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I disagree with this resume advice actually. He for example removes that he was in the military sniper team and won best shot, but keeps high school education?

I disagree with this resume advice actually. He for example removes that he was in the military sniper team and won best shot, but keeps high school education? I would totally say the opposite, keep the cool the side thing that's a conversation starter, but remove irrelevant educational experience. Including the number of stars on the github projects they worked on seems so.... narcissistic? Promotional? Idk but its distasteful and I would probably throw out the resume at that. I really think all of the resume changes, other than the incoming intern at bytedance were extremely bad changes. It went from someone who is smart, with a breadth of experiences, to someone that is obsessed with social media likes.

mewpmewp2 5y ago
It is widely suggested that resume should be as metric oriented as possible so I wouldn't think anything bad about the stars. It is similar as to "I built X to increase Y by Z.". It does show impact. Definitely wouldn't throw a resume out for something like this even if it for some reason is a pet peeve for you. However I agree that cool things like the military sniper thing should stay.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  To me the stars seem more similar to likes, follows, and subs.. a popularity metric for social media. And unless it spells that they're big, it actually gives me a rather negative vibe. Assuming I'm hiring for a technical role, I'd be unimpressed to see someone attempt to flaunt the 10k karma they scored on HN or the 150 followers they got on twitter. Also as others point out, if you don't see what their contribution is, it seems even more flaunty. "Talked to a guy with 100k karma"? It's pretty easy to sneak a few low-impact commits into big and popular projects.. (speaking as someone who's got a commit or five e.g. in Mozilla Firefox)
keithnz 5y ago
I don't mind the stars, I wouldn't discount the resume based on that, but the changes themselves seemed useless. Having looked at many resumes of candidates, I scanned both with my "looking to hire" hat on and quickly determined, 1) is a grad and seems smart 2) is involved with open source projects and seems to enjoy creating software, on that basis I'd bring them in for an interview
- dagw 5y ago
  I don't mind the stars The way it is phrased make it sound like he's trying to pull as fast one and make his contributions sound more significant that they where. That being said, he would almost certainly still end up in my 'interview' pile.
zerkten 5y ago
I would modify the cool side thing (being a sniper), if it highlights leadership skills, collaboration, and determination. There are many opportunities to develop these and many more in military and other roles before you get a first real job. Depending on whether you took advantage of the opportunity and who you are interviewing with, it can be a strong differentiator and set you onto a quicker path to promotion. The stars part is flawed because it's set against the 19 commits which don't really quantify anything. Both these miss after some good build up around the adoption of the Docusaurus. It'd be better to have a description of the impact of the 19 commits.
- ecshafer 5y ago
  I think a better quantifier than just "X commits to Y project with Z stars" would be something along the lines of "Implemented A, B, C in X project". Stars don't seem very useful.
ren_engineer 5y ago
Github stars show the developer is either good at creating a project that serves a real need or at least decent at marketing their project, which in a startup role might be useful when you need somebody doing multiple things
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I dunno how stars help with that. I use plenty of projects that I never star.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ecshafer 5y ago
  Maybe it's just me, but contributed to X with no more information does not strike me as compelling. My initial assumption would be that they didn't do anything. It did not say created it, it did not say primary maintainer, or wrote X feature in Y.
  - mewpmewp2 5y ago
    They should describe what feature they provided, yes.
  - ren_engineer 5y ago
    that makes sense, I assumed somebody would list a project they actually created and listed the stars it earned
yupper32 5y ago
> Including the number of stars on the github projects they worked on seems so.... narcissistic? Promotional? I don't know about the stars particularly, but what is a resume besides you being somewhat narcissistic and especially promotional?
- lucideer 5y ago
  It would only be that if it wasn't something everyone did. For most it's more of a reluctant necessity rather than being something they relish. And imo reflecting that in its tone is of value.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fredestine 5y ago
it really depends where you apply tho. most of the startup and FAANG are woke now. they wouldn't hire a sniper except if he is a minority then the balance is even.
chrisseaton 5y ago
I sometimes get extremely negative reactions from mentioning I was in the military in tech circles - I would also be cautious sometimes.
- walshemj 5y ago
  The author appears to be from a country where military service is compulsory.

mewpmewp2 5y ago

It is widely suggested that resume should be as metric oriented as possible so I wouldn't think anything bad about the stars. It is similar as to "I built X to increase Y by Z.". It does show impact. Definitely wouldn't throw a resume out for something like this even if it for some reason is a pet peeve for you. However I agree that cool things like the military sniper thing should stay.

foxfluff 5y ago
To me the stars seem more similar to likes, follows, and subs.. a popularity metric for social media. And unless it spells that they're big, it actually gives me a rather negative vibe. Assuming I'm hiring for a technical role, I'd be unimpressed to see someone attempt to flaunt the 10k karma they scored on HN or the 150 followers they got on twitter. Also as others point out, if you don't see what their contribution is, it seems even more flaunty. "Talked to a guy with 100k karma"? It's pretty easy to sneak a few low-impact commits into big and popular projects.. (speaking as someone who's got a commit or five e.g. in Mozilla Firefox)

keithnz 5y ago

I don't mind the stars, I wouldn't discount the resume based on that, but the changes themselves seemed useless. Having looked at many resumes of candidates, I scanned both with my "looking to hire" hat on and quickly determined, 1) is a grad and seems smart 2) is involved with open source projects and seems to enjoy creating software, on that basis I'd bring them in for an interview

dagw 5y ago
I don't mind the stars The way it is phrased make it sound like he's trying to pull as fast one and make his contributions sound more significant that they where. That being said, he would almost certainly still end up in my 'interview' pile.

zerkten 5y ago

I would modify the cool side thing (being a sniper), if it highlights leadership skills, collaboration, and determination. There are many opportunities to develop these and many more in military and other roles before you get a first real job. Depending on whether you took advantage of the opportunity and who you are interviewing with, it can be a strong differentiator and set you onto a quicker path to promotion. The stars part is flawed because it's set against the 19 commits which don't really quantify anything. Both these miss after some good build up around the adoption of the Docusaurus. It'd be better to have a description of the impact of the 19 commits.

ecshafer 5y ago
I think a better quantifier than just "X commits to Y project with Z stars" would be something along the lines of "Implemented A, B, C in X project". Stars don't seem very useful.

ren_engineer 5y ago

Github stars show the developer is either good at creating a project that serves a real need or at least decent at marketing their project, which in a startup role might be useful when you need somebody doing multiple things

Aeolun 5y ago
I dunno how stars help with that. I use plenty of projects that I never star.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ecshafer 5y ago
Maybe it's just me, but contributed to X with no more information does not strike me as compelling. My initial assumption would be that they didn't do anything. It did not say created it, it did not say primary maintainer, or wrote X feature in Y.
- mewpmewp2 5y ago
  They should describe what feature they provided, yes.
- ren_engineer 5y ago
  that makes sense, I assumed somebody would list a project they actually created and listed the stars it earned

yupper32 5y ago

> Including the number of stars on the github projects they worked on seems so.... narcissistic? Promotional? I don't know about the stars particularly, but what is a resume besides you being somewhat narcissistic and especially promotional?

lucideer 5y ago
It would only be that if it wasn't something everyone did. For most it's more of a reluctant necessity rather than being something they relish. And imo reflecting that in its tone is of value.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fredestine 5y ago

it really depends where you apply tho. most of the startup and FAANG are woke now. they wouldn't hire a sniper except if he is a minority then the balance is even.

chrisseaton 5y ago

I sometimes get extremely negative reactions from mentioning I was in the military in tech circles - I would also be cautious sometimes.

walshemj 5y ago
The author appears to be from a country where military service is compulsory.