4 ms·

I want to add another option: 4) Have a wide range of items on your resume. I have found that having experience as an engineer in Fortune 500 companies, start

by nscalf 6y ago

I want to add another option: 4) Have a wide range of items on your resume. I have found that having experience as an engineer in Fortune 500 companies, startups, working at the only dev, level 3 support, building dev ops, joining a big team, owning back end services, reworking a database, etc. has given me credibility for most positions. Everyone knows you won’t immediately fit in perfectly to any role, but if you have demonstrated an aptitude to learn and adapt, you’re likely good enough for their role.

throwawayfaang 6y ago
I think you should not do that. Whenever I see a CV from a candidate in his/her twenties listing like 30 different technologies that each take years to master (unless you're really a programming prodigy but even then it's unlikely) I immediately think the candidate is doing "keyword spamming", and that's a strong negative signal. As a candidate such a strategy can quickly backfire as well, because your interviewer might pick one of the technologies you boldly listed on your CV and ask you really detailed questions about it, which you might not be able to answer because you might only have used it in a short side project and don't know it in depth. That will almost always ruin your chances of getting an offer. I recommend to only list languages and technologies you really know well. You can still list others that you dabbled with but make it obvious that you e.g. only explored these in your spare time or are curious to learn more about them, this will be a positive signal and won't come over as keyword spamming. Same thing if a candidate has too many short tenures on his/her CV. If I get a candidate that has five or more short (<12 months) stints at different companies I will not invite him/her (or at least ask for clarification in the phone screen) because it hints at a general problem. There are surprisingly many candidates that call themselves programmers but really can't program at all (or only at a very basic level), still they often manage to land positions as programmers, which they eventually get fired from (or leave) when it becomes clear they can't do the job (and some companies take a long time to come to this conclusion). A long string of short tenures is one indication of such a person, so be wary of putting too many short tenure work experiences on your resume, except if you're a freelancer of course.

by nscalf 6y ago

throwawayfaang 6y ago

I think you should not do that. Whenever I see a CV from a candidate in his/her twenties listing like 30 different technologies that each take years to master (unless you're really a programming prodigy but even then it's unlikely) I immediately think the candidate is doing "keyword spamming", and that's a strong negative signal. As a candidate such a strategy can quickly backfire as well, because your interviewer might pick one of the technologies you boldly listed on your CV and ask you really detailed questions about it, which you might not be able to answer because you might only have used it in a short side project and don't know it in depth. That will almost always ruin your chances of getting an offer. I recommend to only list languages and technologies you really know well. You can still list others that you dabbled with but make it obvious that you e.g. only explored these in your spare time or are curious to learn more about them, this will be a positive signal and won't come over as keyword spamming. Same thing if a candidate has too many short tenures on his/her CV. If I get a candidate that has five or more short (<12 months) stints at different companies I will not invite him/her (or at least ask for clarification in the phone screen) because it hints at a general problem. There are surprisingly many candidates that call themselves programmers but really can't program at all (or only at a very basic level), still they often manage to land positions as programmers, which they eventually get fired from (or leave) when it becomes clear they can't do the job (and some companies take a long time to come to this conclusion). A long string of short tenures is one indication of such a person, so be wary of putting too many short tenure work experiences on your resume, except if you're a freelancer of course.