(Forgive me, I feel a barely related rant coming on...) Quote: 'Corvallis was once a hotbed for tech start-ups. But Ms. Mann said that with layoffs from other tech companies in the area, including Hewlett-Packard, the city now has a glut of people like herself: unemployed engineers with multiple degrees. “I apply for everything I can find, but there are just not that many jobs out there,” she said.' I used to live near Corvallis (a wonderful area, by the way), and was always struck by how economic development discussions were ONLY focused on how to get a large employer to move to town (both high and low tech). NEVER was there a discussion about how to enable and facilitate "unemployed engineers with multiple degrees" to start making their own damn companies and exporting either goods or services. It seems to me that entrepeneurship is requires no more special magic power than getting a degree in CS, but we never even consider acculturating a bunch of people to engage in it. Why always job training for somebody else's company? Why not a massive effort to teach people how to do the basic bookeeping and salesmanship to run small to medium size businesses? If 15% of the unemployed engineers in Corvallis could start companies that hired 5 full timers, they would (probably) have a booming economy all over again. Shit, maybe we could start exporting to China (I think they value entrepeneurship and industrialization there...). Isn't this supposed to be a capitalist nation, for chrissakes? Carnegie didn't wait around for someone to move to his town and give him a job because he had the right training! If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say that we are all being trained to be docile robots in large institutions that are initiated and controlled by other people who are aware that there is an international class struggle, and they are afraid that we might discover we can do it for ourselves and toss them (and their tax breaks) over. (Sorry, I just got a little emotional...)
- Tamerlin 16y ago
  The Every Child Left Behind program suggests that it's not a theory. Placing an emphasis on standardized testing is symptomatic of exactly that -- train the intellect and imagination out of the populace... they're easier to control then. Teachers are rewarded not for what they teach their students, but rather how well their students do on the standardized tests. So now not only are we forcing everyone to abide by the lowest common denominator, we're penalizing teachers who try to do their job, and rewarding the ones that game the system by teaching their students how to take the standardized test.
b1twise 16y ago
I've just been through a round of hiring--and it was more painful than it has ever been. It was a telecommute position for US candidates only. The quality of applications was abysmally low. The majority of applications were Java programmers who couldn't be bothered to a) read the instructions on how to submit their application or b) write a cover letter AT ALL. I don't care if you have a degree. Write a good cover letter, have a resume that isn't all HR keywords spam and actually tells me about your skills, and PUBLISH somewhere. Have a blog that shows me what you're doing and that you can write. Publish some code on Github or contribute to a larger project so I can go look at your work.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  >The majority of applications were Java programmers who couldn't be bothered to a) read the instructions on how to submit their application or b) write a cover letter AT ALL. Properly because if you simply send the same letter you can send the same to 10 companies in the time it takes to conform to the wishes of one company. And until you are ten times more likely to be hired that way, you are still ahead (unless you are Google, all a large companies are essentially the same, so it doesn't really matter where you get hired). As for publishing a blog, you are hireing software engineers, not writers. Sure you expect them to be able to write, just as you expect them to be able to speak, but you don't hire speakers either.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    you can send the same to 10 companies in the time it takes to conform to the wishes of one company. And until you are ten times more likely to be hired that way Incorrect. 10 times zero is zero. If you don't put any thought into applying for a job, you have next to no chance of getting called in for an interview. On the other hand, 1 times something is something. If you take the time (measured in minutes) to learn a bit about the company and job in question, and change two sentences on your cover letter to talk about those things, you'll find yourself moved off the big tall stack of "idiot who didn't even bother" resumes and into the tiny little pile of "maybe we should call this guy" ones.

47 points by j_baker 16y ago

The author concludes, "The experience of Ms. Mann and others like her suggests that the technology industry may not be the savior of the American job market and a magic bullet for a moribund economy — even though the Obama administration has called for a revival of math and science training and emphasized the need for American companies to take the lead in fields like clean energy." She assumes that insights from a subset of the tech sector (programming) will hold true for the entire sector. However, she has given me no reason to believe this assumption of hers to be true.

kingkawn 16y ago
Anything to find a kink in Obama's plans.
petercooper 16y ago
She also has a disconnect in the time periods involved. When politicians talk about "re-educating" the work force, it's a mid to long term project. You can't just roll out hundreds of six month PHP courses and expect tens of thousands of smart, qualified developers overnight (or bridge engineers, or machine operatives, or whatever).

j_baker 16y ago

Personally, I think the majority of the issue is that hiring is still considered an open problem in the tech world. We know a lot about who not to hire, but little about who to hire. I don't know what the solution to the problem is either. Tech companies can't just open up the floodgates to every idiot who says they can program.

kranner 16y ago
The principal of a research lab I used to work at had 80%-solutions to common management problems, which he stuck with and which seem to have paid off remarkably well on average, at least at the scale of that lab. His technique for hiring programmers: (unpaid) probation for 30 days, no exceptions. He almost always confirms sooner than that, but 30 days is the limit for someone who isn't working out. edit: to stress: I AM NOT recommending this as general business practice.
- j_baker 16y ago
  You mean he honestly recruited only programmers who were willing to work for 30 days without pay? Sorry, but I'm a human being with bills to pay. I don't offer a "try before you buy" period.
  - kranner 16y ago
    Whoops, I should have stayed around to field replies. I should have mentioned that most programmers who look to join are grad student aspirants who want to enter the institute's prestigious PhD program via that route. The alternative to that is the mainstream route which has an entrance exam and a huge amount of competition. The other thing is that this is a world-class research lab in an area attractive enough to hacker-types that the young people who apply are not too worried about the money. These are of course young folks with no dependents. You get free or cheap housing and food, and access to a wonderful library, etc. It's about as exploitative as grad school, let's just say. This of course voids any suggestion you might think I made to adopt this as a general business practice.
- oconnore 16y ago
  That guarantees you find people who are desperate. Personally, I would walk out. A month of my time is very valuable, and I am not keen on giving it away. Especially when the risk is subjective and not necessarily under my control.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  How was that research lab organized? Organizations that aren't bona-fide nonprofit charities trying to hire volunteers get themselves into really bad legal exposure under Fair Labor Standards Acts and other regulations. Maybe the desperate workers have never called him on that, but an unpaid month of work from every worker the lab hires adds up to a lot of legal liability, unless there is some specific exemption here you haven't told us about.
  - kranner 16y ago
    You're assuming it's in the US, it isn't.
petercooper 16y ago
Looking at online presences is an increasingly common way to find solid developers. 37signals wrote about how they only hire people based on their open source contributions in Getting Real: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch08_Actions_Not_Words.php http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch08_Actions_Not_Words.php It's far from a universal technique, but you can tell a lot about someone's sincerity and true skill level by seeing books or blog posts they've written, their open source contribution and projects, their Twitter account, screencasts they've made, citations to talks they've given, and what not. Geeks cut from all cloths who want more doors to open in future need to keep their digital "footprint" in mind and strive to maintain and build a good image and do great public work.
Tamerlin 16y ago
That is, however, precisely what they did during the .com boom.

ericflo 16y ago

This article doesn't seem to match up with reality. There are so many companies out there looking for talented developers, it's staggering.

il 16y ago
I think that's the problem. Everyone wants talented developers. Many companies can no longer afford to hire less talented developers who many have been able to get a job in a booming economy. And I'm not mentioning the millions of liberal arts majors who used to be quietly employed but now are finding that many companies simply don't want or need them. That's why I think the recession and unemployment will persist for a very long time- many of those lost jobs just aren't coming back.
- smokinn 16y ago
  I think you hit the nail on the head. Everyone wants talented developers because companies typically pay them only incrementally more than lousy developers even though they're vastly more productive. Perhaps the reason people are having trouble finding jobs and companies are having trouble finding people is because both sides are realizing this but companies are still offering the same terms which the talented developers are rejecting either by seeking out the companies offering more pay, the companies offering better projects and teams or by rejecting the system entirely and starting their own companies where they can be the ones that reap the rewards of their efforts rather than the often disproportionately paid executive staff.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    And as the most talented developers increasingly realize they get shafted pay-wise working at most companies, compared to running their own business, more of them will start their own, stay indie, become an ISV, a consultant, co-founder, etc.
- muhfuhkuh 16y ago
  "the millions of liberal arts majors who used to be quietly employed but now are finding that many companies simply don't want or need them" Come on. I know the general disdain for liberal arts amongst this crowd, but couldn't you instead pick on, oh I don't know, those who never even went to college or even finished high school? The unemployment rate for those with college degrees _of any kind_ is 4.5%. Among non-degree holders over 9%, and among non-diploma holders over 12%. Yet, you're assuming it's all those philosophy majors that make up the bulk of the unemployed? Case in point, I'm an English major who has been working for a major mid-sized public software company for over 8 years now making about 40k above the median US household income, not including bonuses or stock options. Believe me when I say I'm not one of the luckier ones, as I have colleagues in the same field (technical publication writing, course developers, or technology journalists) that make US$110000 or more depending on the region and experience level. Employers look to a degree - _any_ degree - for proof that a candidate has discipline and is a generalist who can adapt to fast-moving actions and targets all under tight deadlines; a person who, through creativity _and_ technical prowess, can solve business problems and work with clients, partners, and fellow associates. That seriously can't _just_ be CS majors. In fact, what makes you think you're safe, if _FTA_ it says you'll have to bring more to the table than just a CS degree with some C++ or Java skills? You're just as vulnerable if you're an average coder than if you're an average desktop support jockey or technical writer.

locopati 16y ago

Once upon a time, companies trained competent people to do specifically what they needed.

j_baker 16y ago
That only works in certain fields though. For example, would you see a Doctor whose only training was on-the-job?
- maxawaytoolong 16y ago
  Doctors pretty much are trained on the job during their residency.
  - kranner 16y ago
    But they do go to medical school before that. Grandparent said : whose only training.
  - akshayubhat 16y ago
    Wow, Doctors are different case altogether Their supply is limited and controlled, anyone can come and say that they are "web programmer" after reading HTML/CSS/Ruby, Even Universities increase class sizes arbitrarily. All this is not possible in medical profession. Doctors are few, they are trained extensively, not anyone reading anatomy book can go for a residency!
    - Tamerlin 16y ago
      That's exactly the problem, IMO -- the bar for entry in the tech industry is altogether too low. The glut of unqualified but formerly employed tech workers is symptomatic of that. And if anyone ever had any doubt about the veracity of claims that the bar is too low, they have only to spend some time reading the Daily WTF... though I suspect that most people outside of the tech industry would prefer to remain blissfully ignorant and assume that the content at the Daily WTF is the exception, rather than the rule.
- 16y ago

ojbyrne 16y ago

“I’m sending out lots and lots and lots of applications, to everywhere within a 50-mile radius,” says Rosamaria Carbonell Mann, 49.... ... We are firing up our college recruiting program, enduring all manner of humiliation to try to fill these jobs,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin" No disconnect there.

tptacek 16y ago
The disconnect is called "572 miles of Interstate 5". Unfortunately, if we were talking about, say, Intel instead of Redfin, the disconnect would be called "81 miles of Interstate 5 to Portland", because this woman's problem is that she lives in the middle of nowhere.
- maxawaytoolong 16y ago
  I have to agree with this. A startup I worked for long ago sold a contract to HP in Corvalis, Oregon. I spent two weeks getting things set up and training the staff. It took an hour to get there from Eugene, which required a 2-connection flight from Boston. I was surprised there was such a huge campus out there where programmers could work. It would have been great to work out there while it lasted. One of the software engineers I worked with had a pretty typical programmer salary and owned a small ranch, horses, an expensive BMW motorcycle, could support 3 kids and a wife who only worked part time, etc. Unfortunately, I think this sort of situation is rare and a bit risky to your career... if your job disappears there aren't many alternatives unless you move far away.
  - ojbyrne 16y ago
    The key part of the article might be this bit: "The experience of Ms. Mann and others like her suggests that the technology industry may not be the savior of the American job market and a magic bullet for a moribund economy." Fred Brooks told use quite a while ago that there's no magic bullet.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

chubs 16y ago

Why don't more americans simply start your own business? If i was laid off for an extended period, that'd be what i'd do.

forkandwait 16y ago
See my rant at the top. We in the US don't train our young to be entrepeneurs anymore.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

forkandwait 16y ago

(Forgive me, I feel a barely related rant coming on...) Quote: 'Corvallis was once a hotbed for tech start-ups. But Ms. Mann said that with layoffs from other tech companies in the area, including Hewlett-Packard, the city now has a glut of people like herself: unemployed engineers with multiple degrees. “I apply for everything I can find, but there are just not that many jobs out there,” she said.' I used to live near Corvallis (a wonderful area, by the way), and was always struck by how economic development discussions were ONLY focused on how to get a large employer to move to town (both high and low tech). NEVER was there a discussion about how to enable and facilitate "unemployed engineers with multiple degrees" to start making their own damn companies and exporting either goods or services. It seems to me that entrepeneurship is requires no more special magic power than getting a degree in CS, but we never even consider acculturating a bunch of people to engage in it. Why always job training for somebody else's company? Why not a massive effort to teach people how to do the basic bookeeping and salesmanship to run small to medium size businesses? If 15% of the unemployed engineers in Corvallis could start companies that hired 5 full timers, they would (probably) have a booming economy all over again. Shit, maybe we could start exporting to China (I think they value entrepeneurship and industrialization there...). Isn't this supposed to be a capitalist nation, for chrissakes? Carnegie didn't wait around for someone to move to his town and give him a job because he had the right training! If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say that we are all being trained to be docile robots in large institutions that are initiated and controlled by other people who are aware that there is an international class struggle, and they are afraid that we might discover we can do it for ourselves and toss them (and their tax breaks) over. (Sorry, I just got a little emotional...)

Tamerlin 16y ago
The Every Child Left Behind program suggests that it's not a theory. Placing an emphasis on standardized testing is symptomatic of exactly that -- train the intellect and imagination out of the populace... they're easier to control then. Teachers are rewarded not for what they teach their students, but rather how well their students do on the standardized tests. So now not only are we forcing everyone to abide by the lowest common denominator, we're penalizing teachers who try to do their job, and rewarding the ones that game the system by teaching their students how to take the standardized test.

b1twise 16y ago

I've just been through a round of hiring--and it was more painful than it has ever been. It was a telecommute position for US candidates only. The quality of applications was abysmally low. The majority of applications were Java programmers who couldn't be bothered to a) read the instructions on how to submit their application or b) write a cover letter AT ALL. I don't care if you have a degree. Write a good cover letter, have a resume that isn't all HR keywords spam and actually tells me about your skills, and PUBLISH somewhere. Have a blog that shows me what you're doing and that you can write. Publish some code on Github or contribute to a larger project so I can go look at your work.

tomjen3 16y ago
>The majority of applications were Java programmers who couldn't be bothered to a) read the instructions on how to submit their application or b) write a cover letter AT ALL. Properly because if you simply send the same letter you can send the same to 10 companies in the time it takes to conform to the wishes of one company. And until you are ten times more likely to be hired that way, you are still ahead (unless you are Google, all a large companies are essentially the same, so it doesn't really matter where you get hired). As for publishing a blog, you are hireing software engineers, not writers. Sure you expect them to be able to write, just as you expect them to be able to speak, but you don't hire speakers either.
- jasonkester 16y ago
  you can send the same to 10 companies in the time it takes to conform to the wishes of one company. And until you are ten times more likely to be hired that way Incorrect. 10 times zero is zero. If you don't put any thought into applying for a job, you have next to no chance of getting called in for an interview. On the other hand, 1 times something is something. If you take the time (measured in minutes) to learn a bit about the company and job in question, and change two sentences on your cover letter to talk about those things, you'll find yourself moved off the big tall stack of "idiot who didn't even bother" resumes and into the tiny little pile of "maybe we should call this guy" ones.