A Rant about Resumes

It’s a rule here not to post stuff that’s already been done to death. You don’t need another deep dive on monads or the Eisenhower decision matrix, no matter how much I want to write one. But this week, we’re breaking the law so we can talk about bad resumes. Suggested accompaniment: Judas Priest.

(Do correct me if I'm wrong, by the way. I really want to write about monads.)

“Sharing lessons learned” can quickly devolve into “berating the world for being imperfect,” so we’re only going to hit a few highlights: four quick suggestions, each with a pithy summary of why the alternative is bad.

If you’ve seen a lot of resumes, the following thoughts will all be familiar. On the other hand, if you’re a fresh-faced job applicant hoping to climb the corporate ladder, please keep these in mind as you hone your resume.

1. Be honest. Don’t exaggerate. It’s ugly to get caught; but even if you don’t, you have to live with yourself, and you don’t want to live with a fibber.

2. Avoid superlatives. Don’t go out of your way to emphasize how you were really important to this mission critical project, or that you have very deep expertise. Conventional wisdom is that your resume should crow about your accomplishments; but to a hiring manager, all that crowing grows cacophonous.

   Similarly, don’t choose words based on how impressive they sound. Not every bullet needs to say you led this or directed that or pioneered the adoption of whatever. Using “power words” to seem like a big shot makes the author look like a pufferfish, inflating itself to intimidate predators.

   Let me self-flagellate for a second here, because I have committed this sin. At one point, my resume made a big deal about what a C++ expert I was (or so I thought). In retrospect, I feel like an idiot. I wonder what current idiocy I’ll regret twenty years hence.

3. Be fastidious with spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation. It’s Git, not GIT; IntelliJ, not Intellij. Know the difference between a colon and a semicolon; between “e.g.” and “i.e.” Some mistakes are more jarring than others, but frequent or obvious errors send a message that the author doesn’t care about the reader. Writing badly on your resume is the moral equivalent of wearing dirty, smelly clothing to an in-person interview. It’s as though you’d rather track mud on the interviewer’s carpet than wipe your shoes on the doormat. To paraphrase John Lennon: You may say I’m a pedant, but I’m not the only one.

4. Keep it short. Your resume is merely an invitation to chat, like the selfie you post on your online dating profile. It’s not your life story. It’s not you on a page. Even if your CV includes a lengthy list of publications, try to respect your reader’s attention. If your resume is more than two pages long, it’s time to make some hard choices.

Phew, it feels good to get all that off my chest. Thanks for being such a great listener. Please append to this list in the comments.