6 ms·

The reason this exists is because even highly qualified graduates (Harvard included) suck at writing CV's/Resumes. How do i know? I went to a similar kind of co

by hacsky 4y ago

The reason this exists is because even highly qualified graduates (Harvard included) suck at writing CV's/Resumes. How do i know? I went to a similar kind of college. All of us go through the same 16-20 year education grind (K-12 + University). At the end of it we are made to differentiate ourselves through our CV's/Resumes. A simple rule of thumb: A CV/Resume should be strictly-one-page and honest. Not sure if anyone needs cover letters anymore.

ghaff 4y ago
Or they basically only need cover letters with a pro forma resume because they’re going through their network which has been my case for 25 years or so.
leetrout 4y ago
> A CV/Resume should be strictly-one-page How many years have you been working? 1 page is tough at 15 years unless you leave details out.
- thomasfedb 4y ago
  And the same if you’re in academia, we have lists of papers and conferences we need to fit in
- slyall 4y ago
  15 years in tech is a good time to start rounding down your age.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    Lol. Yeah just go to the SVP-and-up offsites of any tech company and you’ll see nothing but people in their 20’s… It’s not 1995 anymore, tech is run by old people, the youth are the expendable labor just like any other industry.
- mrmincent 4y ago
  You absolutely will have to leave details out - the HR person scanning through 30+ CVs doesn’t have the time or interest in reading through 3 pages of your work history to see if you tick the boxes they’re trying to match. You don’t have to list every job you’ve had, just list the relevant recent ones for the job you’re applying for. The ones you’ll talk about in your interview.
  - epicureanideal 4y ago
    If HR is reading the resume you’re applying to the wrong companies anyway.
    - f1shy 4y ago
      Totally. How can HR know if my experience is relevant for the position? Do they even understand what my CV says? I know people in HR that could do it. But most likely no.
    - mrmincent 4y ago
      That’s a very interesting point, who receives the job applications in the right companies?
      - epicureanideal 4y ago
        The engineering manager or someone trained or trusted by the engineering manager to properly evaluate resumes.
        Eumenes 4y ago
        Perhaps at a < 100 person company or start-up, but having recruited at dozens of tech companies, this isn't the case 99% of places.
      - thiht 4y ago
        In my previous company, resumes were forwarded to us, the tech team. After all we’re the one recruiting, and we’re the one who will maybe work with this person. We were also the ones giving technical interviews, and also did a team interview. HR should not be in charge of recruiting for the teams.
- f1shy 4y ago
  Totally. I've 25 years experience. Listing only the last 10 or 15 would leave important details out. Cluttering all in one page would be awful. Even if I write a "one line" for the positions in the first years of employment, I cannot put it on one page. Like coding rules: you cannot make hard rules that apply always. It depends.
- francisofascii 4y ago
  Depending on the role, resume readers typically don't care about where or what you worked on more than 2 jobs ago or 5 years ago, unless it is uniquely germane to the job being applied for.
seqizz 4y ago
> A CV/Resume should be strictly-one-page and honest. Yeah, no. I was an advocate for this until recently. I realized it's not fitting anymore. Maybe I should do a dumbed-down version in the first page and fill the position details on the second.
- r_c_a_d 4y ago
  I always stick to 2 pages (25 years ~10 jobs) but include the URL of the HTML version of my CV/resume which has the full details of each role. You may need to be creative about how you include the URL... as some recruiters will edit it out if you put it in the header or footer.
krageon 4y ago
If your resume is a single page, you send the message that most of what you did isn't relevant, isn't important or doesn't matter. I see this as a red flag.
yamtaddle 4y ago
Tons and tons of employers will still require or expect a cover letter. At least in the US. Résumé guidance is all over the place and I think largely comes down to the reader's preferences, which are wildly inconsistent, so there's no such thing as the One Best Résumé layout and/or length. See a sibling post claiming that a one-pager is a "red flag". None of this is scientific and every single thing you do during an application and interview process can easily be one hiring manager's "best practice" and another's "red flag". It's a minefield, because it's all basically arbitrary but many people in the hiring process will have strong feelings about various unimportant details, regardless, because they're just casting about for some signal in all the noise, such that they end up taking a lot of the noise as signal.
OkayPhysicist 4y ago
Most effective cover letter I ever experimented with was a simple preamble expressing interest in the company and the particular position (2-3 sentences, just enough to demonstrate basic eloquence), followed by "In the sake of brevity, here's a T-chart matching my qualifications to your requirements:" where I put in a T-chart pairing most of the bullet points in the job posting with a description of the skills I had. Since most of the requirements were similar between multiple job postings, I had LaTeX shortcuts to reference a pre-made pile of qualification statements. Took me about 5 minutes to hammer out, and definitely improved my rate of receiving responses by about a factor of 2.

by hacsky 4y ago

ghaff 4y ago

Or they basically only need cover letters with a pro forma resume because they’re going through their network which has been my case for 25 years or so.

leetrout 4y ago

> A CV/Resume should be strictly-one-page How many years have you been working? 1 page is tough at 15 years unless you leave details out.

thomasfedb 4y ago
And the same if you’re in academia, we have lists of papers and conferences we need to fit in
slyall 4y ago
15 years in tech is a good time to start rounding down your age.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  Lol. Yeah just go to the SVP-and-up offsites of any tech company and you’ll see nothing but people in their 20’s… It’s not 1995 anymore, tech is run by old people, the youth are the expendable labor just like any other industry.
mrmincent 4y ago
You absolutely will have to leave details out - the HR person scanning through 30+ CVs doesn’t have the time or interest in reading through 3 pages of your work history to see if you tick the boxes they’re trying to match. You don’t have to list every job you’ve had, just list the relevant recent ones for the job you’re applying for. The ones you’ll talk about in your interview.
- epicureanideal 4y ago
  If HR is reading the resume you’re applying to the wrong companies anyway.
  - f1shy 4y ago
    Totally. How can HR know if my experience is relevant for the position? Do they even understand what my CV says? I know people in HR that could do it. But most likely no.
  - mrmincent 4y ago
    That’s a very interesting point, who receives the job applications in the right companies?
    - epicureanideal 4y ago
      The engineering manager or someone trained or trusted by the engineering manager to properly evaluate resumes.
      - Eumenes 4y ago
        Perhaps at a < 100 person company or start-up, but having recruited at dozens of tech companies, this isn't the case 99% of places.
    - thiht 4y ago
      In my previous company, resumes were forwarded to us, the tech team. After all we’re the one recruiting, and we’re the one who will maybe work with this person. We were also the ones giving technical interviews, and also did a team interview. HR should not be in charge of recruiting for the teams.
f1shy 4y ago
Totally. I've 25 years experience. Listing only the last 10 or 15 would leave important details out. Cluttering all in one page would be awful. Even if I write a "one line" for the positions in the first years of employment, I cannot put it on one page. Like coding rules: you cannot make hard rules that apply always. It depends.
francisofascii 4y ago
Depending on the role, resume readers typically don't care about where or what you worked on more than 2 jobs ago or 5 years ago, unless it is uniquely germane to the job being applied for.

seqizz 4y ago

> A CV/Resume should be strictly-one-page and honest. Yeah, no. I was an advocate for this until recently. I realized it's not fitting anymore. Maybe I should do a dumbed-down version in the first page and fill the position details on the second.

r_c_a_d 4y ago
I always stick to 2 pages (25 years ~10 jobs) but include the URL of the HTML version of my CV/resume which has the full details of each role. You may need to be creative about how you include the URL... as some recruiters will edit it out if you put it in the header or footer.

krageon 4y ago

If your resume is a single page, you send the message that most of what you did isn't relevant, isn't important or doesn't matter. I see this as a red flag.

yamtaddle 4y ago

Tons and tons of employers will still require or expect a cover letter. At least in the US. Résumé guidance is all over the place and I think largely comes down to the reader's preferences, which are wildly inconsistent, so there's no such thing as the One Best Résumé layout and/or length. See a sibling post claiming that a one-pager is a "red flag". None of this is scientific and every single thing you do during an application and interview process can easily be one hiring manager's "best practice" and another's "red flag". It's a minefield, because it's all basically arbitrary but many people in the hiring process will have strong feelings about various unimportant details, regardless, because they're just casting about for some signal in all the noise, such that they end up taking a lot of the noise as signal.

OkayPhysicist 4y ago

Most effective cover letter I ever experimented with was a simple preamble expressing interest in the company and the particular position (2-3 sentences, just enough to demonstrate basic eloquence), followed by "In the sake of brevity, here's a T-chart matching my qualifications to your requirements:" where I put in a T-chart pairing most of the bullet points in the job posting with a description of the skills I had. Since most of the requirements were similar between multiple job postings, I had LaTeX shortcuts to reference a pre-made pile of qualification statements. Took me about 5 minutes to hammer out, and definitely improved my rate of receiving responses by about a factor of 2.