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by bluGill 990 days ago
When you are fresh out of college you don't stand out. A few months ago we had 100 applicants for an entry level programming position. Every applicant was finishing their bachelors (a couple in CS, the rest in computer engineering) in June. They all had done some internship (in a not very relevant area but that is expected) and a class project. Almost all of them were Eagle scouts (until recently scouts only allowed boys so this is indirectly an assessment of boy/girl ratio of applicants and thus illegal for me to care about). It was really hard to filter down who to interview because they all look the same and we only had one position. As such spaming your resume is the best bet when fresh from school.

When you have been our of school for a while we get a few resumes with interesting experience that can make a few people stand out. Most probably have standout experience, but it doesn't come out in the resume.
2 comments
MattPalmer1086 990 days ago
Most people are terrible at writing resumes. We used to joke that we would throw half the resumes in the bin immediately on the grounds that we didn't want to employ unlucky people!

The biggest mistake I see for people with experience is that they describe their role and responsibilities but not what they specifically contributed and why they are awesome.

The best advice I was ever given is that your resume is a marketing document. It should contain things you would like to be asked about in an interview. Cut out everything else.

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BeFlatXIII 990 days ago
> It was really hard to filter down who to interview because they all look the same and we only had one position

Did you make up some BS metrics, or did you do the honest thing and draw résumés from a hat?

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MattPalmer1086 990 days ago
From my experience, when you have too many similar resumes there are no useful metrics you can define. You just have to choose some to interview and bin the rest.
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BeFlatXIII 989 days ago
That's pretty much what I meant by "do the honest thing and draw some from a hat", thanks for the information.
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bluGill 990 days ago
That was my bosses problem. If we have more than 10 résumés he filters them and tells me. He used to be technical so he can filter well enough and I can focus on real work not hiring.
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