4 ms·

If I see patent #'s on a resume from a college kid, I'm going to actually look up those patents. And I'm only going to view them positively if they are genuine

If I see patent #'s on a resume from a college kid, I'm going to actually look up those patents. And I'm only going to view them positively if they are genuinely novel. If I can trivially find prior art or its another of those "with a computer" software patents, it's going to be a very big red flag. Of course, this is just my own anecdote, and you may very well be right in the broader scale.

JamesBarney 7y ago
You described putting in more than 100x as much work going through someone's resume as the typical company. Also, why would it be a big red flag if you can find prior art? Whether or not there is prior art probably has very little to do with how capable of a developer the individual is.
- genocidicbunny 7y ago
  Certainly. It is far more time than what our recruiter would put into it; but I don't see resumes until they've at least been filtered that way, so I don't really have to deal with a deluge, just a slow trickle. We're also a relatively small company, so the number of applicants is a bit reduced by that. If I can find prior art that is effectively their patent, it shows to me that they were engaged in patenting something that shouldn't be patented. I have strong personal feelings about that, and I do not much want to work with someone that believes that every idea that _can_ be patented _should_ be patented. With that said, there are many other reasons I would reject a candidate before I would reject them over this. If anything, with the relatively small number of resumes that I get on a weekly basis, anyone having any patents on their resume is going to raise a red flag that I am going to poke at more. It also gives me another topic to engage the candidate on, and on one occasion that lead to a conversation that made me vote to hire the candidate.

4 ms·

If I see patent #'s on a resume from a college kid, I'm going to actually look up those patents. And I'm only going to view them positively if they are genuine

by genocidicbunny 7y ago

JamesBarney 7y ago
You described putting in more than 100x as much work going through someone's resume as the typical company. Also, why would it be a big red flag if you can find prior art? Whether or not there is prior art probably has very little to do with how capable of a developer the individual is.
- genocidicbunny 7y ago
  Certainly. It is far more time than what our recruiter would put into it; but I don't see resumes until they've at least been filtered that way, so I don't really have to deal with a deluge, just a slow trickle. We're also a relatively small company, so the number of applicants is a bit reduced by that. If I can find prior art that is effectively their patent, it shows to me that they were engaged in patenting something that shouldn't be patented. I have strong personal feelings about that, and I do not much want to work with someone that believes that every idea that _can_ be patented _should_ be patented. With that said, there are many other reasons I would reject a candidate before I would reject them over this. If anything, with the relatively small number of resumes that I get on a weekly basis, anyone having any patents on their resume is going to raise a red flag that I am going to poke at more. It also gives me another topic to engage the candidate on, and on one occasion that lead to a conversation that made me vote to hire the candidate.