"The most valuable commodity I know of is information."
rebelutionary / 2.0
How to write a bad resume
Having read a lot of resumes over the years, Jeffrey nails it in his post How to write a bad resume.
Most mortals can fit their background on one page. After about ten years of experience, you might merit a second page. Maybe. But think hard first. It might take 15 years before we need to hear it all.
I really don't understand the 3+ page resume fascination.
Charles replied with typical style from a developer's perspective:
I think what many people forget is that a résumé is an exercise in marketing. You’re trying to sell yourself to a prospective employer, but so often I get little more from a résumé than a dry list of technologies, and some useless self-assessments of the applicant’s ability.
I'll just point you to my post on Applying for a Java Job (and from the flip side if you're interested Startup Hiring) - tell me what you did in a resume!
"XYZ Corporation - Developer - Jun 2001-July2004" Thanks - very useful. What did you do? Did you make coffee for the architect and senior developers? Did you develop the documentation and help files? Did you design a brilliant three tiered, event driven system that blew the previous sytem's performance away by 100 fold? Tell me!
Now if all that hasn't scared you off, Atlassian is always looking for people (20+ open positions in Sydney and San Francisco) and specifically at the moment we're looking for a VP of Marketing.
Comments
> Now if all that hasn't scared you off ...
I'm being scared off here ... ;-)
Anyway, nice post.
Mate, certainly. You might also be interested in this one by Stevey:
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/09/ten-tips-for-slightly-less-awful-resume.html
Cheers
Sri
Thanks for the link Sri. Steve post is very reasonable to me, Mike's one is a bit scary though ;-) Sorry Mike.
Part of the problem is that you don't know who's going to be reading your resume. A keyword searcher?
Someone looking for a specific skillset that you might not list if you don't list everything you've used?
Someone looking for a rough idea of what you've done?
The resume you might right for those different audiences can vary significantly - and unless you know your audience pretty well, sometimes it can seem a lot safer to cover your bases.
Hi Mike,
What's the dress code for interview attendees at Atlassian?
Hi Mike,
What's the dress code for interview attendees at Atlassian?
Seeing as Mike didn't answer the dress-code question, I'll chip in.
Atlassian's dress-code is entirely casual, and that extends to interviews. Don't get dressed up on our account.
Most companies care a lot for attitude and the resume often gives a feel for 'is this a high energy person', 'will he learn fast' and 'how does he face challenges or work under tight deadlines'.
Very true. It's an interesting post. Thanks for sharing!
Great post and very true. I find it funny how many people fail to read the job description and address the criteria especially in the search engine optimisation industry. A short and sweet one page cover letter is also good.
For a free lance consultants also +3 page can have sense. You change work every 6/12 months, so you just list all your experience quickly starting from the last; you may not read the oldest positions that usually are far in time; but still you may be interested in the professional history of the guy you want to hire. My 4 page resume, generated by linkedin, is still quick to read and pertinent, I think.
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