Reflection, Research and Resumes
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Too many resumes are verbose. I gave a talk about job hunting at the August SydJS which focussed on working out what you actually want to do and how to best ensure the reader of your resume gets that message.
So, we’ve had the 3 Ps (passion, presence and project), and now we have the 3 Rs:
Reflection
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Think about your work history, what you enjoyed and where you want to take your career. This will vary throughout your career but it needs to be more specific than ‘software engineer’.
Research
It’s all very well to want to be a Brainfuck developer but if there are no jobs now or expected in the future, it might be worth just keeping that to something you do in your spare time. Check out some job sites and developer blogs to get a feel for whether your preferred languages, frameworks or tools are being used commercially.
Resume
We’ve written several talks and posts about how to structure your resume (check out this and this). The focus of this talk was on specificity. Buzzwords are important for resumes, but you don’t need to mention all of them. Tell a story with your resume. Most developers have played around with a bunch of languages and technologies but there are some you may rather never see again.
For a tad more detail, and a picture of my puppy Maki, the slides are available here: https://speakerdeck.com/gface/reflection-research-and-resumes-how-to-get-your-next-job
