6 ms·

Show HN: My Resume 2.0

99 points by sitetechie 14y ago

sitetechie 14y ago
I'm bootstrapping a SaaS business but running out of cash and resources, so I'm open to business propositions or freelance gigs for the next six months or so. This is how I try to promote myself. What do you think?
- corin_ 14y ago
  Maybe it's a cunning plan to avoid being contacted by certain people, but I've known plenty of people who would be put off by seeing "laziness" listed as one of your traits.
  - Udo 14y ago
    Not necessarily. The right kind of laziness in a software engineer can facilitate the creation of a lot of automation and very simple code that doesn't cause a lot of work. In the right context, laziness can be a great quality.
    - corin_ 14y ago
      I didn't say it was a bad thing - though personally I think that while the whole "if you have a difficult task give it to a lazy man" logic is flawed, there are people out there who aren't lazy but still capable of being efficient - just that there are some people out there who could well base a hiring decision on it.
  - sitetechie 14y ago
    It's a pun (and link to) threevirtues.com, I was hoping to connect should people recognize this, but you might be right in that it's too negative a trait.
    - corin_ 14y ago
      Ah, didn't get the reference, nor notice the link. I'm not saying it's definitely something to avoid, maybe you only want to be hired to people who get the reference, or maybe you only want to be hired by people who, without getting the reference, don't instantly think "lazy = terrible!" (I fall into the latter camp).
  - jmcarlin 14y ago
    Laziness is one of the three great virtues of a programmer according to Larry Wall. "Laziness" was used in the context of all three virtues: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LazinessImpatienceHubris http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LazinessImpatienceHubris
    - sitetechie 14y ago
      Yep, that's what I'm trying to convey.
- epo 14y ago
  I really like it. Sure there is scope for improvement (the graphics and typography) but there is enough here to make interested people pick up the phone or send you email. I'd put a carefully worded synopsis at the head to enable everyone to get the gist and to motivate interested people to read on. I'll bet this inspires lots of people to make their own version. Curiosity is misspelt and para 2 of "full stack" is in the wrong font (Firefox/OS X).
  - sitetechie 14y ago
    Thanks! Para 2 of "full stack" has a smaller font size (on purpose), but I haven't checked how it looks in OS X.
cryodesign 14y ago
I've done my share of recruiting and here is some brutally honest but hopefully helpful feedback: 1) The caricature of yourself is the first thing I noticed and it put me off. It's a bad drawing and triggered a negative responsive - I now have to make a mental effort to screen it out and avoid referring to you as "the dev with the sh*tty drawing". I'd just stick to your photo, which looks much better and gives me the impression that you're a pleasant chap to work with. 2) Your CV is a visual mess - serif font with varying sizes and styles... I felt lost. 3) Too much waffle, i.e. too many words. Focus on your recent achievements, major obstacles you've encountered and how you overcame those etc. something to peek my interest. 4) Horrible color-scheme (might be the texture and the poor gradient further down), reminds me of old battle-ship gray Windows 95 apps. If you want to use gray, see how Apple's website is using it. 5) I'd avoid words like "cool" or "mad skillz". In short, keep it simple and stick to what recruiters are used to seeing. Some examples of nicely formatted and easy to scan resumes are: http://resume.justindickinson.com/ http://resume.justindickinson.com/ http://oaktreecreative.com/resume/ http://oaktreecreative.com/resume/
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Very helpful feedback, thank you. Did you know you can create your own (less sh*tty) caricature at my homepage (peterdevos.com)? The first resume you link to is based on a standard resume template featuring C'thulhu (http://css-tricks.com/one-page-resume-site/ http://css-tricks.com/one-page-resume-site/), I wanted a more personal approach but I guess I pushed it too far for your taste.
  - cryodesign 14y ago
    Tried it and it made me smile - you're much prettier than me, so I take my comment back referring to your drawing as sh*tty. Just wanted to illustrate what was happening in my head. I know it's very subjective anyway, so please don't take it personal. Regarding my first link, I didn't know it was based on a template and I doubt many recruiters will know as well. Just thought it's one example of an easy to scan resume.
andreigheorghe 14y ago
Developer here. I feel there's too much info there. I read 2 or 3 titles, skimmed over the wall of text, looked at the pretty pictures for a full 2 seconds and then got bored. I suggest either extracting 5 sentences that would represent you best and focus on communicating those. If you still insist that all the info there is relevant, at least hide it under expandable sections. My 2c. Good luck!
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Thanks. Expandable sections is probably a good idea.
  - yuchi 14y ago
    The issue is real as far as I can see, but expandable sections is like cheating in this context. You should work on better typography hierarchy. Create a better organization for content and reduce a little (not too much) the size of font. It's not a problem of "too much" content, but about "too aggressive layout", difficult to scan.
callumjones 14y ago
One little tidbit, you might want to fix up that image of your "full" stack. It looks like you grabbed a bunch of images off Google Images and threw it together in MS Paint (it doesn't help that GIF is messing up the colour palette). As some one who has stared at a couple of resumes and been annoyed when a resume looks weird it may help a little bit.
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Thanks. That's exactly what I did (in Photoshop, not paint) when I created the first concept. I thought I could pass it of as 'design' so I didn't clean it up, but maybe I should.
hk_kh 14y ago
My take: http://i.imgur.com/zFuNa.jpg http://i.imgur.com/zFuNa.jpg
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Nice infographic!
  - hk_kh 14y ago
    One of the things in mind (as I am not a designer) is that this would make more sense in html, css and svg (it's already on svg), making the graphic talk about your own skills. I think the same about your site. It's good, but you would take more of it by applying some css and javascript magic to all the images that include text (and then, exclude the text from the image).
- Avalaxy 14y ago
  You really have 'Micro$oft' on your 'resumé'? That's so childish...
  - hk_kh 14y ago
    A company that bases his techs on Microsoft products or is sensitive about this would be put off by reading it. It keeps 'serious' companies from contacting me, improving my accuracy on finding a position I can handle without headaches.
    - libria 14y ago
      The word also has a strong association with devs who are immature or platform religious. It's possible you would be ok working with others of this mindset, but I think you're better off w/out it. No ad-homs intended, just wouldn't want you to miss opportunities with companies that frown upon being close-minded (but are still non-microsoft).
      - hk_kh 14y ago
peteretep 14y ago
Putting your Myers-Briggs personality type in your CV suggests to me that you probably believe in horoscopes, too. At the very least, you think it's relevant somehow and reflects positively on you (or why would you include it?). It's twee, self-indulgent, and pseudo-science - I want more from my developers.
- sitetechie 14y ago
  I think it's an accurate description of me, so thought it would help. I don't believe in horoscopes, of course, INTP's don't do pseudo-science ;-)
  - mechanical_fish 14y ago
    The problem with including the MBTI on your resume has nothing to do with its accuracy, precision, or scientific basis. It's about relevance. Flip the problem around: If your interviewer asked you for your MBTI type, would you think that was a good sign? Is that the kind of company that you want to work for, the kind that spends valuable interview time quizzing you about being an INTP? Let me venture to guess that the answer is "no". So why provide such detail? (If the answer is "but I would never want to work for someone who doesn't know, and care, that I identify as an INTP", then I withdraw my observation. Good luck to you.) My more general advice is: A resume isn't a dossier that summarizes one's entire life. You're not trying to adopt a child. You're trying to score a six-month gig. Focus, focus, focus.
    - peteretep 14y ago
      You put this much better than I did. The risk I see with hiring someone who lists their MBTI on their CV so prominently is that one day I'm going to ask them to do something, or work with someone, or communicate in a certain way about something, and they'll claim they can't or won't, based on that.
    - sitetechie 14y ago
      > Flip the problem around: If your interviewer asked you for your MBTI type, would you think that was a good sign? No, that would not be a good sign, point taken, although I'm not sure it's that bad when you mention it as an applicant. The relevance for me was describing what kind of guy I think I am (somewhat of an introvert), but maybe I should downplay it or leave it out completely.
politician 14y ago
It's a refreshing take on the standard developer white-dress-shirt-no-tie-and-slacks resume, but I abhor the phrase "clean code". It's self-important and utterly meaningless given that code you write will be picked over by multiple people throughout the lifetime of the software. Instead, I personally value developers who understand effective abstraction.
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Abhorrence is bad, I'll think about rephrasing or taking it out.
- benjaminwootton 14y ago
  Mentioning 'clean code' is surely a message that the OP understands that his code will 'be picked over by multiple people throughout the lifetime of the software'? I'll take clean domain level clear and concise coding even if it under-delivers on the abstractions occasionally. Code will always be read and maintained more often than it is aggressively extended. I vote to keep it in!
  - sitetechie 14y ago
    Yup, that's why I mentioned it. I think it's important that my code can be easily read and is well-structured. Vote counted!
  - politician 14y ago
    Well, the purpose of constructing an abstraction is at least as much about DRY and SRP as about providing extensible base classes in an object-oriented language. I think we tend to agree given that you prefer 'concise coding' which I'll take to mean DRY and 'straightforward' rather than 'clever'. But by 'picked over', I literally meant 'changed to meet changing requirements' rather than 'read for comprehension'. In that sense, the fact that one guy on the team considers the code he writes to be 'clean' is rather meaningless when many hands might work in that pathway. Composable approaches tend to be more resilient to regressions, well, in my experience anyway, YMMV. I guess my problem with 'clean code' is that it's too open to interpretation. What do you specifically do that makes your code better than the other guys?
thibaut_barrere 14y ago
Information overload! What I prefer is the bottom part, with your photo, and where you focus more on the customer + contact info. I would probably put that at the top, and consider the rest are details for the interested visitor. Hope this helps!
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Thanks for the comment! There's way less information on my homepage (peterdevos.com) though.
  - thibaut_barrere 14y ago
    I hadn't seen that, thanks - looks like a good complement then!
mdkess 14y ago
I like it. One thought - one of the first things I do is search for GitHub on these pages. I see that your 'programmer' link points to your GitHub account, but you might want to add the keyword there too.
- sitetechie 14y ago
  There's also the 'software' links to Github projects and the Github icon at the bottom of the page.
gexla 14y ago
This is a bit wordy. If you are looking for a freelance gig or business op then you really should be building a business front. As a freelancer, you aren't sending out resumes, you are a business selling a service. Your business is very similar to hundreds of others, but yet none of the top providers in your space would even consider using a site like this as a sales tool. So, you need to figure out what you are really trying to accomplish here, are you trying to get a job or are you trying to start a business? Don't mention on Hacker News that you are running out of money. Any potential partner or consumer of your services could be put off by that info. If you are running out of money, then what happens when your business goes completely broke while you are working on my project? Does my project take a back seat? Do you disappear while my project goes off the Rails? If you fail to deliver a single piece of value then will you be able to refund any of my money? Ultimately, this will probably do the trick as a lot of people out there aren't really picky. However, perception is important. If you look like a world class provider, then clients won't blink when you hand then a world class quote. ;) ETA: I see you do have a link to your company, which is a web development service provider. Why not point people there rather than the location you posted here?
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Thanks for commenting! I'm looking for a freelance gig for 6 months, to build up some cash to bootstrap the SaaS application (which will be the business front), so I'll need just 1 good project, not hundreds of clients. It's a different model than that of the top providers in this space. The money part concerns my SaaS project I'm bootstrapping in 6 months from now, the 'current business' (me paying my rent and food) is in no way in danger (and hasn't been in 15 years).
  - gexla 14y ago
    The model isn't different Most development service providers are probably one man shops just like you and they can only handle one full time client at a time (or multiple part time clients.) Making the sale is basically the same for each client. You aren't selling something which can be mass produced. Just saying, you already have a business presence that you have already put some work into, why not dust that off and put it to work? Once you get that one client you are looking for, then put up the "all booked up" sign until you need to raise more cash.
hailpixel 14y ago
Very nice job. I like the feeling you are going for and the illustrations. I've marked-up this image ( http://i.imgur.com/HWiw7.jpg http://i.imgur.com/HWiw7.jpg ) with some suggestions and things I would cleanup. Notes transcribed below. Hope these help! 1) Center the headshot vertically with the bubble. 2) Don't use an image to round corners, use CSS3 property border-radius instead. 3) This font is unique to this callout, use the Amethysta font face used on the rest of the page. 4) This isn't centered on my screen. Use font-align to center this text, not a static margin. 5) Using a large typeface for the first line/paragraph of text works well to call attention to detail. Make the following paragraphs the same font size. 6) The background colors of the images and the box they sit in are all slightly different. 7) I wasn't sure if this title was supposed to be sitting on the right margin. Centering it would work better I think. 8) These are links, but do no look like links. Use color to show they are clickable. edit: spelling, grammer.
- vecinu 14y ago
  I thought those were some really great suggestions to a really already great resume. I didn't know you can round the corners of an image in CSS ...
  - hailpixel 14y ago
    Not the image itself, but the box that holds the image. Check out this quick tutorial: http://www.css3.info/preview/rounded-border/ http://www.css3.info/preview/rounded-border/ .
  - baby 14y ago
    You can make arrows as well in CSS: http://cssarrowplease.com/ http://cssarrowplease.com/ wouldn't recommend it too much though, doesn't work on Aurora.
- Mahh 14y ago
  Do you have any resources for studying up on design concerns? It's easy to find software examples and instructions online, but I really have no idea where to start with building my eye for design. Thanks.
davidjgraph 14y ago
Is the colorful part of http://about.peterdevos.com/images/stack3.gif http://about.peterdevos.com/images/stack3.gif a stock image? I've seen this a few times, http://www.firebase.com/ http://www.firebase.com/ comes to mind.
angelbob 14y ago
I really like it, and the "artistic direction" is lovely. With that said, I would put more of the specifics (my software) earlier and some of the generalities (traits of a great software engineer) later on. If you start with a lot of generalities, it's easy to think, "oh, he has no specifics to recommend him" when in fact you do.
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Thank you for the kudos. I experimented with the order a bit, but myself and a friend that looked at it found the flow of information a bit weird when starting with the specifics.
meric 14y ago
Wow we have lots in common, except your resume reads like a grown up version of mine! "I'm a small business owner, programmer, biker and overall nice and knowledgeable guy. I love creating beautiful code and simple interfaces." I may be still a university student, and my "freelancing business" is worth only $10k a year, but I'm also a biker (started this year), a nice and knowledgeable guy, and the passion of mine in software is beautiful code and simple interfaces. You're an independent contractor, and... I guess, me too. I too am involved in development of the entire website - backend, frontend, database, the whole thing, but the number of technologies I know is around a third of yours. Maybe I can describe myself as "I am an aspiring FULL STACK developer"? I'm going to assume those programming traits are shared by all programmers because I have those too. At least your list of projects is completely different to mine (and much bigger)... And of your list of 6 techniques & best-practices I only actively employ three. Definitely a grown-up version of my resume alright.
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Thanks. Don't worry about the number of technolgies, just make sure you do one stack (one server-side language, HTML, JavaScript and CSS) well, and call yourself a full stack developer. Drive safe.
glimcat 14y ago
It has some nice points, but I quickly hit tl;dr mode. Resumes or resume analogues should be concise unless they're actually portfolio demos, in which case they should still be concise.
tsunamifury 14y ago
As a designer (which I know you are not) this resume is a bit of a visual mess. Font sizes are all over the place, color blocking is sloppy and unclear and the visuals overlap the text in several places. It also doesn't adapt to mobile devices well. Pick 2 or three font sizes and cascade them. Pick one serif and one san serif font. Pick a base text color one accent color for your section headers. Clearly separate your text from your visuals. Use some bold within body text. Break longer text up. Shorten the entire resume to focus on only your best work, provide an appendix at the end for your full list. I built a clear and simple adaptive resume I made a few years back here: www.constantwanderer.com/resume
- rtrocc 14y ago
  You're a mental mess if you're going to pick on those things in an awesome resume that's solely using the idea of visual expression to better articulate itself. Find another thread to pick on pal...
  - tsunamifury 14y ago
    His resume is otherwise very good. I was providing feedback he can choose to use or not from a design prospective. I would be very happy to have someone who has expertise i do not provide feedback on my work. Your response is not helpful.
    - rtrocc 14y ago
      Yes you're comments are "helpful" but, you should be shedding that advice on a project that is looking for it. My comment is indirectly helpful by attempting to have people avoid leave comments like yours on great work that has no place for irrelevant points. Yes its a visual resume, but unless he's specifically in the design field, the time you took to point all those things out could have been put to better use elsewhere. And this response can apply to all the others that left attack-esque "advice" ...
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Hi Chris, thanks for the comments. I agree it's a bit of a visual mess compared to yours, kudos there. Although yours renders as a blank page in my Firefox (v12.0).
frouaix 14y ago
A note for readers who might think this type of resume could help land a job in a traditional company (AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, and any other software company, large and small, who employs recruiters). Know your customer. Your customer is the recruiter. A typical recruiter spends less than a minute looking at a resume. Much less than a minute in some cases. This presentation makes it impossible for the reader to skim and get the salient point of why you might match the requirements of a particular position. The only reason a recruiter would actually read this type of resume is if you were a referral. Otherwise, the recruiter will skip to the next resume on their stack.
- sitetechie 14y ago
  I'm aiming for the second step with this: after I've sent a recruiter my MS-Word curriculum vitae in Dutch, per specifications, and they're including it in their selection to the prospective client, I'ld like the potential client to consider me for an interview based on the online version.
- lucisferre 14y ago
  This resume doesn't look to be angling for traditional companies so probably not an issue for the author. However you have a point. I'd say though that catering to recruiters, an industry that seems to add nearly negligible value to the recruitment process, would not be all that well advised even in general.
- leeny 14y ago
  I'm a recruiter. I also used to be a programmer, so perhaps I'm not entirely typical, but I actually really enjoyed this format, in general (though I agree with another commenter about how it's a bit harder to scan for salient information than ye olde LinkedIn profile). Anyway, the reason I enjoyed this format is that I look at huge stacks of resumes on a regular basis, and most of them are completely soulless piles of keywords/buzzwords. Anything that breaks up the monotony and screams, "I am passionate about something" is going to stand out.
trimbo 14y ago
Hi, I've spent my career looking at thousands of resumes so I hope you'll take my opinion seriously on this. I appreciate the idea of trying to break out of the fold. People will use new fonts, new structure, diagrams, etc. I understand why people do it, and why they think it's a good idea. That said, it's not a good idea. As the guy looking at resumes, I just want to know what you're doing, what you've done and what education you have in as little time as possible. A few specific points: - Your latest project is waaay down at the bottom. It should be at the top. What you've done most recently is the most relevant, right? Put it right in my face. - The first two sections are vaguely written in the third person which IMO doesn't help me figure out anything about you. - I can't figure out if you have any formal higher education. If not, that's cool, but because the resume is in a strange format, I can't tell either way. People don't read resumes like they read a book, they scan them, then might drill into some details. Changing the standard structure is like when Facebook changed to the Timeline. To be honest, I've grown so tired of resumes in general that I just go to people's LinkedIn. It has standard formatting that is easy to scan and figure out what they've done and what they're currently doing. Hope that helps.
- doug11235 14y ago
  You bring up education a few times. Given the length of his work history, is it even important at this point? Why are you so interested in it? I ask because a lot of people claim that education only really matters for your first job. After that you let your experience speak for itself. So I'm interested in hearing you perspective.
  - trimbo 14y ago
    > You bring up education a few times. Given the length of his work history, is it even important at this point? Why are you so interested in it? Education is (we hope) the rigorous, dedicated, examined and measured study of some subject. On Peter's resume, he mentions that he is an expert Perl programmer. I have no way to measure this without giving him a coding question. However, if he had he has a such-and-such GPA in the CS program at Stanford, then I have some way of measuring his expertise in the curriculum there (BTW - I go so far as to review curricula of various programs when it comes time of the year to do college grad interviews) I fully admit that not all people need degrees. It's like saying that everyone in the factory must have a mechanical engineering degree. They don't need it... but if they do, I'd like to know quickly. It also is not saying that someone cannot learn these things on their own. It's also not saying that someone without that study can be smarter and more capable than someone with those years of study. Both happen, a lot. And also a lot of dropouts I've known are more capable than their graduating counterparts. [OT: all of this is why I've been advocating apprenticeships out of high school for some time now, especially in games, which I used to work on.] Back to the original question, going to the extreme end of the spectrum, would you take a Ph.D. seriously on someone's resume, or not? I do. Even years later, it means they dedicated years of time to the study of that subject.
Peteris 14y ago
Hierarchy is key. Choose one or two paragraphs that are most important and make them pop. It shouldn't feel linear.
theDaveB 14y ago
On iPad the opening line says "Hi, I'm Peter? I build Web System"? The S off the end of system is missing, it's actually their but out of the black box, so very hard to see. Dave
Silhouette 14y ago
FWIW, your layout is completely broken for me in Firefox on Windows XP, and the web font looks terrible on this platform (sorry). I agree with much of the other constructive criticism you've received. In case it's helpful, your 20 seconds of attention on a first look over a CV would go something like this if I were the reviewer: 1. Made an effort to produce a distinctive on-line CV. Good. 2. Layout at top of page is broken and chose an unusual and poorly rendered web font. Bad. 3. What does he actually do? Generic terms like "building web systems" and "creating beautiful code" don't tell me very much. Neutral (but wasting time). 4. Ah, OK, he's a full stack guy, with a variety of modern tools listed. Better. 5. But despite talking about HTML5, CSS3, and other modern front-end technologies, the layout is completely broken again around that diagram, and neither the typography nor graphics are well done generally. Bad. 6. Despite claiming many years of experience, the practical skills and attention to detail aren't up to professional standards. 7. No hire. I am left with the impression of a Jack of all trades but master of none. I did read on to the end of your CV after I recorded the above, and to be brutally honest, it reinforces that impression. You're a contractor and keen to learn new technologies, which suggests that while buzzword-compliant you don't necessarily have much depth behind any of the technologies you mention throughout the CV, and nothing you say anywhere really counters that impression with hard data about years of experience with each tool, how many projects you've done with each tool and what kind of scale they were on, etc. You're a UX designer, but your CV isn't optimised for scannability at all. You adapt to change, yet the reason your layout is broken right at the top of the CV is that you're using a static background image to create a bubble that doesn't quite fit the text you wanted to show in it, instead of gracefully degrading CSS3 that would have expanded automatically to fit that text. You believe in lots of testing and continuous integration, yet you've failed basic cross-browser compatibility on several counts, all of which would be common knowledge to a good web designer/developer. OK, enough with the negativity. I figure that usually being brutally honest on these occasions is more helpful in the long run than sugar-coating stuff that is bad, but please don't take any of this personally or think I'm just having a dig. If I were you, I would either spend a bit of time polishing up my front-end skills to get the design into shape or acknowledge the limitation (both personally and by toning down the related content in the CV) and get help from someone who is an expert in that particular area. I would also get help from a professional careers advisor or other CV-writing expert on how to organise your content for the way real people are going to read that CV. You do have a lot of potentially interesting material in there, and I totally respect that you've made the effort to present it nicely, but the rookie mistakes in the design and lack of scannability are letting you down right now.
philwelch 14y ago
The phrase "style over substance" doesn't appear in the entire comment thread so far. Shame, it's really the only three words that are needed.
jdrake3 14y ago
It made me smile, and want to respond in an early kids TV show way "Hi Peter!". I liked the part about being a full stack developer too.

99 points by sitetechie 14y ago

I'm bootstrapping a SaaS business but running out of cash and resources, so I'm open to business propositions or freelance gigs for the next six months or so. This is how I try to promote myself. What do you think?

corin_ 14y ago
Maybe it's a cunning plan to avoid being contacted by certain people, but I've known plenty of people who would be put off by seeing "laziness" listed as one of your traits.
- Udo 14y ago
  Not necessarily. The right kind of laziness in a software engineer can facilitate the creation of a lot of automation and very simple code that doesn't cause a lot of work. In the right context, laziness can be a great quality.
  - corin_ 14y ago
    I didn't say it was a bad thing - though personally I think that while the whole "if you have a difficult task give it to a lazy man" logic is flawed, there are people out there who aren't lazy but still capable of being efficient - just that there are some people out there who could well base a hiring decision on it.
- sitetechie 14y ago
  It's a pun (and link to) threevirtues.com, I was hoping to connect should people recognize this, but you might be right in that it's too negative a trait.
  - corin_ 14y ago
    Ah, didn't get the reference, nor notice the link. I'm not saying it's definitely something to avoid, maybe you only want to be hired to people who get the reference, or maybe you only want to be hired by people who, without getting the reference, don't instantly think "lazy = terrible!" (I fall into the latter camp).
- jmcarlin 14y ago
  Laziness is one of the three great virtues of a programmer according to Larry Wall. "Laziness" was used in the context of all three virtues: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LazinessImpatienceHubris http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LazinessImpatienceHubris
  - sitetechie 14y ago
    Yep, that's what I'm trying to convey.
epo 14y ago
I really like it. Sure there is scope for improvement (the graphics and typography) but there is enough here to make interested people pick up the phone or send you email. I'd put a carefully worded synopsis at the head to enable everyone to get the gist and to motivate interested people to read on. I'll bet this inspires lots of people to make their own version. Curiosity is misspelt and para 2 of "full stack" is in the wrong font (Firefox/OS X).
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Thanks! Para 2 of "full stack" has a smaller font size (on purpose), but I haven't checked how it looks in OS X.

cryodesign 14y ago

I've done my share of recruiting and here is some brutally honest but hopefully helpful feedback: 1) The caricature of yourself is the first thing I noticed and it put me off. It's a bad drawing and triggered a negative responsive - I now have to make a mental effort to screen it out and avoid referring to you as "the dev with the sh*tty drawing". I'd just stick to your photo, which looks much better and gives me the impression that you're a pleasant chap to work with. 2) Your CV is a visual mess - serif font with varying sizes and styles... I felt lost. 3) Too much waffle, i.e. too many words. Focus on your recent achievements, major obstacles you've encountered and how you overcame those etc. something to peek my interest. 4) Horrible color-scheme (might be the texture and the poor gradient further down), reminds me of old battle-ship gray Windows 95 apps. If you want to use gray, see how Apple's website is using it. 5) I'd avoid words like "cool" or "mad skillz". In short, keep it simple and stick to what recruiters are used to seeing. Some examples of nicely formatted and easy to scan resumes are: http://resume.justindickinson.com/ http://resume.justindickinson.com/ http://oaktreecreative.com/resume/ http://oaktreecreative.com/resume/

sitetechie 14y ago
Very helpful feedback, thank you. Did you know you can create your own (less sh*tty) caricature at my homepage (peterdevos.com)? The first resume you link to is based on a standard resume template featuring C'thulhu (http://css-tricks.com/one-page-resume-site/ http://css-tricks.com/one-page-resume-site/), I wanted a more personal approach but I guess I pushed it too far for your taste.
- cryodesign 14y ago
  Tried it and it made me smile - you're much prettier than me, so I take my comment back referring to your drawing as sh*tty. Just wanted to illustrate what was happening in my head. I know it's very subjective anyway, so please don't take it personal. Regarding my first link, I didn't know it was based on a template and I doubt many recruiters will know as well. Just thought it's one example of an easy to scan resume.

andreigheorghe 14y ago

Developer here. I feel there's too much info there. I read 2 or 3 titles, skimmed over the wall of text, looked at the pretty pictures for a full 2 seconds and then got bored. I suggest either extracting 5 sentences that would represent you best and focus on communicating those. If you still insist that all the info there is relevant, at least hide it under expandable sections. My 2c. Good luck!

sitetechie 14y ago
Thanks. Expandable sections is probably a good idea.
- yuchi 14y ago
  The issue is real as far as I can see, but expandable sections is like cheating in this context. You should work on better typography hierarchy. Create a better organization for content and reduce a little (not too much) the size of font. It's not a problem of "too much" content, but about "too aggressive layout", difficult to scan.

callumjones 14y ago

One little tidbit, you might want to fix up that image of your "full" stack. It looks like you grabbed a bunch of images off Google Images and threw it together in MS Paint (it doesn't help that GIF is messing up the colour palette). As some one who has stared at a couple of resumes and been annoyed when a resume looks weird it may help a little bit.

sitetechie 14y ago
Thanks. That's exactly what I did (in Photoshop, not paint) when I created the first concept. I thought I could pass it of as 'design' so I didn't clean it up, but maybe I should.

hk_kh 14y ago

My take: http://i.imgur.com/zFuNa.jpg http://i.imgur.com/zFuNa.jpg

sitetechie 14y ago
Nice infographic!
- hk_kh 14y ago
  One of the things in mind (as I am not a designer) is that this would make more sense in html, css and svg (it's already on svg), making the graphic talk about your own skills. I think the same about your site. It's good, but you would take more of it by applying some css and javascript magic to all the images that include text (and then, exclude the text from the image).
Avalaxy 14y ago
You really have 'Micro$oft' on your 'resumé'? That's so childish...
- hk_kh 14y ago
  A company that bases his techs on Microsoft products or is sensitive about this would be put off by reading it. It keeps 'serious' companies from contacting me, improving my accuracy on finding a position I can handle without headaches.
  - libria 14y ago
    The word also has a strong association with devs who are immature or platform religious. It's possible you would be ok working with others of this mindset, but I think you're better off w/out it. No ad-homs intended, just wouldn't want you to miss opportunities with companies that frown upon being close-minded (but are still non-microsoft).
    - hk_kh 14y ago

peteretep 14y ago

Putting your Myers-Briggs personality type in your CV suggests to me that you probably believe in horoscopes, too. At the very least, you think it's relevant somehow and reflects positively on you (or why would you include it?). It's twee, self-indulgent, and pseudo-science - I want more from my developers.

sitetechie 14y ago
I think it's an accurate description of me, so thought it would help. I don't believe in horoscopes, of course, INTP's don't do pseudo-science ;-)
- mechanical_fish 14y ago
  The problem with including the MBTI on your resume has nothing to do with its accuracy, precision, or scientific basis. It's about relevance. Flip the problem around: If your interviewer asked you for your MBTI type, would you think that was a good sign? Is that the kind of company that you want to work for, the kind that spends valuable interview time quizzing you about being an INTP? Let me venture to guess that the answer is "no". So why provide such detail? (If the answer is "but I would never want to work for someone who doesn't know, and care, that I identify as an INTP", then I withdraw my observation. Good luck to you.) My more general advice is: A resume isn't a dossier that summarizes one's entire life. You're not trying to adopt a child. You're trying to score a six-month gig. Focus, focus, focus.
  - peteretep 14y ago
    You put this much better than I did. The risk I see with hiring someone who lists their MBTI on their CV so prominently is that one day I'm going to ask them to do something, or work with someone, or communicate in a certain way about something, and they'll claim they can't or won't, based on that.
  - sitetechie 14y ago
    > Flip the problem around: If your interviewer asked you for your MBTI type, would you think that was a good sign? No, that would not be a good sign, point taken, although I'm not sure it's that bad when you mention it as an applicant. The relevance for me was describing what kind of guy I think I am (somewhat of an introvert), but maybe I should downplay it or leave it out completely.

politician 14y ago

It's a refreshing take on the standard developer white-dress-shirt-no-tie-and-slacks resume, but I abhor the phrase "clean code". It's self-important and utterly meaningless given that code you write will be picked over by multiple people throughout the lifetime of the software. Instead, I personally value developers who understand effective abstraction.

sitetechie 14y ago
Abhorrence is bad, I'll think about rephrasing or taking it out.
benjaminwootton 14y ago
Mentioning 'clean code' is surely a message that the OP understands that his code will 'be picked over by multiple people throughout the lifetime of the software'? I'll take clean domain level clear and concise coding even if it under-delivers on the abstractions occasionally. Code will always be read and maintained more often than it is aggressively extended. I vote to keep it in!
- sitetechie 14y ago
  Yup, that's why I mentioned it. I think it's important that my code can be easily read and is well-structured. Vote counted!
- politician 14y ago
  Well, the purpose of constructing an abstraction is at least as much about DRY and SRP as about providing extensible base classes in an object-oriented language. I think we tend to agree given that you prefer 'concise coding' which I'll take to mean DRY and 'straightforward' rather than 'clever'. But by 'picked over', I literally meant 'changed to meet changing requirements' rather than 'read for comprehension'. In that sense, the fact that one guy on the team considers the code he writes to be 'clean' is rather meaningless when many hands might work in that pathway. Composable approaches tend to be more resilient to regressions, well, in my experience anyway, YMMV. I guess my problem with 'clean code' is that it's too open to interpretation. What do you specifically do that makes your code better than the other guys?

thibaut_barrere 14y ago

Information overload! What I prefer is the bottom part, with your photo, and where you focus more on the customer + contact info. I would probably put that at the top, and consider the rest are details for the interested visitor. Hope this helps!

sitetechie 14y ago
Thanks for the comment! There's way less information on my homepage (peterdevos.com) though.
- thibaut_barrere 14y ago
  I hadn't seen that, thanks - looks like a good complement then!

mdkess 14y ago

I like it. One thought - one of the first things I do is search for GitHub on these pages. I see that your 'programmer' link points to your GitHub account, but you might want to add the keyword there too.

sitetechie 14y ago
There's also the 'software' links to Github projects and the Github icon at the bottom of the page.

gexla 14y ago

This is a bit wordy. If you are looking for a freelance gig or business op then you really should be building a business front. As a freelancer, you aren't sending out resumes, you are a business selling a service. Your business is very similar to hundreds of others, but yet none of the top providers in your space would even consider using a site like this as a sales tool. So, you need to figure out what you are really trying to accomplish here, are you trying to get a job or are you trying to start a business? Don't mention on Hacker News that you are running out of money. Any potential partner or consumer of your services could be put off by that info. If you are running out of money, then what happens when your business goes completely broke while you are working on my project? Does my project take a back seat? Do you disappear while my project goes off the Rails? If you fail to deliver a single piece of value then will you be able to refund any of my money? Ultimately, this will probably do the trick as a lot of people out there aren't really picky. However, perception is important. If you look like a world class provider, then clients won't blink when you hand then a world class quote. ;) ETA: I see you do have a link to your company, which is a web development service provider. Why not point people there rather than the location you posted here?

sitetechie 14y ago
Thanks for commenting! I'm looking for a freelance gig for 6 months, to build up some cash to bootstrap the SaaS application (which will be the business front), so I'll need just 1 good project, not hundreds of clients. It's a different model than that of the top providers in this space. The money part concerns my SaaS project I'm bootstrapping in 6 months from now, the 'current business' (me paying my rent and food) is in no way in danger (and hasn't been in 15 years).
- gexla 14y ago
  The model isn't different Most development service providers are probably one man shops just like you and they can only handle one full time client at a time (or multiple part time clients.) Making the sale is basically the same for each client. You aren't selling something which can be mass produced. Just saying, you already have a business presence that you have already put some work into, why not dust that off and put it to work? Once you get that one client you are looking for, then put up the "all booked up" sign until you need to raise more cash.

hailpixel 14y ago

Very nice job. I like the feeling you are going for and the illustrations. I've marked-up this image ( http://i.imgur.com/HWiw7.jpg http://i.imgur.com/HWiw7.jpg ) with some suggestions and things I would cleanup. Notes transcribed below. Hope these help! 1) Center the headshot vertically with the bubble. 2) Don't use an image to round corners, use CSS3 property border-radius instead. 3) This font is unique to this callout, use the Amethysta font face used on the rest of the page. 4) This isn't centered on my screen. Use font-align to center this text, not a static margin. 5) Using a large typeface for the first line/paragraph of text works well to call attention to detail. Make the following paragraphs the same font size. 6) The background colors of the images and the box they sit in are all slightly different. 7) I wasn't sure if this title was supposed to be sitting on the right margin. Centering it would work better I think. 8) These are links, but do no look like links. Use color to show they are clickable. edit: spelling, grammer.

vecinu 14y ago
I thought those were some really great suggestions to a really already great resume. I didn't know you can round the corners of an image in CSS ...
- hailpixel 14y ago
  Not the image itself, but the box that holds the image. Check out this quick tutorial: http://www.css3.info/preview/rounded-border/ http://www.css3.info/preview/rounded-border/ .
- baby 14y ago
  You can make arrows as well in CSS: http://cssarrowplease.com/ http://cssarrowplease.com/ wouldn't recommend it too much though, doesn't work on Aurora.
Mahh 14y ago
Do you have any resources for studying up on design concerns? It's easy to find software examples and instructions online, but I really have no idea where to start with building my eye for design. Thanks.

davidjgraph 14y ago

Is the colorful part of http://about.peterdevos.com/images/stack3.gif http://about.peterdevos.com/images/stack3.gif a stock image? I've seen this a few times, http://www.firebase.com/ http://www.firebase.com/ comes to mind.

angelbob 14y ago

I really like it, and the "artistic direction" is lovely. With that said, I would put more of the specifics (my software) earlier and some of the generalities (traits of a great software engineer) later on. If you start with a lot of generalities, it's easy to think, "oh, he has no specifics to recommend him" when in fact you do.

sitetechie 14y ago
Thank you for the kudos. I experimented with the order a bit, but myself and a friend that looked at it found the flow of information a bit weird when starting with the specifics.

meric 14y ago

Wow we have lots in common, except your resume reads like a grown up version of mine! "I'm a small business owner, programmer, biker and overall nice and knowledgeable guy. I love creating beautiful code and simple interfaces." I may be still a university student, and my "freelancing business" is worth only $10k a year, but I'm also a biker (started this year), a nice and knowledgeable guy, and the passion of mine in software is beautiful code and simple interfaces. You're an independent contractor, and... I guess, me too. I too am involved in development of the entire website - backend, frontend, database, the whole thing, but the number of technologies I know is around a third of yours. Maybe I can describe myself as "I am an aspiring FULL STACK developer"? I'm going to assume those programming traits are shared by all programmers because I have those too. At least your list of projects is completely different to mine (and much bigger)... And of your list of 6 techniques & best-practices I only actively employ three. Definitely a grown-up version of my resume alright.

sitetechie 14y ago
Thanks. Don't worry about the number of technolgies, just make sure you do one stack (one server-side language, HTML, JavaScript and CSS) well, and call yourself a full stack developer. Drive safe.

glimcat 14y ago

It has some nice points, but I quickly hit tl;dr mode. Resumes or resume analogues should be concise unless they're actually portfolio demos, in which case they should still be concise.

tsunamifury 14y ago

As a designer (which I know you are not) this resume is a bit of a visual mess. Font sizes are all over the place, color blocking is sloppy and unclear and the visuals overlap the text in several places. It also doesn't adapt to mobile devices well. Pick 2 or three font sizes and cascade them. Pick one serif and one san serif font. Pick a base text color one accent color for your section headers. Clearly separate your text from your visuals. Use some bold within body text. Break longer text up. Shorten the entire resume to focus on only your best work, provide an appendix at the end for your full list. I built a clear and simple adaptive resume I made a few years back here: www.constantwanderer.com/resume

rtrocc 14y ago
You're a mental mess if you're going to pick on those things in an awesome resume that's solely using the idea of visual expression to better articulate itself. Find another thread to pick on pal...
- tsunamifury 14y ago
  His resume is otherwise very good. I was providing feedback he can choose to use or not from a design prospective. I would be very happy to have someone who has expertise i do not provide feedback on my work. Your response is not helpful.
  - rtrocc 14y ago
    Yes you're comments are "helpful" but, you should be shedding that advice on a project that is looking for it. My comment is indirectly helpful by attempting to have people avoid leave comments like yours on great work that has no place for irrelevant points. Yes its a visual resume, but unless he's specifically in the design field, the time you took to point all those things out could have been put to better use elsewhere. And this response can apply to all the others that left attack-esque "advice" ...
sitetechie 14y ago
Hi Chris, thanks for the comments. I agree it's a bit of a visual mess compared to yours, kudos there. Although yours renders as a blank page in my Firefox (v12.0).

frouaix 14y ago

A note for readers who might think this type of resume could help land a job in a traditional company (AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, and any other software company, large and small, who employs recruiters). Know your customer. Your customer is the recruiter. A typical recruiter spends less than a minute looking at a resume. Much less than a minute in some cases. This presentation makes it impossible for the reader to skim and get the salient point of why you might match the requirements of a particular position. The only reason a recruiter would actually read this type of resume is if you were a referral. Otherwise, the recruiter will skip to the next resume on their stack.

sitetechie 14y ago
I'm aiming for the second step with this: after I've sent a recruiter my MS-Word curriculum vitae in Dutch, per specifications, and they're including it in their selection to the prospective client, I'ld like the potential client to consider me for an interview based on the online version.
lucisferre 14y ago
This resume doesn't look to be angling for traditional companies so probably not an issue for the author. However you have a point. I'd say though that catering to recruiters, an industry that seems to add nearly negligible value to the recruitment process, would not be all that well advised even in general.
leeny 14y ago
I'm a recruiter. I also used to be a programmer, so perhaps I'm not entirely typical, but I actually really enjoyed this format, in general (though I agree with another commenter about how it's a bit harder to scan for salient information than ye olde LinkedIn profile). Anyway, the reason I enjoyed this format is that I look at huge stacks of resumes on a regular basis, and most of them are completely soulless piles of keywords/buzzwords. Anything that breaks up the monotony and screams, "I am passionate about something" is going to stand out.

trimbo 14y ago

Hi, I've spent my career looking at thousands of resumes so I hope you'll take my opinion seriously on this. I appreciate the idea of trying to break out of the fold. People will use new fonts, new structure, diagrams, etc. I understand why people do it, and why they think it's a good idea. That said, it's not a good idea. As the guy looking at resumes, I just want to know what you're doing, what you've done and what education you have in as little time as possible. A few specific points: - Your latest project is waaay down at the bottom. It should be at the top. What you've done most recently is the most relevant, right? Put it right in my face. - The first two sections are vaguely written in the third person which IMO doesn't help me figure out anything about you. - I can't figure out if you have any formal higher education. If not, that's cool, but because the resume is in a strange format, I can't tell either way. People don't read resumes like they read a book, they scan them, then might drill into some details. Changing the standard structure is like when Facebook changed to the Timeline. To be honest, I've grown so tired of resumes in general that I just go to people's LinkedIn. It has standard formatting that is easy to scan and figure out what they've done and what they're currently doing. Hope that helps.

doug11235 14y ago
You bring up education a few times. Given the length of his work history, is it even important at this point? Why are you so interested in it? I ask because a lot of people claim that education only really matters for your first job. After that you let your experience speak for itself. So I'm interested in hearing you perspective.
- trimbo 14y ago
  > You bring up education a few times. Given the length of his work history, is it even important at this point? Why are you so interested in it? Education is (we hope) the rigorous, dedicated, examined and measured study of some subject. On Peter's resume, he mentions that he is an expert Perl programmer. I have no way to measure this without giving him a coding question. However, if he had he has a such-and-such GPA in the CS program at Stanford, then I have some way of measuring his expertise in the curriculum there (BTW - I go so far as to review curricula of various programs when it comes time of the year to do college grad interviews) I fully admit that not all people need degrees. It's like saying that everyone in the factory must have a mechanical engineering degree. They don't need it... but if they do, I'd like to know quickly. It also is not saying that someone cannot learn these things on their own. It's also not saying that someone without that study can be smarter and more capable than someone with those years of study. Both happen, a lot. And also a lot of dropouts I've known are more capable than their graduating counterparts. [OT: all of this is why I've been advocating apprenticeships out of high school for some time now, especially in games, which I used to work on.] Back to the original question, going to the extreme end of the spectrum, would you take a Ph.D. seriously on someone's resume, or not? I do. Even years later, it means they dedicated years of time to the study of that subject.

Peteris 14y ago

Hierarchy is key. Choose one or two paragraphs that are most important and make them pop. It shouldn't feel linear.

theDaveB 14y ago

On iPad the opening line says "Hi, I'm Peter? I build Web System"? The S off the end of system is missing, it's actually their but out of the black box, so very hard to see. Dave

Silhouette 14y ago

FWIW, your layout is completely broken for me in Firefox on Windows XP, and the web font looks terrible on this platform (sorry). I agree with much of the other constructive criticism you've received. In case it's helpful, your 20 seconds of attention on a first look over a CV would go something like this if I were the reviewer: 1. Made an effort to produce a distinctive on-line CV. Good. 2. Layout at top of page is broken and chose an unusual and poorly rendered web font. Bad. 3. What does he actually do? Generic terms like "building web systems" and "creating beautiful code" don't tell me very much. Neutral (but wasting time). 4. Ah, OK, he's a full stack guy, with a variety of modern tools listed. Better. 5. But despite talking about HTML5, CSS3, and other modern front-end technologies, the layout is completely broken again around that diagram, and neither the typography nor graphics are well done generally. Bad. 6. Despite claiming many years of experience, the practical skills and attention to detail aren't up to professional standards. 7. No hire. I am left with the impression of a Jack of all trades but master of none. I did read on to the end of your CV after I recorded the above, and to be brutally honest, it reinforces that impression. You're a contractor and keen to learn new technologies, which suggests that while buzzword-compliant you don't necessarily have much depth behind any of the technologies you mention throughout the CV, and nothing you say anywhere really counters that impression with hard data about years of experience with each tool, how many projects you've done with each tool and what kind of scale they were on, etc. You're a UX designer, but your CV isn't optimised for scannability at all. You adapt to change, yet the reason your layout is broken right at the top of the CV is that you're using a static background image to create a bubble that doesn't quite fit the text you wanted to show in it, instead of gracefully degrading CSS3 that would have expanded automatically to fit that text. You believe in lots of testing and continuous integration, yet you've failed basic cross-browser compatibility on several counts, all of which would be common knowledge to a good web designer/developer. OK, enough with the negativity. I figure that usually being brutally honest on these occasions is more helpful in the long run than sugar-coating stuff that is bad, but please don't take any of this personally or think I'm just having a dig. If I were you, I would either spend a bit of time polishing up my front-end skills to get the design into shape or acknowledge the limitation (both personally and by toning down the related content in the CV) and get help from someone who is an expert in that particular area. I would also get help from a professional careers advisor or other CV-writing expert on how to organise your content for the way real people are going to read that CV. You do have a lot of potentially interesting material in there, and I totally respect that you've made the effort to present it nicely, but the rookie mistakes in the design and lack of scannability are letting you down right now.

philwelch 14y ago

The phrase "style over substance" doesn't appear in the entire comment thread so far. Shame, it's really the only three words that are needed.

jdrake3 14y ago

It made me smile, and want to respond in an early kids TV show way "Hi Peter!". I liked the part about being a full stack developer too.