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I think the well is really poisoned here. Resumes either hardly matter, or are just for SEO. - If you're shooting resumes off into the void of companies "apply

I think the well is really poisoned here. Resumes either hardly matter, or are just for SEO. - If you're shooting resumes off into the void of companies "apply now!" pages, it's HIGHLY unusual for them to be looked at by a human. And when they are, they'll probably be considering more data points (looking at your LinkedIn and GitHub). So here it's best to make them "machine readable, human-tolerable". - If you're handing out resumes at an event, you are going to want to make it terse and punchy. Sell your impact and skills. I think this is the least degenerate form of resume. Also, I've never done this outside of my career fair in college, where your resume is basically just your GPA and expected graduation year. - If you're being referred, your resume is mostly for talking points when you're chatting with someone. So making it like a powerpoint is best for this. Plus, for the first one, most of the time you just get ghosted. So forget overly tailoring your resume to the company, unless it's one you really really want into. In which case you're probably better off poking around and trying to either find a recruiter or find a referral even if it's just a "I talked to this person once and they didn't punch me in the face at all, you should interview them" referral. I'm honestly kind of passionate about resumes, in theory? "Here is a 1-pager of my professional career" is an interesting problem. Unfortunately, that's typically not the problem you actually need to solve when you're sitting down at your doc titled "Resume".

zwieback 4y ago
Not sure about the first one. I work for a big company and when we hire we definitely human-read lots of resumes, which isn't to say that machine readable is not a plus. I agree that tailoring may not be worth it. I'm surprised nobody mentions hobbies etc. Maybe I'm just an old fart but I like to get an idea of the person as well.
- ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
  The main problem of hobbies is that I typically don't think they matter enough to deserve space on the single page of your resume. I'm not even a decade into my career and I'm already considering cutting my college stuff down to "COLLEGE NAME YEARS ATTENDED DEGREE GPA HONORS" in a single crammed line. I think I'd put down my in-major GPA and emphasis courses before I'd put down that I like video games and my cats (.....which let's be real, you can probably just assume is in the hobbies for software engineers).
  - pertique 4y ago
    It'd depend on the field (and region), I imagine, but after the first job or two I feel like all that matters with respect to schooling is that you went. Five or ten years into a career I'd be surprised if coursework that hadn't been used on the job was relevant, and GPA wouldn't even be considered. Hobbies are probably not that useful either, but I could see them catching a hiring manager's eye. Coursework probably won't have the same effect, although I suppose it could help you get through ATS.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Not that I think anyone's really looked at my resume for over 20 years (jobs through network), but I think the idea of a hobbies line is that it can be a conversation ice-breaker. That said, I don't think I have one on mine. If theey Google me they'll turn up more than enough to talk about.
  - TheCleric 4y ago
    As a hiring manager, your college GPA doesn't even factor into the equation.
    - ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
      It varies significantly, as these things do. My first job out of college ~didn't accept people with below a 3.8, so they'd explicitly ask if you left it off (or worse, would assume it was <3.8 if you didn't bother to add it).
ryandrake 4y ago
> - If you're shooting resumes off into the void of companies "apply now!" pages, it's HIGHLY unusual for them to be looked at by a human. And when they are, they'll probably be considering more data points (looking at your LinkedIn and GitHub). So here it's best to make them "machine readable, human-tolerable". I wish companies would just keep it real and admit this, and instead of asking for a resume, specifically ask for a simple text or XML file with a machine-readable list of keywords. Because, let's be honest: That's all the machinery at the top of their funnel does. Once you get past the keyword filter, they can ask you to craft a real resume for them. It would cut down on everyone's work: the candidate's and the hiring company's. I'm firing off resumes to hundreds, maybe a thousand companies anyway. It would be nice to have a standard, structured format for communicating with their AI screening machinery, that I could use for all of them.
chriskanan 4y ago
At least when I was a hiring manager at an AI start-up, I looked at just about every resume submitted, and I thought the advice was pretty spot-on for what I was looking for. That said, I've never worked at a very large tech company, so I could believe that humans aren't reviewing them at those institutions.

zwieback 4y ago

Not sure about the first one. I work for a big company and when we hire we definitely human-read lots of resumes, which isn't to say that machine readable is not a plus. I agree that tailoring may not be worth it. I'm surprised nobody mentions hobbies etc. Maybe I'm just an old fart but I like to get an idea of the person as well.

ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
The main problem of hobbies is that I typically don't think they matter enough to deserve space on the single page of your resume. I'm not even a decade into my career and I'm already considering cutting my college stuff down to "COLLEGE NAME YEARS ATTENDED DEGREE GPA HONORS" in a single crammed line. I think I'd put down my in-major GPA and emphasis courses before I'd put down that I like video games and my cats (.....which let's be real, you can probably just assume is in the hobbies for software engineers).
- pertique 4y ago
  It'd depend on the field (and region), I imagine, but after the first job or two I feel like all that matters with respect to schooling is that you went. Five or ten years into a career I'd be surprised if coursework that hadn't been used on the job was relevant, and GPA wouldn't even be considered. Hobbies are probably not that useful either, but I could see them catching a hiring manager's eye. Coursework probably won't have the same effect, although I suppose it could help you get through ATS.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Not that I think anyone's really looked at my resume for over 20 years (jobs through network), but I think the idea of a hobbies line is that it can be a conversation ice-breaker. That said, I don't think I have one on mine. If theey Google me they'll turn up more than enough to talk about.
- TheCleric 4y ago
  As a hiring manager, your college GPA doesn't even factor into the equation.
  - ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
    It varies significantly, as these things do. My first job out of college ~didn't accept people with below a 3.8, so they'd explicitly ask if you left it off (or worse, would assume it was <3.8 if you didn't bother to add it).

ryandrake 4y ago

> - If you're shooting resumes off into the void of companies "apply now!" pages, it's HIGHLY unusual for them to be looked at by a human. And when they are, they'll probably be considering more data points (looking at your LinkedIn and GitHub). So here it's best to make them "machine readable, human-tolerable". I wish companies would just keep it real and admit this, and instead of asking for a resume, specifically ask for a simple text or XML file with a machine-readable list of keywords. Because, let's be honest: That's all the machinery at the top of their funnel does. Once you get past the keyword filter, they can ask you to craft a real resume for them. It would cut down on everyone's work: the candidate's and the hiring company's. I'm firing off resumes to hundreds, maybe a thousand companies anyway. It would be nice to have a standard, structured format for communicating with their AI screening machinery, that I could use for all of them.

chriskanan 4y ago

At least when I was a hiring manager at an AI start-up, I looked at just about every resume submitted, and I thought the advice was pretty spot-on for what I was looking for. That said, I've never worked at a very large tech company, so I could believe that humans aren't reviewing them at those institutions.