4 ms·

> That's what resumes used to be, after all -- a kind of a take-home test where you really do have enough time (and perfect knowledge) to get everything 100 per

> That's what resumes used to be, after all -- a kind of a take-home test where you really do have enough time (and perfect knowledge) to get everything 100 percent right. The only thing this filters for is people who have been looking for a job for a long time and/or are people focused on presentation instead of content, good luck with that. We’ve hired incredible engineers across that have had typos and major resume mistakes many times and they had no communications problems on the job. A resume is a background/interests check for the hiring manager. Giving them a spell check is about as useful as measuring the ratio of times the letter ‘a’ appears relative to ‘e’. > critical business communications at least -- this level of correctness does matter, and it matters a lot. This sounds like someone who is unable to contextualize when that would be relevant. Unless you’re writing user documentation there are zero times in an engineer’s day-to-day communications where writing nodejs instead of “Node.js” would have any impact at all.

WalterBright 5y ago
Being sloppy writing code, though, can be disastrous. I know I've rejected resumes for tech writing positions that contained spelling errors. I would hope a tech writer would at least use a spell chekker.
- Tyr42 5y ago
  Unfortunate time for a typo there ;p
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    :-)
  - imwillofficial 5y ago
    That was a joke
vanusa 5y ago
Giving them a spell check is about as useful as measuring the ratio of times the letter ‘a’ appears relative to ‘e’. I'll leave the matter of whether one should be expect resumes to be at least reasonably correct (in terms of spelling and grammar) or not - or what the threshold for "reasonably" should be on this front - to the side for now. It's obviously a question of taste, to a certain degree. But sorry - what you're saying about the ratio of 'a' to 'e' makes no sense at all. And on this front: Unless you’re writing user documentation I don't know what planet you live on -- but on my planet, good engineers write "user documentation" (in the sense of READMEs, docstrings, etc) and participate in mailing lists, do conference presentations, etc, all the time. And yes, while nobody is 100 percent perfect, consistently making a large number of gaffes (or more to the point: conveying an attitude that these things just don't matter; or that you're so hot that they shouldn't matter for you) in these contexts -- particularly when there there is plenty of time available to edit and review -- is definitely seen as a red flag, both in and outside the company. For any company you'd want to work for, that is.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Well. These days I think I work at the best team I ever worked on and it seems I'm in the top two in spelling, it is almost as if the rest if the team is mildly dyslexic or doesn't care. But they are nice to work with, smart and they make good code. I'll take them 49 times out of 50 over some perfect in code and writing but nasty in person ex colleagues. Even if I really really really need a specialist on hight performance <whatever it was, I can't add a dead giveaway here> I'd still try to look elsewhere first. Edit: ... and those two ex colleagues? Their code was good but it wasn't perfect either.
  - vanusa 5y ago
    Am 100 percent with you there - nice and basically decent to work with always trumps the willful disregard for these basic qualities. No matter how skilled they are, or their accomplishments.
- kortilla 5y ago
  > But sorry - what you're saying about the ratio of 'a' to 'e' makes no sense at all. Sorry I confused you. Let me be clear, it’s not relevant at all to job performance. I would take someone with terrible spelling and punctuation who actually writes documentation over someone who writes half as much because they are obsessing over details like that. > in the sense of READMEs, docstrings, et These are generally for other developers. Developers do not get confused when they see “NodeJs” instead of “Node.js”. Do you know what point you were trying to make? > is definitely seen as a red flag, both in and outside the company. > For any company you'd want to work for, that is. Not sure what kind of company you’re talking about, but it’s definitely not a tech company. Maybe Wall Street or something a little slower paced?
bruce511 5y ago
It's not about communication, or spelling, or grammar, it's about attention to detail. I've seen my fair share of resumes and hired my fair share of people, and I've come to the conclusion that sloppy, error-ridden, CVs are a sign of a lack of attention to detail. Here's a candidate with all the time in the world, and huge motivation, and they still can't complete this task correctly. It's not a good look. I'm not saying a single error I'd a deal-breaker, but it puts the applicant on the back foot. No doubt many of my rejects are quality engineers, but engineering, and software development are all about details.
- berkes 5y ago
  Why can you assume a candidate has 'all the time in the world?'
  - dmurray 5y ago
    A job hunt typically takes weeks or months of calendar time, and dozens of hours of clock time. So if a candidate has good management of his time and effort, he can budget one of those hours to improve the attention to detail of his CV.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  The motivation might not be "huge" at all, considering you might not be expecting any response, might have done 10 of these in the last hour, pay may not even be acceptable, etc.
- bookofjoe 5y ago
- kortilla 5y ago
  > Here's a candidate with all the time in the world, and huge motivation, You are woefully out of touch with the job market. And I’m saying this as someone who worked as a hiring manager at one of the most applied to tech companies in the world.
democracy 5y ago
I am still not sure if it's Javascript or JavaScript after all these years )

WalterBright 5y ago

Being sloppy writing code, though, can be disastrous. I know I've rejected resumes for tech writing positions that contained spelling errors. I would hope a tech writer would at least use a spell chekker.

Tyr42 5y ago
Unfortunate time for a typo there ;p
- WalterBright 5y ago
  :-)
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  That was a joke

vanusa 5y ago

Giving them a spell check is about as useful as measuring the ratio of times the letter ‘a’ appears relative to ‘e’. I'll leave the matter of whether one should be expect resumes to be at least reasonably correct (in terms of spelling and grammar) or not - or what the threshold for "reasonably" should be on this front - to the side for now. It's obviously a question of taste, to a certain degree. But sorry - what you're saying about the ratio of 'a' to 'e' makes no sense at all. And on this front: Unless you’re writing user documentation I don't know what planet you live on -- but on my planet, good engineers write "user documentation" (in the sense of READMEs, docstrings, etc) and participate in mailing lists, do conference presentations, etc, all the time. And yes, while nobody is 100 percent perfect, consistently making a large number of gaffes (or more to the point: conveying an attitude that these things just don't matter; or that you're so hot that they shouldn't matter for you) in these contexts -- particularly when there there is plenty of time available to edit and review -- is definitely seen as a red flag, both in and outside the company. For any company you'd want to work for, that is.

skinkestek 5y ago
Well. These days I think I work at the best team I ever worked on and it seems I'm in the top two in spelling, it is almost as if the rest if the team is mildly dyslexic or doesn't care. But they are nice to work with, smart and they make good code. I'll take them 49 times out of 50 over some perfect in code and writing but nasty in person ex colleagues. Even if I really really really need a specialist on hight performance <whatever it was, I can't add a dead giveaway here> I'd still try to look elsewhere first. Edit: ... and those two ex colleagues? Their code was good but it wasn't perfect either.
- vanusa 5y ago
  Am 100 percent with you there - nice and basically decent to work with always trumps the willful disregard for these basic qualities. No matter how skilled they are, or their accomplishments.
kortilla 5y ago
> But sorry - what you're saying about the ratio of 'a' to 'e' makes no sense at all. Sorry I confused you. Let me be clear, it’s not relevant at all to job performance. I would take someone with terrible spelling and punctuation who actually writes documentation over someone who writes half as much because they are obsessing over details like that. > in the sense of READMEs, docstrings, et These are generally for other developers. Developers do not get confused when they see “NodeJs” instead of “Node.js”. Do you know what point you were trying to make? > is definitely seen as a red flag, both in and outside the company. > For any company you'd want to work for, that is. Not sure what kind of company you’re talking about, but it’s definitely not a tech company. Maybe Wall Street or something a little slower paced?

bruce511 5y ago

It's not about communication, or spelling, or grammar, it's about attention to detail. I've seen my fair share of resumes and hired my fair share of people, and I've come to the conclusion that sloppy, error-ridden, CVs are a sign of a lack of attention to detail. Here's a candidate with all the time in the world, and huge motivation, and they still can't complete this task correctly. It's not a good look. I'm not saying a single error I'd a deal-breaker, but it puts the applicant on the back foot. No doubt many of my rejects are quality engineers, but engineering, and software development are all about details.

berkes 5y ago
Why can you assume a candidate has 'all the time in the world?'
- dmurray 5y ago
  A job hunt typically takes weeks or months of calendar time, and dozens of hours of clock time. So if a candidate has good management of his time and effort, he can budget one of those hours to improve the attention to detail of his CV.
DarylZero 5y ago
The motivation might not be "huge" at all, considering you might not be expecting any response, might have done 10 of these in the last hour, pay may not even be acceptable, etc.
bookofjoe 5y ago
kortilla 5y ago
> Here's a candidate with all the time in the world, and huge motivation, You are woefully out of touch with the job market. And I’m saying this as someone who worked as a hiring manager at one of the most applied to tech companies in the world.

democracy 5y ago

I am still not sure if it's Javascript or JavaScript after all these years )