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Death of a Company, part 2: The New Resume
VThornheart
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
EDIT: I just put revision 3 in the OP here, thanks for your help!
Hi everyone! As you might remember from the last thread I started on this subject, the company I work for is pretty much on the verge of total and complete collapse. Things have continued in this "veering toward collapse" vein since the last time I posted here about the subject, so I took the time to write a resume for the inevitable job search.
I've also been searching for jobs in the area I want to go (New Hampshire), but I've yet to submit anything because I wasn't sure about the state of my resume.
Anyways, here it is (spoilered for brevity... I made it an image so I could show it exactly as I have it formatted, and because currently I don't have anything resembling a reliable place to post it otherwise):
The only part you can't see is my name and contact information, which I redacted.
Anyways, any suggestions? Things I should leave out, things I should change/clarify... or things I should add?
I have two bits of information that I *could* add, but I was always told that a one page resume is best. It's two bits of work experience.
I was a Resident Advisor for most of my college career, and I could put that as another job... but it's not directly relevant.
I also had a job doing programming when I was in high school, but admittedly I didn't know what I was doing back then, and I'm not exactly proud of the work I did while I was there in retrospect... and it was a long time ago. Jesus, almost 10 years ago now.
Anyways, that's my situation. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Hi everyone! As you might remember from the last thread I started on this subject, the company I work for is pretty much on the verge of total and complete collapse. Things have continued in this "veering toward collapse" vein since the last time I posted here about the subject, so I took the time to write a resume for the inevitable job search.
I've also been searching for jobs in the area I want to go (New Hampshire), but I've yet to submit anything because I wasn't sure about the state of my resume.
Anyways, here it is (spoilered for brevity... I made it an image so I could show it exactly as I have it formatted, and because currently I don't have anything resembling a reliable place to post it otherwise):
The only part you can't see is my name and contact information, which I redacted.
Anyways, any suggestions? Things I should leave out, things I should change/clarify... or things I should add?
I have two bits of information that I *could* add, but I was always told that a one page resume is best. It's two bits of work experience.
I was a Resident Advisor for most of my college career, and I could put that as another job... but it's not directly relevant.
I also had a job doing programming when I was in high school, but admittedly I didn't know what I was doing back then, and I'm not exactly proud of the work I did while I was there in retrospect... and it was a long time ago. Jesus, almost 10 years ago now.
Anyways, that's my situation. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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Like would the objective be:
"To assist in the development and maintenance of an accounting program" (if I was applying for a position on the Quicken dev team or something like that)
Or would it be more like
"To contribute to the development of a professional software product" (which could be used more generically)?
Or should it be something different entirely?
1. Reorder the sections as follows: Contact Info, Objective, Work Experience, Education, Project Experience, Accomplishments, Skills
2. Spell out what CSUS means - nobody in New Hampshire is going to know what that is without Googling.
3. Explain your relationship with Nihilistic Software. Were you actually employed, or was this a "class project in participation with" or what? Also, your title there is a little confusing. On a resume, when you're parsing a title, 'senior' is an adjective that goes with the rest. That is, instead of parsing it as (Senior Project) (Team Member) it gets parsed as (Senior) (Project Team Member).
4. Move your independent projects into the Project Experience section and elaborate on them. Outside interest in development is a thing that people are looking for, and it's currently buried.
5. Remove the line about "Enjoys bebop..." If you want to say something personal about yourself, it goes in your cover letter at the end.
6. Same for "Learned a great deal...", "Overcame obstacles", and "Gained extensive experience in..." Try to stick to factual duties and accomplishments in the resume, and talk about your experiences in the cover letter. If you can turn these into factual accomplishments, that's good.
7. It's debatable whether you want to include your previous programming experience, but having more than one related job on there with a longer work history might be a good thing. It doesn't need more than a single bullet.
I don't know CS terms or anything, but something like, "To assist in the development and maintenance of an accounting program through contribution of programming and teamwork skills" though teamwork skills is a bit weak, but it's late and I can't think of a synonym for teamwork skills.
So it would be more directed toward the specific job I'm applying for then? Okay, I'll give it a shot in this next revision, thanks!
@Frylock:
Thanks for the suggestions! I'll try to integrate them into this next draft.
One thing is that I don't have anything longer than where I'm at currently (in terms of length of employment)... I've been at my current employers' for almost four years now, but before that I was in school doing the RA thing and before that some crap jobs and that other programming job. So other than this place, I don't have much practical experience in the workforce.
Ahh, I also never realized that the personal stuff wasn't meant for a resume. I can definitely leave it out, I think I had intentionally put it in because someone told me once that I should... but I don't even remember who told me, so I have no clue if they knew what they were talking about.
In regards to your point #6... should I leave in the specifics about the systems I was working with and how I worked on them? I wasn't sure about that, but I figured it'd be useful for them to know what it was I was working with.
And indeed, the work with Nihilistic was a school project. I'l try to clarify that a bit more. Let me see if I can revise it a bit and put up another draft given the advice above.
I also added some more side projects... I didn't realize that they were important, but when DrFrylock mentioned that it was, I figured I should mention them. Unfortunately, that bumped my resume up to two pages in size.
Is that bad? Should I find a way to trim it down to one page again?
EDIT: I should note that I left out the contact info at the top of the page from the image. It's there... I just figured since I was redacting it all anyways, I might as well leave it out of the image.
EDIT: Ahh, I see what you mean... like I could say "2001-2006, except Fall 2003" instead of what I currently say. I get it now.
This new one is much better. By foregrounding the projects like that, you show that 1) you have a diverse set of skills and interests, and 2) you're not simply a code monkey mercenary.
One page is generally the rule for these things if you can do it. You could take the titles off of the project experience sections, as the duties/accomplishments sort of speak for themselves.
I would also put your resident advisor job in College. Yeah, it's not directly relevant, but it shows that you were actually doing something other than playing CS in your off-time in school.
In the UK, 2 pages are ok for a CV, applications are normally longer.
On the Skills section, on the image I can see, there's only 1 bullet point: Programming experience. Is that cos a) there is only one, or b)can I just not see it right? If a), that's not enough. I'd put stuff in about team working skills, motivation, time management, effective communication... Yes, these can be inferred, but if you've space, include them. xx
For paintings in progress, check out canvas and paints
"The power of the weirdness compels me."
What? No no no. It's useless pandering and it appears desperate. He might as well put "fun at parties" and "great sense of humor" and "snazzy dresser." These are neither objective nor quantifiable, and they have a slight flavor of narcissism. Resumes are about showing, not telling.
For paintings in progress, check out canvas and paints
"The power of the weirdness compels me."
No, like, leave out "Except Fall 2003" completely. Just make the line "Dean's Honor List (tab) 2001-2006"
Remove "Graduated May 2006" and your GPA from your education. Putting a graduation year gives the interviewer an idea of how old you are before you even go in to the interview, which can be a bad thing depending on who is interviewing you. Also, no one cares what your GPA was in college unless you're an engineer.
Lastly, an Objective section is optional, so if you're struggling for room on your resume, you can take that part out and get 5-6 lines back for other things.
As a total side note, where in NH are you looking for a job? I'm originally from Nashua.
Skills are very important to list for computer programmers because it's a job that usually requires specialization for that specific position. The people in HR are given a list of buzzwords to look for by the engineering team. If your resume is lacking in those technical skills, they're likely to toss your application without even bothering to schedule an interview. Throw any certifications you've received on there as well.
A little off topic, but try to be part of a large team in your next employment. It's good to have experience in a variety of corporate cultures because it shows flexibility on your part.
but they're listening to every word I say
@DrFrylock:
In the next draft, I'll take out the position titles for the projects and put in the RA experience for sure, thanks again!
@LPM (LewieP's Mom):
See, I was confused on the issue because I was told much the same when I first made my resume. I can see where DrFrylock's coming from on it though too... well, we'll see how this first one goes.
@Evil_Reaver:
Ah... it would be more brief to say Dean's List 2001-2006, but I'm worried about the fact that I'd be lying if I just said that. There's still that one semester that I didn't, and I wouldn't want to lie to them. =( What do others think of this? I mean... I'd like to just put that, but I don't want to be dishonest. =(
Also, if it helps, I am applying for Software Engineering jobs... does that count?
@Stryker116:
That's always been the problem with the job I have, and in the end one of the (many) downfalls of the company. This is also why (as Valkun brings up) I don't really deserve the title of Lead Software Engineer that I have.
For 75% of the time that I've been at this company, I've been the only developer... so as a result, I've been the designer, tester, implementor, developer, maintainer, DBA, Web Admin, etc... not that I've been qualified for those positions (as I think I mention on another thread). There's been about a year worth of time (with a year and a half space in-between where he was shipped out to Iraq) where I had a guy working with me. he's still working there now, remotely... but who knows how much longer he's staying? I don't know. But for all that time at my current employer, I led a development team of usually just me, and sometimes two people. I can bring it up if it'd be helpful. I'll throw it on the next draft, see how it goes.
@JNighthawk:
Aye, I feel the same about the GPA. A fellow New Hampshirite! Excellent!
I am a little worried that there might not be much around for me. It seems like there's a couple of potential jobs that might fit the bill, but a lot of them out there seem to either require some legacy system experience that I just don't have, or they require twice as much experience as I do in general (aka 7-9 years experience instead of my 4 I have now).
@Valkun:
Hey, it's been a while since I've seen you on the forum, how's it going? Maybe I've just been missing you in passing, good to hear from you though.
As I mentioned in my response to Stryker, I also feel that the lead software engineer title is a bit much. It's what my boss gave me, but I don't know if I deserve it now that I know enough to realize that I don't know a lot.
I have *some* experience with UML, and I do a lot of direct negotiation with clients for requirements. As one of two tech people on staff (and the only one there on a regular basis), I tend to do all of the requirements gathering when we have specific projects for one of our "count on one hand" number of customers... the SimpleDOX Enterprise project was actually started as a request from one of our customers, and I worked with them to build the requirements and estimates from the start. Now, I didn't do any price estimation... but I did do time estimation. But this kind of experience really still doesn't denote "lead software engineer" especially given the small amount of people in my company. Should I change my title for the purposes of the resume?
So I should throw in all of the skills I have (not just programming languages) in the skills section, like what APIs I've worked with and such? Can do! I'll do that on the next draft coming up.
And indeed, I agree with you 100% on wanting to be part of a large project. Right now, there's nothing more in the world that I'd want then to be part of a larger team: a team with more experienced people that I can learn from. I'd love it, and I only hope I can find that out in New Hampshire. I think I need that kind of mentorship/apprenticeship relationship (under an experienced software architect) in order to figure out the gaps that I'm missing.
Anyways, after work I'll post up the next draft, thanks for all your suggestions guys!
@JebusUD :
Hmm, you have a good point, I hadn't thought of it that way. I guess I wouldn't want to weed out employers... but at the same time, I don't think I could work comfortably if I worked at the kind of place that played Rush Limbaugh over the radio or some such noise. That sounds like a personal hell.
Should I leave the experience though? maybe change it to "a student-run organization" or something generic like that?
EDIT: Okay, I got home and revision 3 is up! I tried to incorporate as many suggestions as I could... are there any more suggestions that would be useful?
Looking pretty solid to me! I interview for entry level programmer positions and I've seen HR bring in resumes worse than that one :P
On the topic of team size - I highly recommend (as has been mentioned) you get your next job with a larger team. This also gives you a perfect opportunity in the interview to express your desire to bring your experience to a larger team. If you want to lead others, make sure you mention it. I know when I'm interviewing my boss and I love seeing people who are ambitious and have the drive/skills to lead others - it usually means they are also the type of developer you don't have to micro-manage. In case it matters this is for a department with about 30+ developers, so it's a bit different than what you're used to.
Ship it.
Do that.
but they're listening to every word I say
@stryker:
Aye, I definitely want to be a part of a large team. I practically dream of it, and then I wake up sad knowing that I'm going to work alone and unqualified for the daily decisions I'm going to have to make as the "one guy who does everything". =(
@DrFrylock:
Thanks! I couldn't have done it without your help. I'll let you guys know how it goes down.
@JebusUD:
Hmm, I'll try to find a way to pack it in there. They don't use it anymore anyways (I had built them the site before I found out about Drupal... and when the next guy came along that was going to do it, I showed it to him. I assume he went with Drupal... at least, I hope he did.