[sageabilly]

Having been on both sides of the interview desk and read pretty much every piece of resume/interview advice out there, basically don't take any resume or interview advice from anyone who hasn't done extensive hiring/interviewing/vetting of candidates.

[tacostakohashi]

I can't agree more. For whatever reason, this seems to be an area where everybody feels qualified to give advice (in many cases, it seems to be older people who have not interviewed in a long time who advise any younger / fresh graduate who will listen).

Examples:

* Customize your resume for each job you apply to.

This is completely impractical these days, when any given job is likely to attract hundreds of resumes, and your chances of getting a response from any single application are slim. It's far more practical to work on something generic and breif that you can use for any appealing job in your field, and go into more detail if and when an interview is held. Also, if you have to bend their skills and experience in different ways for different jobs, you're probably applying for positions that you're a marginal fit for, instead of waiting for finding a job that you're a better, obvious fit for on the basis of your generic, undoctored resume.

* Always wear a suit to the interview.

Again, often said, but a gross simplification. Obviously you need to dress well for the part, but in many industries / cities, you'll end up on the other side of the table from a guy in jeans and a T-shirt, and have a tough time building a connection.

Definitely worth taking any advice in this area with a huge grain of salt unless it's really from an expert in the relevant area.

[Karunamon]

Small rant:

your chances of getting a response from any single application are slim.

Every company beyond a certain size is using some kind of ERP to keep track of applicants, and even the smaller ones use something like Outlook or a similar calendaring app to keep track of people they've interviewed.

Is it really asking so much to get a "We decided not to hire you at this time" email? Without that, you don't know if they decided to skip you, or if you're still in process because the company's hiring process moves at a glacial pace.

The sheer amount of deception and silly dance nonsense required to get hired is insane.

[exelius]

> Is it really asking so much to get a "We decided not to hire you at this time" email? Without that, you don't know if they decided to skip you, or if you're still in process because the company's hiring process moves at a glacial pace.

The answer is often a mix of this. Usually a company will have 3-5 candidates for an opening. Of those, 2 are usually not right personality/culture wise, 2 will be good but maybe slightly mismatched (i.e. you need a senior Rails developer and they're a senior Java developer with some Rails knowledge), and 1 will be really good and probably take a job elsewhere.

Companies never want to turn people away, because there's a good chance you extend an offer to the 1 good guy, dance with him for a couple weeks over salary/benefits, then find out he accepted an offer elsewhere. So they go back to the stack of "maybe" resumes; though by this point yours could be at the bottom of the stack and they never get back to you.

Whenever hiring frustrates you, realize that recruiters (and HR in general) are not staffed by people who think about the big picture. I don't necessarily mean that as an insult -- the HR function simply requires someone who doesn't think too much about the reasons behind what they do and follows policy to the letter (this is how companies keep from getting sued). Add to this that pretty much every request is urgent, so they're very interrupt-driven in trying to get people in the door and service any additional open requests.

[cmdkeen]

On the suit front the thing I always bear in mind is that it is always easier to dress down than it is to dress up. Removing a tie or a jacket is much easier to do, and an easy way to start a discussion about company culture. Much better than belatedly realising the developers may wear jeans but this interview process also involves HR people or senior types. Unless the company is the sort of faddish place which makes it clear that they never wear smart clothes I would personally always suit up.

"Business casual" especially is a social minefield. That said I don't mind wearing a suit to work, if you're vehemently pro-casual clothes then you might want to go the other way and make a point of it. That said I've yet to be convinced that in tech there is a time you won't need to dress smartly, even Zuck wore a suit recently...

[at-fates-hands]

Also, your recruiter should be telling you what to wear to the interview regardless. If not, then you should ask what is to be expected.

You've got a good point about dressing down though. It's easier to walk into an interview in a suit and have people laugh it off and say, "Oh man, we don't dress that nice unless someone important is here!" instead of going in with jeans and an untucked shirt and have people dressed in business casual give you a strange look like, "Hmmmm, interesting wardrobe choice." and instantly you've lost points with them before they even ask a single question.

[vonmoltke]

> Also, if you have to bend their skills and experience in different ways for different jobs, you're probably applying for positions that you're a marginal fit for, instead of waiting for finding a job that you're a better, obvious fit for on the basis of your generic, undoctored resume.

Or you have a title, like "systems engineer", that means different things to different industries and causes confusion.

Or you deviated from your original path for personal reasons and need to explain why you are trying to get back on it.

Or you have had roles that do not easily translate to the specific domains of the companies you are applying to.

Or you have roles where your ability to provide clear, detailed information about your contributions is limited by law or legal agreements.

Yes, all of the above apply to me. I don't think I'm very unique in this regard.

[tomjen3]

I very strongly disagree with not customizing your resume/cover letter. As a programmer it is not very difficult to have a template that you can slightly alter and, if required, throw a script together to insert pertinent details. As for applying for job that you are a poor fit for I disagree - you would also need to highlight different parts of what you have done if you are a bit more of a generalist.

[exelius]

These two pieces of advice never really applied to software developers.

They still absolutely apply if you're looking for a job on the business side.

[nzealand]

Are you getting annoyed by the "I just achieved basic competence in this task, and here is how I did it" posts?

If so, you are not the target audience for them.

There are very few experts, and almost none who are able to explain the basics in a way that can be understood by a complete beginner.

This article does a good job of hammering home the basics, even if I don't agree with everything.

[ljk]

Since you've been on both sides, what would be your advice?