4 ms·

Sure, but if that resume ever got to a team for other devs to review to decide whether to interview, the bullshit ones would be tossed.

by blunte 5y ago

ALittleLight 5y ago
I've done between one and two hundred interviews at a FAANG company and have skimmed two or three resumes and read none. I can't recall hearing resumes mentioned in any interview debriefs other than for things like "This is an entry position and he has X years of experience so he probably isn't going to learn too much more in the next one or two years." Maybe the hiring managers are reading the resumes. I'm pretty confident that the interviewers aren't spending a lot of time with them. (At least from my small slice of experience). My general approach to interviewing is that I have an hour to figure out whether the person is smart, honest, and would be good to work with. I don't see how the resume has any relation to those things. It doesn't matter to me whether they have no prior experience, are a high school dropout, etc.
- bambataa 5y ago
  And how do people get to be at the stage of being interviewed by you? They submit a resume and it gets assessed by someone… Just because that person isn’t you doesn’t meant that resumes aren’t key.
- WoahNoun 5y ago
  This is also my experience. Resume is just a filter to starting the next round of a rather rigorous interview process. If I'm doing a technical interview, I just want to see how you think through the questions. If it's non-technical, your background will appear in your stories.
- dtoms 5y ago
  ...and that isn't a problem? because folks decades of experience is irrelevant to their ability to memorize whatever it's required to be a widget in a widget factory? just because the process works for FAANG doesn't mean its good or right for other companies.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    Not sure I understand your comment. I never had a problem with my interviewing technique. Nobody ever complained to me about it. I feel I was pretty consistent with how others interviewed. My point was not to say that my technique was good - I have no data on whether it was good or not. My point was that you shouldn't assume that garbage resumes will be caught by the technical interviewers, because there is a good chance they aren't reading them either. I also meant to imply that it is probably a good idea to stuff your resume with buzzwords, probably a bit more subtly than this example, but if you have to choose between optimizing for the algorithm and optimizing for the human, I'd bet on the algorithm because I doubt the human is even going to read it.
    - dtoms 5y ago
      I'm just pointing out that there is a vast difference between FAANG and the rest of the world. Especially in terms of interviewing. It's somewhat sad they discount experience when doing interviewing and only use it as a screening measure, but it does work for them, no denying. But many folks copy this approach, and it does not always work at small to medium sized companies. If you did 200 interviews at a 20 person startup and never read the resume, that would indeed be a problem.
      - ALittleLight 5y ago
        I don't know what benefit "experience" has. I've worked with plenty of people who had long careers, worked at big name companies, and went to fancy schools, and turned out to be some variety of dumb or useless. If your experience benefits you in someway I should be able to detect that in our interview - you'll give good answers to questions because you're experienced enough to know good answers, that kind of thing. If you seem smart in the interview because of your years of experience, your natural genius, or some combination of the two, what's the difference? What I care about is that you are a smart person, not how you came by your ability. If you learned to program video games at age 8 and now have fourty years of experience or if you finished a boot camp yesterday - who cares? If you can discuss and write the programs I ask about that seems like a good signal and if not, not. I feel like I can just skip finding out about your history and not lose anything.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Sure, but if that resume ever got to a team for other devs to review to decide whether to interview, the bullshit ones would be tossed.

by blunte 5y ago

Sure, but if that resume ever got to a team for other devs to review to decide whether to interview, the bullshit ones would be tossed.

ALittleLight 5y ago

I've done between one and two hundred interviews at a FAANG company and have skimmed two or three resumes and read none. I can't recall hearing resumes mentioned in any interview debriefs other than for things like "This is an entry position and he has X years of experience so he probably isn't going to learn too much more in the next one or two years." Maybe the hiring managers are reading the resumes. I'm pretty confident that the interviewers aren't spending a lot of time with them. (At least from my small slice of experience). My general approach to interviewing is that I have an hour to figure out whether the person is smart, honest, and would be good to work with. I don't see how the resume has any relation to those things. It doesn't matter to me whether they have no prior experience, are a high school dropout, etc.

bambataa 5y ago
And how do people get to be at the stage of being interviewed by you? They submit a resume and it gets assessed by someone… Just because that person isn’t you doesn’t meant that resumes aren’t key.
WoahNoun 5y ago
This is also my experience. Resume is just a filter to starting the next round of a rather rigorous interview process. If I'm doing a technical interview, I just want to see how you think through the questions. If it's non-technical, your background will appear in your stories.
dtoms 5y ago
...and that isn't a problem? because folks decades of experience is irrelevant to their ability to memorize whatever it's required to be a widget in a widget factory? just because the process works for FAANG doesn't mean its good or right for other companies.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  Not sure I understand your comment. I never had a problem with my interviewing technique. Nobody ever complained to me about it. I feel I was pretty consistent with how others interviewed. My point was not to say that my technique was good - I have no data on whether it was good or not. My point was that you shouldn't assume that garbage resumes will be caught by the technical interviewers, because there is a good chance they aren't reading them either. I also meant to imply that it is probably a good idea to stuff your resume with buzzwords, probably a bit more subtly than this example, but if you have to choose between optimizing for the algorithm and optimizing for the human, I'd bet on the algorithm because I doubt the human is even going to read it.
  - dtoms 5y ago
    I'm just pointing out that there is a vast difference between FAANG and the rest of the world. Especially in terms of interviewing. It's somewhat sad they discount experience when doing interviewing and only use it as a screening measure, but it does work for them, no denying. But many folks copy this approach, and it does not always work at small to medium sized companies. If you did 200 interviews at a 20 person startup and never read the resume, that would indeed be a problem.
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      I don't know what benefit "experience" has. I've worked with plenty of people who had long careers, worked at big name companies, and went to fancy schools, and turned out to be some variety of dumb or useless. If your experience benefits you in someway I should be able to detect that in our interview - you'll give good answers to questions because you're experienced enough to know good answers, that kind of thing. If you seem smart in the interview because of your years of experience, your natural genius, or some combination of the two, what's the difference? What I care about is that you are a smart person, not how you came by your ability. If you learned to program video games at age 8 and now have fourty years of experience or if you finished a boot camp yesterday - who cares? If you can discuss and write the programs I ask about that seems like a good signal and if not, not. I feel like I can just skip finding out about your history and not lose anything.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]