6 ms·

At our university, University of Manchester, we had a careers service drone telling us to list your experience working as a waiter and highlight skills you lear

by gedrap 12y ago

At our university, University of Manchester, we had a careers service drone telling us to list your experience working as a waiter and highlight skills you learned there ('communicating in stressful environment' and what not). Dear young readers. Seriously, don't do that. Waste of space at best. Looks just stupid at worst. It doesn't tell me anything about your ability as a programmer at all. Description about a weekend project is much more useful. And no, clarifying whether someone wants latte with regular or soy milk is not a 'communication skill'.

Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
You're being harsh - graduate CVs are tough because almost no-one has done anything useful. Yes it all looks rubbish but I'd rather someone who had made an effort to sell themselves and had shown they had the ability to pitch up to a job on a regular basis.
- gedrap 12y ago
  But in our industry, it's easy to stand out. Spend a weekend or two, make some web app, Android app, or whatever. Maybe make a commit to some open source project, if you are struggling with ideas (in that case, you are capable to work with code written by other people, amazing!). And you are ahead of majority because you demonstrated that you can make something practical, real world.
  - philbarr 12y ago
    Absolutely do this. Having interviewed 50+ candidates for various positions myself, it's amazing how much you can stand out just by upping your online profile a little bit. Some examples: - one guy I interviewed for a junior position had put his CV and projects online on his own website. It wasn't loads but he was the only one out of that bunch of grad inverviewees to do it. I had a look through it before his interview, and when he came in I said, "that HTML looks remarkably clean! Did you tidy all that up just before you posted for the job?" We both laughed because it was obvious he had. Rest of the interview was nice and easy after establishing the "we are developer friends" bit. - one guy had no degree, no A levels to speak of, but his contribution to open source was immense. We got him in for interview and he could speak clearly and with authority on each of the huge projects he was involved in. We offered him the job but he refused us to go somewhere bigger. So go get yourself a GitHub account, buy a domain name for very little/year, point it at a GitHub Page and put anything you can think of on there. Congrats, you are now better than 90% of candidates out there.
  - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
    That may be true but almost no-one does it.
- ruswick 12y ago
  I don't think that's true. In my experience, development experience is relatively easy for students to obtain while in school. Internships are abundant (obviously not everyone is going to come out of school having worked for Google or Microsoft but most people who want to get development experience during college can find it). Personal projects are another way of doing something "useful" that have effectively zero barrier to entry. It isn't too hard to do something "useful" as developer in college, if one has the motivation...
  - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
    I'm not saying it's hard to do, I'm saying people don't do it. You'd have to ask them why.
FlyingLawnmower 12y ago
Do you (or anyone else reading this thread) have advice for current college students looking for internships or their first full time job? Unfortunately, I don't have the breadth of experience detailed in the slideshow to even justify a multi-page CV. In my environment, we work with a 1 page resume and <2 minutes of interaction with a recruiter at a career fair (~30% chance they're technical). I have a variety of side projects I've hacked on, but it's very hit and miss -- some recruiters care a lot, others care more about my GPA and what classes I have taken. What can students like myself do to best position ourselves in these situations, especially when we can't have multiple resumes for every company there is (and are forced to generalize)?
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Yes, here's what you do: (this was not my case because my first ever internship was through word of mouth) - Basic info (of course) - Courses/Certificates - Voluntary experience - Personal projects - Conferences/seminars attended - Skills (programming languages, etc) Don't worry if it's half a page, but you may want to increase spacing/font size
- vkjv 12y ago
  I graduated during the peak of the recent recession. I ran into this a lot. What worked best for me was to stop fine tuning my resume and do my best to skip HR. I got a few interviews by calling friends already in the field (some of those parents of friends) and asking to be put it contact directly with a technical hiring manager. Of course, none of those panned out either. A few took hires with more experience and one offered me a job at an embarrassingly low salary (i.e., less than I made as a summer lifeguard). Ultimately, what worked for me was getting in with a good company doing low level tech work (help desk) which got my recommendations for an internal position. This was my first lesson in corporate hiring: the most effective way to find a job is knowing someone.
- ky3 12y ago
  can't have multiple resumes for every company there is But you can target 3-5 companies which you reckon you stand the best chance of getting in. Research up the wazoo on your selected handful. The best is if you can network into present employees and probe into what's actually going on in there. What technologies do they really use, what's griefing them, and most important of all, why's this req open. By working backward from why THEY need that extra pair of hands, YOU stand out as the best person for the job.
hcho 12y ago
I beg to differ. For a graduate position, any professional experience is a big plus. I am prepared to teach people programming. I dread to teach people professionalism.
- tzakrajs 12y ago
  I guess if you have no other experience, then you put what you've got.

by gedrap 12y ago

Tyrannosaurs 12y ago

You're being harsh - graduate CVs are tough because almost no-one has done anything useful. Yes it all looks rubbish but I'd rather someone who had made an effort to sell themselves and had shown they had the ability to pitch up to a job on a regular basis.

gedrap 12y ago
But in our industry, it's easy to stand out. Spend a weekend or two, make some web app, Android app, or whatever. Maybe make a commit to some open source project, if you are struggling with ideas (in that case, you are capable to work with code written by other people, amazing!). And you are ahead of majority because you demonstrated that you can make something practical, real world.
- philbarr 12y ago
  Absolutely do this. Having interviewed 50+ candidates for various positions myself, it's amazing how much you can stand out just by upping your online profile a little bit. Some examples: - one guy I interviewed for a junior position had put his CV and projects online on his own website. It wasn't loads but he was the only one out of that bunch of grad inverviewees to do it. I had a look through it before his interview, and when he came in I said, "that HTML looks remarkably clean! Did you tidy all that up just before you posted for the job?" We both laughed because it was obvious he had. Rest of the interview was nice and easy after establishing the "we are developer friends" bit. - one guy had no degree, no A levels to speak of, but his contribution to open source was immense. We got him in for interview and he could speak clearly and with authority on each of the huge projects he was involved in. We offered him the job but he refused us to go somewhere bigger. So go get yourself a GitHub account, buy a domain name for very little/year, point it at a GitHub Page and put anything you can think of on there. Congrats, you are now better than 90% of candidates out there.
- Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
  That may be true but almost no-one does it.
ruswick 12y ago
I don't think that's true. In my experience, development experience is relatively easy for students to obtain while in school. Internships are abundant (obviously not everyone is going to come out of school having worked for Google or Microsoft but most people who want to get development experience during college can find it). Personal projects are another way of doing something "useful" that have effectively zero barrier to entry. It isn't too hard to do something "useful" as developer in college, if one has the motivation...
- Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
  I'm not saying it's hard to do, I'm saying people don't do it. You'd have to ask them why.

FlyingLawnmower 12y ago

Do you (or anyone else reading this thread) have advice for current college students looking for internships or their first full time job? Unfortunately, I don't have the breadth of experience detailed in the slideshow to even justify a multi-page CV. In my environment, we work with a 1 page resume and <2 minutes of interaction with a recruiter at a career fair (~30% chance they're technical). I have a variety of side projects I've hacked on, but it's very hit and miss -- some recruiters care a lot, others care more about my GPA and what classes I have taken. What can students like myself do to best position ourselves in these situations, especially when we can't have multiple resumes for every company there is (and are forced to generalize)?

raverbashing 12y ago
Yes, here's what you do: (this was not my case because my first ever internship was through word of mouth) - Basic info (of course) - Courses/Certificates - Voluntary experience - Personal projects - Conferences/seminars attended - Skills (programming languages, etc) Don't worry if it's half a page, but you may want to increase spacing/font size
vkjv 12y ago
I graduated during the peak of the recent recession. I ran into this a lot. What worked best for me was to stop fine tuning my resume and do my best to skip HR. I got a few interviews by calling friends already in the field (some of those parents of friends) and asking to be put it contact directly with a technical hiring manager. Of course, none of those panned out either. A few took hires with more experience and one offered me a job at an embarrassingly low salary (i.e., less than I made as a summer lifeguard). Ultimately, what worked for me was getting in with a good company doing low level tech work (help desk) which got my recommendations for an internal position. This was my first lesson in corporate hiring: the most effective way to find a job is knowing someone.
ky3 12y ago
can't have multiple resumes for every company there is But you can target 3-5 companies which you reckon you stand the best chance of getting in. Research up the wazoo on your selected handful. The best is if you can network into present employees and probe into what's actually going on in there. What technologies do they really use, what's griefing them, and most important of all, why's this req open. By working backward from why THEY need that extra pair of hands, YOU stand out as the best person for the job.

hcho 12y ago

I beg to differ. For a graduate position, any professional experience is a big plus. I am prepared to teach people programming. I dread to teach people professionalism.

tzakrajs 12y ago
I guess if you have no other experience, then you put what you've got.