5 ms·

I always get a kick out of it when I see job ads that make a big deal about applicants having experience with 'Agile' or 'Scrum' like it's some sort of hard-ear

I always get a kick out of it when I see job ads that make a big deal about applicants having experience with 'Agile' or 'Scrum' like it's some sort of hard-earned skill that's it'd be worth using to filter applicants. I can just imagine some recruiter or HR person looking at resumes: Applicant A - dozens of accepted to commits to the Linux Kernel, or leader of some 'known' open source project. Hmm. Applicant B - Scrum OMG! We have a winner!!!

skylan_q 14y ago
I've considered making a resume where the first half of the first page is just a paragraph filled with as many high-profile buzzwords as possible. I'm still curios to see what would happen.
- Zombieball 14y ago
  The real trick is to put this in the footer of the resume in size 1pt font. When you print off or look @ your resume it is pretty much not visible. But, you can kick resume scanning software in the face, hi-ya!
  - mappu 14y ago
    + Set the font colour to white!
    - Zombieball 14y ago
      So simple! How did I not think of this? Cheers mate!
- aerique 14y ago
  I did have a buzzwords section in my last resume exactly like you mentioned. Me and the people that interviewed me for the company I currently work for had a good laugh about it.
- arethuza 14y ago
  I've seen CVs that literally have most of a page filled with buzz words and acronyms - pretty much SEO for whatever tools recruiters use to search. Unfortunately, candidates who take this kind of approach seem to list a lot of technologies they have only heard of or been in the same room as. If someone lists a technology in their CV I do rather expect them to know what it is and what it is generally used for and good and bad points.
adrianhoward 14y ago
For me Scrum wouldn't be a "skill" that I would be looking for. I have... issues... with Scrum (not the process itself - which is a damn fine process improvement and project management framework - but the industry that has sprung up around it). However - your comparison is pretty much a straw man. I'm not looking for good Scrum / Agile experience instead of code experience. I'm looking for code experience and good agile team experience. Because - over the last ten years - the teams I've seen using agile approaches have been darn effective. When I'm helping build a technical team you need great coders and you need great team players working in a way that makes everybody happy and effective. Ideally you want to recruit folk who are already great coders and are already used to working in effective team environments. If you think either of those is a natural skill or simple then you're mistaken or very lucky. I can mentor folk up on both sides - sometimes it's actually easier to turn a good coder into a great one than it is to turn an asocial fuckwit prima-donna coder into an efffective team player ;-)

skylan_q 14y ago

I've considered making a resume where the first half of the first page is just a paragraph filled with as many high-profile buzzwords as possible. I'm still curios to see what would happen.

Zombieball 14y ago
The real trick is to put this in the footer of the resume in size 1pt font. When you print off or look @ your resume it is pretty much not visible. But, you can kick resume scanning software in the face, hi-ya!
- mappu 14y ago
  + Set the font colour to white!
  - Zombieball 14y ago
    So simple! How did I not think of this? Cheers mate!
aerique 14y ago
I did have a buzzwords section in my last resume exactly like you mentioned. Me and the people that interviewed me for the company I currently work for had a good laugh about it.
arethuza 14y ago
I've seen CVs that literally have most of a page filled with buzz words and acronyms - pretty much SEO for whatever tools recruiters use to search. Unfortunately, candidates who take this kind of approach seem to list a lot of technologies they have only heard of or been in the same room as. If someone lists a technology in their CV I do rather expect them to know what it is and what it is generally used for and good and bad points.

adrianhoward 14y ago

For me Scrum wouldn't be a "skill" that I would be looking for. I have... issues... with Scrum (not the process itself - which is a damn fine process improvement and project management framework - but the industry that has sprung up around it). However - your comparison is pretty much a straw man. I'm not looking for good Scrum / Agile experience instead of code experience. I'm looking for code experience and good agile team experience. Because - over the last ten years - the teams I've seen using agile approaches have been darn effective. When I'm helping build a technical team you need great coders and you need great team players working in a way that makes everybody happy and effective. Ideally you want to recruit folk who are already great coders and are already used to working in effective team environments. If you think either of those is a natural skill or simple then you're mistaken or very lucky. I can mentor folk up on both sides - sometimes it's actually easier to turn a good coder into a great one than it is to turn an asocial fuckwit prima-donna coder into an efffective team player ;-)