Subj : Re: Resume questions, how convey? (was: How much should I charge To : comp.lang.lisp,comp.programming,comp.lang.java.programmer From : . Date : Thu Aug 25 2005 05:03 pm On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t wrote: > > From: Tim X > > > What about the year you graduated? > > Only an idiot would make it that easy for a potential employer to see > that I'm over 40 and toss my resume in the trash without even glancing > at the rest of it. You want me to be an idiot, I presume? Why would you presume Tim X wants you to be an idiot? If you talk to me that way I'd drop you in my kill file. People here are trying to help you; they have nothing to gain from it. Why would you assume they are trying to make an idiot out of you? Besides, if I apply to a company and hide information from them I'd feel I'm already off to a bad start with them. I've seen that finding good people is hard. Why would I eliminate someone just because they are over 40? Why would you want to work for a company that discriminates against the elderly? > > What about the courses you have done since (Java, C, Data structures etc) > > My 2005.June resume includes that information. My 1998 resume, and the > early-2003 rearrangement of it by my job coach at Focus for Work, didn't > include those classes because they didn't start until 2003 Summer. > > > > - Among top five (in whole United States) in William Lowell Putnam > > > undergraduate mathematics competition > > Shorten the first one. > > How? If you are in your 40s then you were an undergrad in the early 1980s. Why are you talking about something you did in the 80s? When you get the interview and the employer looks at you they are going to wonder why you are talking about things that happened two decades ago. > > > - Report on nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation published > > > - Report on English-language programming for robot published > > For the published papers, where were they published, when and in what? > > That's not important in a resume. I'm just trying to get a programming > job. If they want more info about my published papers, they can ask me > during a telephone interview. In fact I was never told where the NMR > paper was published, and I wasn't given a pre-print as I was promised. > > > Drop the stuff about the platforms. > > Why? Each language is somewhat different on each different platform. > The fact I've used the languages on lots of platforms shows I've used a > wide range of versions in a wide range of environments, hence some of > what I've done is likely to be similar to whatever the employer might > want. Somebody else who has never used any of the languages except on > an Amiga, might not have the foggiest idea how to interface to system > utilities on other systems, and might not even be aware that different > platforms have different system interfaces, and might be totally > stumped when Amiga software doesn't run immediately elsewhere. I'm > trying to show my versatility of experience, showing my ability to > adapt in the past and have a variety of experience possibly useful in > the future. A company will probably receive a few hundred resumes for a position. They will spend a minute (or less) looking at each one until they short list it to 2 or 3 dozen resumes. You have two jobs when writing a resume. The first is not getting cut from the short list. The second is getting an interview. > > I would assume anyone working with data retrieval and databases and > > java would have all of this. > > On the other hand, anyone who had never used databases at all could lie > and write "used databases" on their resume, but only somebody who knew > a little about the techncal details could include all the specific > things that I did, thereby proving I am not lying that I wrote JDBC > software etc. Don't assume you have to convince the person reading your resume. If you give an example of where you used JDBC then I'd trust you. It would be during the interview that I would expect the details. That is when I see if you lied on your resume. > > Huh? What is this? If its published and available via the web, why not > > include the url so that they can check it out? > > Because although it was the best index on the net from 1991 to about > 1995, since then it's been made obsolete first by Yahoo then by Google. > Nobody would want to look at it online now, but still it's impressive > that I created the very first toplevel meta-index to the InterNet > before Yahoo got the idea to start theirs. What have you done recently? I did some really impressive things int he 80s. I don't list them on my resume because companies only care when the last time you did something impressive. If it wasn't recent then they don't care at all. Bottom line, the purpose of writing a resume is to get an interview. IT IS NOT TO GET A JOB. The purpose of the interview is to get a job offer. Getting an interview is a job. How would you go about a software project on a platform you never used and in a new language? Apply the same ideas to getting an interview. Do some research. Try a few things. Get feedback. The first few resumes will crash and burn. Learn from your mistakes. Talk to the people who rejected it. Talk to people who hire but are not currently looking. Find out from them what the process looks like from their side. -- Send e-mail to: darrell dot grainger at utoronto dot ca .