5 ms·
Tips, thoughts [as a hiring manager]: 1. Build a professional CV. The current one (CV_Late2022.pdf), with a black background, bright colored links, no useful i
by Maro 2y ago
Tips, thoughts [as a hiring manager]:
1. Build a professional CV. The current one (CV_Late2022.pdf), with a black background, bright colored links, no useful information, it's off-putting and looks amateurish. I found your "real" one (CV_Mid2022_Frozen.pdf), not sure why it's an additional click away. Take the "frozen" one, and turn it into a good-looking professional one. Just put something like "2022-present Career break" at the end.
2. You probably should do lots of practice interviews [in english]. Get feedback on how you're doing. If you want to get a job, this is probably the highest leverage activity (other than fixing the CV), _not_ messing around with functional programming and Blender.
3. Pick some open source projects and try to contribute. If/once you're successful, put it on your CV.
Less important:
4. Make a showcase site that looks good. The website as-is looks like something on Geocities from the 90s, amateurish like the CV. Only show things that tell a good story. Also know that the showcase site is not that important, eg. recruiters don't look at it, hiring managers _maybe_ will see it.
5. You always mention the ACM membership, but it doesn't mean anything. It's just a membership, not a qualification/accomplishment.
6. Consider not having a big picture of yourself everywhere. Are you trying to get hired based on your looks, or your competence?
-
Note on asthetics, since some people mention it in comments:
A. I personally strongly believe that asthetics matter, because asthetics are a big part of Engineering in general, Software Engineering in particular.
B. If the person can't follow some sort of reasonable cultural style guide in your 1-page CV, will they follow coding style guides at work?
C. Eg. if somebody doesn't bother to align paragraphs, leaves commas hanging, uses inconsistent spacing, has typos, etc, ON THEIR 1-PAGE CV, THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT FOR GETTING A JOB, then.. Will they indent their code? Will they follow style guidelines? Will they use good names without typos for variables and functions and classes? Will they write good comments and commit messages?
D. Having reviewed 1000s of CVs and done 100s of interviews, the above correlations exist. And picking CVs and interviews are about looking for signals.
-
Obviously I'm just one hiring manager in about a pool of a million (or more), my opinion is not universal, no reason to get too worked up about it!
- work_a 2y agoyou make a lot of good points. Btu, delivering your message with compassion and empathy makes it even better. Please understand that people are from different backgrounds and cultures. They may not have the same clarity and logical thinking abilities as you. So please practice some compassion. Especially as a hiring manager.
- waihtis 2y agoThe OP was looking to find a job, someone is trying to help. You are not, ergo please refrain from commenting further.
- Maro 2y agoThis is actually the second version of the comment. The first version I didn't post because I thought it's too harsh. This is good enough, has a good element of tough love, but people sometimes need that. "They may not have the same clarity and logical thinking abilities as you." - then I don't want to hire them :)
- petters 2y ago> Make a showcase site that looks good. The website as-is looks like a website from the 90s I liked it! But then again, I used the internet in the 90s so it’s nostalgia. You’re probably right
- vunderba 2y agoMaybe have a separate website devoted to your professional career is what I would suggest. Because honestly, I like your minimalistic looking website, and I even like the fact that you put a picture of yourself on it, there's an element of authenticity to it that is genuinely touching in an era where everyone is sporting the exact same SPA react site.
- grobgambit 2y agoMy first impression is that it looks like my Geocities website from 1998 with an even worse color scheme. That is going to frame everything about the person as "outdated" and little surprise no one is hiring them.
- trickstra 2y agoIs there actually any measurable relation between the colors on a CV and work performance? If hiring managers drop candidates just based on this, then I assume there must be a really strong relation, but I've never ever seen one, or even seen anyone else talk about it.
- bruce343434 2y agoNonconformity can be off putting, especially to neurotypical individuals
- callahad 2y agoI wouldn't be surprised. Deviation from established norms indicates that the person is either oblivious to the norms, or intentionally breaking them. Both are risky.
- Mawr 2y agoHiring managers don't spend 30mins on each CV trying to find reasons to hire someone. They've got a pile of hundreds of candidates that they need to sort through quickly, so anything but a clearly positive impression gets immediately rejected.
- trickstra 2y agoBut that implies there are a lot of good programmers among the rejected CVs. I mean here in this example from OP - if he improves his CV visuals and then finds a job - that means he had the technical qualities to get the job in the first place, only the CV impression was causing the rejections. Which means the hiring managers are following a flawed metric, relying on shallow and easily manipulated visual factor. Every time I try to dig into this, the answer is along the lines "You need to impress the hiring manager in 10 seconds" which is a very different game than the technical skill and I don't see how would that impression translate into long term work performance. It's just gatekeeping. Nobody is quoting any statistical research, not even the hiring managers themselves, so I suspect there isn't much to back this practice. I hope someone can prove me wrong.