Comments on: You Speak: What SHOULD a Software Engineer’s Resume Look Like?

By: engfer

engfer — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:11:36 +0000

Great so far but we need more!

By: Scott Stawarz

Scott Stawarz — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:51:00 +0000

Consider who the target market of the resume is.

For example: When submitting the resume to monster.com, careerbuilder.com, and/or other large companies. Those websites are searched via Human Resource Professionals, Recruiters, or Hiring Managers. Consequently, your resume should follow Search Engine Optimization rules. What I mean by that, is if you want to be noticed for Ruby, Visual Studio.NET or whatever, you’ve got to include those keywords in your resume. Now, how you include them is a different story. I’ll get to in a second.

Now, when I am emailing a resume, dropping a resume off at a job fair, or snail mailing a resume, again there are different forms the resume can take and look depending on who the target recipient is. For example, when I go to a job interview, I bring a clean quickly scannable, well-presented paper copy of my resume. Often times, the job interviewer has a printed text copy that is difficult for them to find the information they need to ask me questions. Also, by having a printed copy, you can highlight different things using color and other methods that you can not always do in an emailed resume.

Now, How do you include the necessary keywords? Again, i think it depends on experience and type of job you are applying for. So, you have to vary your resume towards your target market. I do think that a resume should tell your story(s). It should tell me why I should hire you. What value do I get from your hiring?

So, if I am working for a large education institution, and they are creating a new learning management system, I’d want to see you say how you’re past projects and experience can help me solve my business problems. If you’ve built an LMS, you’d add that to your resume in a concise fashion. If you haven’t built an LMS, but maybe you built components for a system that can be adapted, you’ll convey that message in your resume and for that matter the cover letter.

that’s what I want to see. At the same point, when I’ve been a hiring manager, I am going to need to scan resumes quickly to weed out who is worthy for my interview time. So, a resume that is personable can stand out from the rest. Everyone has a story and a uniqueness to them. I think a good resume should stay out of the way and let Human Uniqueness shine through.

By: John

John — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:24:09 +0000

A few thoughts:
Keep it short – I don’t have time to sift through 4 pages of bullets. I’ve also found the best people have the shortest and simplest resumes. Over two pages and the success rate on our interviews goes down dramatically.
Don’t include buzzwords and acronyms like SDLC, ESB, WSAD if you want a job at a tech startup.
Include independent projects/open source work – I want hardcore geeks who actually ENJOY writing software – convince me that you are one of those people. And unless you wrote them, don’t put MS DOS or Windows 95 on your resume!
Don’t inflate your responsibilities on projects or level of expertise (expect to be asked detailed technical questions about anything you put on your resume).
As for format, I like LaTeX (it shows me that you’re geeky and at least smart enough to figure out how to use something other than MS word).

By: engfer

engfer — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:13:00 +0000

Stephan Schmidt recommended this article in a comment on a previous post... » Resume Writing Overview

By: engfer

engfer — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:38:51 +0000

Stephan Schmidt recommended this article in a comment on a previous post... » Getting Your Resume Read