Resume programmers. Part 1 (bad)

Honestly, when I was looking for a job, my resume could be safely categorized as bad. Yes, there were some good sections (like, but I wrote 2 books and 30 articles), but there was also a table of skills with the line: C #, 1 year of experience, Intermediate (!).

Now I read a lot of CVs and invite people to interview. Over the past 3 years I have spent about a hundred interviews, and I've seen the resume 5 times longer. So now I'm pretty clear about what I want to see in the resume. But first, I’ll tell you what I don’t want to see in the resume.

Templates

Many outsourcing companies have come up with their own resume templates. The motivation, in principle, is understandable, they want to unify everything in order to use machine learning to extract good candidates. Everyone looked the same, like the rank and file in the ranks. However, these templates are the same for all positions and are composed by wise CTOs by close-minded HRs who have no idea what a really cool programmer is.
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Filling out such a template is like signing up on your own insolvency to think and create a normal resume. This is such a gesture in the direction of a potential employer "here's your resume, not especially I want to work with you." Do not particularly want, do not send it, damn it. Why waste your and other people's time?

Patterns align developers. Good developers in them look average, and bad, which is typical, too. Therefore, it is such a convenient mechanism to jot down a lot of text and numbers, without saying anything useful.

Skill tables

They came from templates and firmly settled in the minds of developers. More than half consider it their duty to insert a list of technologies, years of their use and level of knowledge. Well, it's good if there is something specific in the list, such as TDD or DSL creation. But no, usually there is PHP, 4 years old, an expert.



Such lists contain very little useful information and, at best, are scanned in 3 seconds for something interesting. And in any case, this is a minus to the overall impression of the summary.

List of projects

To tell about projects in which he participated, looks quite logical. Unfortunately, this story is often approached from the wrong side. I am interested in what you specifically did in these projects, what complex tasks you decided, what was interesting and what was not in them. I'm interested in the facts. Instead of facts, they usually provide a list of technologies and general phrases such as "developing application architecture, implementing basic modules, analyzing requirements, fixing bug".



Tell me better what you have achieved in this project, what you have learned, what you are proud of - it is much more interesting.

List of personal qualities

Another section that is useless to view is personal qualities. These are, for example:



I must say that this is a list from my resume sample of 2004. In principle, everything is true, but everyone writes this, so the benefits of such a section are vanishingly small. You will not write that you are "an introvert who wants to work alone on complex projects." You write "teamwork skills". Personal qualities must either be confirmed by examples or not written at all.

Blank letters

The saddest thing is to get something like this:



Well, of course, I will open the summary, but the first impression spoils. And if there is nothing interesting in the resume, then our acquaintance will end there.

In this case, the person turned out to be a great programmer (and the resume was not bad either).

Another mistake like this:



It looks like a person is not interested in anything but money. This, of course, has the right to life, but it is hardly a good way to start an acquaintance. Like, you come to a meeting with a girl, sit down at a table in a cafe, and start a conversation:
- Hi, I'm Vanya.
- Hi, I'm Alexandra. What car do you have? And the apartment is?

It is best to write something personal, to interest, to show your level - this can be done with just a few sentences. Even one:

Total

The vast majority of resumes contain only what is listed above. Therefore, we have to literally read between the lines to form an opinion about a person. Remove it all from your resume and think about what to replace.

And yet, never send resumes from mail.ru. This is a bad sign.

UPD: They complain here that I rate people by resumes and that's it, without talking. Well, how else to evaluate, if at first you have nothing but a resume on your hands? I complain here that very often a good programmer is no different from a bad resume . I wish they were different. That's all.
I call everyone who has glimpses in the resume. And more than once it happened that a great developer is hidden behind a bad resume.

UPD2: Resume Programmers. Part 2 (good) continue the conversation.