{"id":23,"date":"2012-08-01T21:24:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T04:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jayhuang.org\/blog\/?p=23"},"modified":"2013-03-27T20:03:30","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T03:03:30","slug":"is-this-what-your-resume-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jayhuang.org\/blog\/is-this-what-your-resume-looks-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Is this what your resume looks like?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I had a client who was well funded but did not yet have a team of fulltime web developers as part of their arsenal.<\/p>\n

Working with this client gave me the opportunity to take a look at how developers may see me when I am only represented by my resume.<\/p>\n

This particular client wanted a revamp of their current website, which was still fairly new. They had their own UX team onboard which really helped with the outcome of the product.<\/p>\n

Anyways, since they did not have their own team of web developers, they asked if I could help find another freelancer who would be suitable to work with me and their UX team on the project. Given a generous contract, I went and posted free postings in many job boards seeking for someone who was experienced in the technologies used for this revamp. I posted a fairly generic ad, much like many of the ones looking for a fulltime developer but I made sure to state that it was a short-term contract with great pay.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not only was I looking for a great team member to work with, I wanted to see what kind of competition I would be up against from a skill set point of view, and which resumes failed to grab my attention so I would have a better idea how my resume would look to an employer.<\/p>\n

I received a total of 56 resumes over 5 days, 9 were generic letters from hiring agencies (these were ignored).<\/p>\n

Here are some of the traits of resumes that made it hard for me to hold onto:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Too much information\/clutter.<\/strong> If your page is 80% text with thin margins, it may be too much effort to read.<\/li>\n
  2. Few or none of the relevant skills are highlighted.<\/strong> Make sure your key strengths are easily identifiable.<\/li>\n
  3. Listing FAR too many technologies that the applicant is experienced in.<\/strong> If you’re listing out so many technologies, it’s hard to grasp how comfortable you are with all of them. I saw one resume where the applicant had 3 years in web development, and claimed expertise in about 20 technologies while project experience highlighted no more than 5.<\/li>\n
  4. Suggesting that they are “not good enough” for the position. <\/strong>If you’re going to point out that you do not have a college diploma, don’t make the recruiter think that makes you any less capable. There are many amazing developers who do not have a diploma\/degree. Show WHY you are a great fit for the position or don’t apply.<\/li>\n
  5. Vague or no description regarding each of the past projects.\u00a0<\/strong>If you’ve created a CMS for the company, or implemented a system for sales tracking, put that down. Don’t just give a generic URL and expect that to make you a great fit for the position.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Surprisingly, almost all the resumes had little or no grammatical\/spelling errors. Errors have actually been fairly common in some of the other times I’ve had to look at resumes. Grammatical\/spelling errors really stand out and say something about your attention to detail.<\/p>\n

    I ended up finding a great fit for the position (yes this person had a degree) and have enjoyed working with them. The UX team was also amazing, huge thanks to them for such an amazing and successful site revamp!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A few weeks ago I had a client who was well funded but did not yet have a team of fulltime web developers as part of their arsenal. Working with this client gave me the opportunity to take a look at how developers may see me when I am only represented by my resume. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_quotable_text_disable":false,"_quotable_blockquote_disable":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,8,10],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career","tag-freelance","tag-resume","tag-web-development"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t