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Showing posts from July, 2023

Quantify Quantifiables

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"Quantify things!" "Make sure you quantify your experience!" "And quantifiable impact statements." "Quantify, quantify, quantify!" It gets said a lot... but some people struggle with it... so here are 4(ish) ways to quantify your #impact on your #resume
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The All-Seeing Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

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This robot has represented so much in my life. From hearing about the wild dream to being a part of building cutting edge disruptive technology, from 6 people to 60, from Startup to Acquired, from hiring coworkers to building life long connections. Despite the changes this robot witnessed, it also represented consistency: Injecting genuine personality into everything with fearless vulnerability, tackling every problem with the belief that the solution was not in the product but in our attitude, and most importantly - loving people, loving connection, loving the highs and lows. For me, this bot represents the all-seeing eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, from The Great Gatsby. It has witnessed a time many of us think of fondly, and it has witnessed my life since - navigating a world without my Gatsby. He would have turned 50 yesterday (anyone who knew him would probably chuckle at the absurd silliness of him as a 50 year old...) We used to joke "I fought the bot and the bot won,"...
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Falling Behind

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  Bad news. After staring for too long at a PowerBI, it came to my attention that my hair part line is really behind target.
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Cover Letter Fan-Fiction

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I heard someone say requiring cover letters is like asking candidates to write fan-fiction about working at your company. 😄 Jokes aside, I think seeing a cover letter as a literary work is a good framework for when to write one, and when not to: Don't If... It's imaginative: "At your company I would..." It's autobiographical: "And then I turn 22..." It's irrelevant: "I really like charcuterie..." Do If... It's a short form persuasive essay that can't be immediately inferred from your resume: "I was the lead developer on the very product your company now uses." There is no 2.
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Sand Sculptures

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Listing hobbies on your resume is like sharing a picture of your beach vacation on LinkedIn. If you do, it should be relevant in obvious ways. If it's not relevant in obvious ways, then it should be a conversation starter. If it's not a conversation starter, it should at least pique one's interest. If it's not piquing interest, then it's just taking up precious space... ...just like a giant sand-sculpture takes up precious space on a crowded beach.
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Work Experience vs Professional Experience

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In reviewing a bunch of resumes this week, I noticed quite a lot of resumes with a  "Work Experience"  section. In each of those resumes, people had de-valuing some very valuable  experience - and I write that with no exaggeration. The problem is people were looking at their experience purely through the "Job Title/Relevancy" lens and had reduced their experience down to a list of discrete, random, disconnected jobs. No interconnectedness, no narrative thread weaving through it all. As much as you may feel some jobs have no way of being connected, the reality is  you   are always the connection . To not connect them on your resume is to lose all that growth, knowledge, skills, impact, value, and trajectory. In other words - you lose the " You " in the resume. I recommended they start with a small change. Reword "Work Experience" to "Professional Experience" because, ultimately, every single job they had was in service of building their ...
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Let's Clear Up The Ambiguity!

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Job seeking is hard - especially when you factor the ambiguity around expectations, the lack of transparency and consistency around process. It's frustrating dealing with the sheer subjectivity of everyone's opinions. Just think of even the basics: How long should your resume really be? Traditional black and white, or modern? Should you include a headshot? Oh - and cover letters - are those needed? Is anyone actually reading the cover letter? What are they looking for? Is there a bias for people with a more traditional background? Worst of all: The dreaded typo  that you catch only after applying to your dream job.  Are typos really going to cost you the opportunity??? To help bring some clarity to the process, I surveyed a bunch of hiring managers. The results were really interesting, and very illuminating.     If you're on the job hunt, I hope this information helps out! One final note: My recent post,  7 Steps to Writing an Amazing Resume , factors a lot of...
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FAQs for a Software Engineering Hiring Manager

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Technical Interviews have evolved a lot since the early I transitioned from being a Software Engineer to an Engineering Manager. Particularly in the post-Covid era, there's been a greater emphasis on the person, which I think is an important and welcome change. Over the decade of interviewing hundreds of coders, I've also had the pleasure of working with various bootcamps, colleges, and hundreds of individual job seekers on LinkedIn. Across all the changes over the past years, across the various locations and mediums, something remained consistent throughout: The questions I get asked.  With that in mind, I thought - why not make a FAQ from my perspective as a hiring manager? While this is my perspective, it's based off years of observation and supporting data. But that being said, advice is not fact. You may disagree with certain points, and that's OK. Opinions we disagree with allow us to better understand our own views. At best, I hope these responses help you...
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7 Steps to Writing an Amazing Resume

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  Since sharing my resume template  I've received plenty of feedback from job seekers, HR and hiring managers - all of whom value its purpose. Two (now former!) jobseekers even shared that as soon as they used my template, they were getting calls. Something about this template works, and given the traction it's getting others, I wanted to share - in more detail - why  this approach works so well.  Before continuing, let me give an important disclaimer: This resume isn't a miracle cure that's going to land anyone their dream job. Unless they're filled with lies, resumes are only as good as the candidate themselves. But they can also be a whole lot worse. This template and approach are all about maximizing the potential candidates have by highlighting and summarizing key areas.  Last point before beginning: If you don't know me, it's worth stating this advice comes from more than a decade of having hiring a broad range of coders: straight out of college, hig...
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7 Steps to Building your Portfolio MVP

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Often when I suggest to coders that they build a portfolio, I'll hear back: "I don't need one..." "With all the effort it takes to apply, where will I find the time?" Simply put, having a portfolio's never going to hurt your chances at landing a job - it can only help. That second question is where a lot of struggle - because applying to jobs can be time consuming. Especially if you're wrapping up a bootcamp, or having to manually type in your resume info after uploading your resume. That's why I made these 7 steps which, when done correctly, can really help you stand out with a hiring manager. And, the best part is, it should only take you 2 days. Being the Agile-Obsessive that I am, it's all about maximizing value while minimizing effort. Fix links to your Resume, GitHub, LinkedIn, etc. at the top where they're always accessible. Link to everything here - and then remove all other links on your Resume except your Portfolio link . It sa...
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