[throwaway1001]

I can't comment on me refusing startup offer here without revealing too many details so I won't.

Regarding your other points: I think from the description it's clear that I was doing something meaningful after 2002 (Haskell and Python should be at least noticeable).

Regardless of that, during that 10 years I did lots of stuff. I implemented a blazingly fast key-value storage backed by file-based B-tree from scratch. I wrote a concurrent distributed pool. I'm not a J2EE/Spring/whatever guy. Now one thing I hope is that people reading resumes prefer this type of experience to 20 line Node.js hacks.

[johnnymonster]

I'm just not sure what sort of position you are looking for, which is why its going to be near impossible to tell you the magic word that will keep your resume out of the trash bin.

I will tell you from personal experience, its a daunting task reviewing resumes.

I believe that most have it right, if you want into a big player your going to have to figure out the inner workings of the company to figure out how your resume gets to the people in charge.

Its really a numbers game, don't get discouraged and send your resume out a hundred times over. Tailor it to each position you are trying to get. If you want a backend dev position, then make sure your resume looks like your a backend dev. Also try to figure out what recruiter companies the business are working with. Every company uses recruiters, figure out who they are using and get in the door with them first. find out how many people they have placed at said company. If they havent placed anyone there then you probably don't have that big of a chance. However, if they have placed someone there before, then try to get some inside info as to what the managers are looking for.

Hiring managers are more likely to give feedback to recruitment managers than directly to the candidate. Candidates tend to get emotional when told they don't have the position. No one wants to deal with that.

Another thing to do is to work with a professional tech resume writer. Your a professional developer, not a professional writer. Have a professional take a look at your resume to make it clear, concise and to the point and seriously nobody reads a 10 page resume!