3 ms·

I think this is correct. Be mindful of how HR is likely to work at the place that hires you. Big Co: there is some HR screener looking for keywords who hands a

by rsj_hn 6y ago

I think this is correct. Be mindful of how HR is likely to work at the place that hires you. Big Co: there is some HR screener looking for keywords who hands a stack of resumes -- maybe a hundred -- to a hiring manager who has to quickly go through them and pick maybe 5-10 who will get a screen. If the screen goes well, it may go to a second screen or a full panel. The thing to keep in mind is that interviewing bears substantial costs for the firm. You are yanking 5-6 senior people out of usually an overloaded sprint to spend an hour and then more time writing up a form, so basically 1 day of work. But you may have 300 people applying. That means if everyone got a full panel, it would take 1 year of labor to fill 1 position. Obviously that's not possible, so the end result is going to be capricious for the person going through the process -- there's no way around that, as you can only have resources to do an indepth look at 5 out of those 300. So yes, interviewing sucks and you will often get unfairly ruled out for stupid stuff. We get it, but that's how it has to be and will continue to be as long as applying for a job is costless and open to everyone who can upload a pdf. It's just a bad equilibrium -- the more people apply per position, the more arbitrary the process becomes, which encourages more people to apply to many different positions to hedge their bets, which creates more resumes per position, etc. For really famous firms like Microsoft or Google, they may get 1000-3000 applications per positions. Even if most of these applicants are unsuitable, they still gum up the works and add more randomness to the process. OTOH, if it's a smaller company you don't get so many applying and they can afford to give a better look per resume, but then again it's going to depend on the job market situation. Still your odds are better. Strangely, it's rare for the candidate to actually think about what it's like on the other side of this and take steps that make it easier to process their resume. Stuff like: keep it to a single page, read the requirements in the job posting and include relevant experience/skills rather than a full dump of everything you did, etc. And never, ever, lie about a skill or experience. Try to make the resume easy to read for someone who has to read 100 of them per hour.

jon-wood 6y ago
As someone on the other side of the table now I’m almost at the point where I’ll bring anyone who provides a single page CV in for interview, just because they’ve clearly put some thought into it. I’m so sick of trawling through five page CVs which contain absolutely everything apart from a reason to hire you.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Maybe there are some cases where a bibliography of publications or something like that would push up the length but I think it's a pretty good rule of thumb that two sides of a sheet of paper--which is still relevant given that people print out resumes and make notes on them--is pretty much a hard upper limit. I'd probably find one page a bit tight though if you have any amount of work history.
  - rsj_hn 6y ago
    I'm fine with 2 pages on a sheet, and have never thrown out a resume because of its length, but for long resumes I just skim. But I disagree that you need 2 pages. Here is a perfectly fine resume that can be half a page for a lead role or higher. Let's say this is a role for a webapp developer and the candidate has 10 years experience. With this resume, which is only half a page, you are probably way ahead of the competition. This is all the info a hiring manager needs. position Name/email address Languages: Java, Python, C++, JS Experience: Foo Corp: 2017-2020. Lead Engineer to Principal Engineer. Web App developer for Foo Authentication System and other microservices. Used standard LAMP stack and then Spring Boot. Bar Corp: 2012-2016. Sr. Engineer to Lead Engineer. Worked on backend order fulfillment logic, developed new test infrastructure for WebApps, client side test harnesses, security test suites, and related work. Baz Consulting: 2010-2012. Engineer. Worked as consultant for primarily B2B clients, primarily in Java. Delivered over 30 successful projects to spec. Bat Heavy Industries: 2007-2010. Associate Engineer to Engineer. Started as QA hire and migrated to development, responsible for metrics gathering app, qa infrastructure code, worked in python, java, and other languages. Education: B.S. Chemistry, Foo State University.
    - jlokier 6y ago
      I find it so interesting that you select for that, because that example tells you virtually nothing about the person that isn't generically applicable to a large number of candidates. Especially those with 13 years experience. Delivering 30 projects is the only item that stood out for me, but everyone with a few years can make that claim depending on what they choose to call a project. The number of languages listed is laughably small for a 13 year candidate, but I guess they have picked out the ones they think you want to see. From that resume, I cannot tell even one thing that the person is particularly good at, or any qualities they could bring to the company that would set them apart - other than their decision to write a short resume and avoid telling you much about themselves.
chiefalchemist 6y ago
I work for a small dev agency. Our tech lead did 10 interviews last week. In total, that's a lost day, at least.
pandaman 6y ago
It's even worse: the people initially sorting applications are usually HR contractors. They give what they thought is a good selection of resumes to the recruiters, who do further selection, maybe some contacts, and give their picks to the hiring manager. This is an important distinction because unlike recruiters, who are usually somewhat familiar with the company business and can recognize if not technical details then experience (e.g "Oh, this guy worked for 10 years at the shop known for its high standards!"), contractors are generic clerks who have no idea what anything in the resume means. They are given some words to look for at best. In my opinion, submitting through web portals/jobs@ emails is already a losing proposition. I can recall many cases when I've done this, got no response, then a couple years later the same company's recruiters would hound me. I'd been quite successful when I went through an internal referral or directly through a recruiter. But, if you really have no choice and go through the web then the best strategy is to stand out with anything that can catch attention of a completely non-technical person reviewing your application. A cover letter is a strong move in this case. And keyword stuffing is also important for passing the first stage.

by rsj_hn 6y ago

jon-wood 6y ago

As someone on the other side of the table now I’m almost at the point where I’ll bring anyone who provides a single page CV in for interview, just because they’ve clearly put some thought into it. I’m so sick of trawling through five page CVs which contain absolutely everything apart from a reason to hire you.

ghaff 6y ago
Maybe there are some cases where a bibliography of publications or something like that would push up the length but I think it's a pretty good rule of thumb that two sides of a sheet of paper--which is still relevant given that people print out resumes and make notes on them--is pretty much a hard upper limit. I'd probably find one page a bit tight though if you have any amount of work history.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  I'm fine with 2 pages on a sheet, and have never thrown out a resume because of its length, but for long resumes I just skim. But I disagree that you need 2 pages. Here is a perfectly fine resume that can be half a page for a lead role or higher. Let's say this is a role for a webapp developer and the candidate has 10 years experience. With this resume, which is only half a page, you are probably way ahead of the competition. This is all the info a hiring manager needs. position Name/email address Languages: Java, Python, C++, JS Experience: Foo Corp: 2017-2020. Lead Engineer to Principal Engineer. Web App developer for Foo Authentication System and other microservices. Used standard LAMP stack and then Spring Boot. Bar Corp: 2012-2016. Sr. Engineer to Lead Engineer. Worked on backend order fulfillment logic, developed new test infrastructure for WebApps, client side test harnesses, security test suites, and related work. Baz Consulting: 2010-2012. Engineer. Worked as consultant for primarily B2B clients, primarily in Java. Delivered over 30 successful projects to spec. Bat Heavy Industries: 2007-2010. Associate Engineer to Engineer. Started as QA hire and migrated to development, responsible for metrics gathering app, qa infrastructure code, worked in python, java, and other languages. Education: B.S. Chemistry, Foo State University.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    I find it so interesting that you select for that, because that example tells you virtually nothing about the person that isn't generically applicable to a large number of candidates. Especially those with 13 years experience. Delivering 30 projects is the only item that stood out for me, but everyone with a few years can make that claim depending on what they choose to call a project. The number of languages listed is laughably small for a 13 year candidate, but I guess they have picked out the ones they think you want to see. From that resume, I cannot tell even one thing that the person is particularly good at, or any qualities they could bring to the company that would set them apart - other than their decision to write a short resume and avoid telling you much about themselves.

chiefalchemist 6y ago

I work for a small dev agency. Our tech lead did 10 interviews last week. In total, that's a lost day, at least.

pandaman 6y ago

It's even worse: the people initially sorting applications are usually HR contractors. They give what they thought is a good selection of resumes to the recruiters, who do further selection, maybe some contacts, and give their picks to the hiring manager. This is an important distinction because unlike recruiters, who are usually somewhat familiar with the company business and can recognize if not technical details then experience (e.g "Oh, this guy worked for 10 years at the shop known for its high standards!"), contractors are generic clerks who have no idea what anything in the resume means. They are given some words to look for at best. In my opinion, submitting through web portals/jobs@ emails is already a losing proposition. I can recall many cases when I've done this, got no response, then a couple years later the same company's recruiters would hound me. I'd been quite successful when I went through an internal referral or directly through a recruiter. But, if you really have no choice and go through the web then the best strategy is to stand out with anything that can catch attention of a completely non-technical person reviewing your application. A cover letter is a strong move in this case. And keyword stuffing is also important for passing the first stage.