So, you need a job? Man, do resumes suck

http://scobleizer.com/2008/10/05/need-a-job-resume/

by qhoxie • 18 years ago

28 32 18 years ago

I'd say a well written cover letter adapted to fit the company you are applying for is more important than the resume itself. a good cover letter gets the employer curious about you.

ajkirwin2• 18 years ago

"7. Apply for a job for which you are clearly overqualified for (I got one resume from a software engineer)."

This is something that I hate. I know many people who are in this situation. They're highly qualified, but due to too many people in that field for a local area, or in general, they just can't find work in it.

So to tide themselves over until they CAN get one, they look for a much more simpler job. Only to get told, time and time again, they are 'overqualified'.

Why is this such a bad thing?

nazgulnarsil5• 18 years ago

the employer in these situations feels that the person will be unhappy at a position so obviously beneath them. the employer can also assume that the person will be leaving as soon as they do find a job they're qualified for.

unhappy employee who could leave any time. doesn't sound good to me.

ajkirwin2• 18 years ago

Yes, but this is surely the kind of thing that you resolve in an interview. Maybe this person could be quite happy in this position. Maybe they're looking to broaden their horizons.

You just don't know.

fendale• 18 years ago

Being that for any job, you are supposed to tailor your CV to the position, is that not the time to omit the section that mentions your Engineering degree and relevant work experience if you know you are going to be over qualified?

I guess its not really ethical to do that, and may even be illegal, but its not as bad IMHO as inventing qualifications and experience you don't have which is a definite no no!

KiwiNige• 18 years ago

"1. Include only an attachment and don’t write anything in the body of the email." "5. Include only a resume and don’t explain why you think you are qualified for the job (believe it or not, a well written letter puts you to the top 20% pretty quickly)."

I've found in the past that doing these are the best way to get short listed by an agent. I figure either they don't like reading them, or my cover letters really suck.

truebosko2• 18 years ago

I'm curious .. what makes a good resume for a developer (in other words, a hacker) ?

I've had one job in my field since out of college (same one since I finished) and I've learnt a lot but I have no clue how to really portray it all in my resume.

If I am applying for a development position do you think the hiree will care that I have experience with SEO, building brands, etc? How does one portray it? Are cover letters that important for a development position? And so on..

I've had a tough time finding well written articles on this subject but Scoble has made some definite good points, now I'm more intrigued

comatose_kid• 18 years ago

A website full of cool things you've built.

truebosko2• 18 years ago

What would persuade the hiree to actually go to that website?

ig1• 18 years ago

send me a list of questions an I'll write a blog post answering them :-)

(I'm the author of http://imranontech.com/ and am creating a developer recruitment startup)

jrockway2• 18 years ago

Why is he being so demanding for such a low-paying job? I made this much money being a janitor when I was in high school.

dgabriel• 18 years ago

Supply and demand. He said he received 90 resumes.

jrockway2• 18 years ago

He said he received 90 resumes.

From people that can't spell.

gruseom2• 18 years ago

Resumes, cover letters, and the lot of it are overrated. I've gotten nearly all of my work through word-of-mouth and the same is true of most good programmers I know. The way to do this is a lot more congenial to good hackers than the resume/interview circuit: make friends with the kind of people you'd like to work with, work on personal and/or open source projects, hone your skills. You'll build a reputation among your local tech community and (eventually) hear about good jobs from good people. Most such jobs never get posted in the first place because they're filled the way I'm describing.

lief793• 18 years ago

The problem is that you need to find a way to work with these people in the first place.

My first two jobs were through random contacts ( a relative and someone I met while swing dancing). The next two were through dedicated recruiters on Monster.

I suspect I'll be able to use professional contacts or one of the better recruiters that I know the next time I'm looking, but up to this point, they haven't panned out.

edw5192• 18 years ago

Alas, I have never found a way to write a resume that even remotely comes close to properly describing me.

OTOH, every piece of software I have ever written says volumes about me.

Therefore...

Screw job hunting, write some software, start a company and sell that software.

What a concept.

gruseom2• 18 years ago

2. Include a misspelling.

7. Apply for a job for which you are clearly overqualified for

I guess what he means is "prove that you can turn a spell-checker on".

tjr• 18 years ago

I once applied for a job, and was rejected with a letter listing reasons why they typically reject applicants. This list included grammatical and spelling errors on one's letter or resume.

Ironically, the company's rejection letter itself contained both a grammatical and spelling error. Having already been rejected, I decided to write back to them and point this out. I guess they were in some way impressed, as they wrote back to me asking if I'd be interested in a job, but by this time I wasn't.

Hexstream• 18 years ago

You're lucky, when I take time to point out spelling errors I usually get ignored in a more or less hostile way.

helveticaman• 18 years ago

So far I’ve received more than 90 resumes for a job that’ll pay $12 to $15 (not much, I know, but for a starter job not too bad — my first job back in 1993 paid $10 an hour and this one should be a good launch to a fun career in journalism or PR or any number of jobs).

Heard of inflation, Scoble?

DanielBMarkham• 18 years ago

So -- another "this is what I'm looking for in a resume" posts, eh?

Nothing wrong with that, except there are hundreds of thousands of guys out there with their own lists of stuff they want.

The art of writing a resume is the art of creating a targeted sales brochure to the exact person who is able to call you in for an interview. That means, between you and him, you have to understand at a gut level what makes his boat float and what are going to be key selling factors for him.

It's an acquired skill, but not too hard to learn. The interesting part is that not only do you have to target each opportunity, you also have to go through a certain number of opportunities per day/week to make the machine work.

I find it fun once I get used to it. Of course, as I get older it's all word-of-mouth now.

edw5192• 18 years ago

That means, between you and him, you have to...

And let's not forget that between you and him may also be numerous gatekeepers and headhunters.

blurry• 18 years ago

Does anyone else find the post incredibly disrespectful? So to merely have a chance at $12/hour one should include a customized video and pay a professional editor to go over the cover letter (presumably one of many since we are also instructed to make sure and customize each application)? Seriously?

Mr. Scoble's sense of entitlement is staggering. Just because you can lord it over people who find themselves unemployed in a bad economy doesn't mean you should.

In the very least he should refrain from making fun of over-qualified candidates. That's just unnecessary.

dasil003• 18 years ago

Scoble is out of touch. The only thing he knows anything about is blogging. I've never found anything he writes to be particularly insightful either, he just spends all his time writing about popular tech topics. He deserves credit for building his personal brand, but that's about it. I certainly wouldn't take resume-writing advice from him, and I wouldn't want to work for him either. He needs to dial down the self-importance.

listic• 18 years ago

I too find this man unnecessary finicky. But why has this post got so many upvotes here on Hacker News?

So, you need a job? Man, do resumes suck

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