April 25, 2019 at 18:25I read 80 resumes, I have questions
We do not have a very simple interview. You need to go through 3 steps:
For three months I was the programmer who evaluates a resume. I have something to talk about with you.
For 2 months on the vacancy of iOS-programmer:
As a result : 78 people sent a resume, and took one. I don’t know how successful this percentage is, but it hurts me for those 52 resumes that I rejected.
Hh.ru suggests filling out a typical candidate form: education, where he worked, what is his name. It is dreary, takes time and has almost no result.
Here everyone is mowing. The man spent two years on the project, did a bunch of tasks, was worried, angry, blissed out by the result. And he writes: "fixed bugs, sawed features." Let me list the templates, and you will remove them from your resumes:
So after all, everyone works, there is nothing new here, this does not distinguish you from the candidates. But that’s half the text in every resume.
You can write stories from each work, because you did wonderful things on them. What were these tasks? What part of the program are you writing? What did you rewrite? What was difficult? What have you learned? Where are you doing it? What was suggested? What failed?
For example: I tried to implement Kotlin Native, wrote sub-samples and integrated the build, but the team did not accept the technology: there were risks and infrastructural difficulties that were avoided. Six months later, they introduced less in the project: they saved on development and covered better with tests.
For some it will turn out to be a difficult task, for someone simple, but it has something to discuss.
This is my favorite. Write down a set of frameworks and external dependencies and pass them off as your knowledge - wow! These are terribly general things that don't say anything.
It is useless to list, tell us about a few, but in detail. Maybe you write awesome scripts or you know how to write a tricky layout for a collection. You will not guess which of this is important to me, but the level of your dive will tell a lot.
It is interesting if you basically avoid any technologies. Never draw an interface in Interface Builder? Throw Alamofire and rewrite to NSURLSession? Tell us about the reasons and results, we will discuss this at a meeting.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a viper in our architecture or not, the decisions that were behind the choice of technologies and the conclusions after their application are important.
It is a pity that in Russia there is no culture of covering letters: this is when you write about yourself, telling what you are good at and why you are suitable for this work. Hh offers a couple of paragraphs for the story about himself, everyone believes that this is enough. Not! Do not submit your resume until you have completed sheet A4.
What to write about? Introduce your colleague. What do you know about him? What tasks can only he do? What is he doing badly? What does he want to do better? How did he get into the profession? What experience did he have before? Why are you pleased to work with him? What annoys him? What is he striving for? What task would you entrust him with? What is he: sociable, persistent, modest?
And write about this, but to yourself. You are my future colleague and I want to understand why it is worth choosing you. I want to imagine how you will complement the other guys and what the team will be like.
Find the cons in yourself, otherwise I won’t believe it.
On the Internet they write that the resume should be one page. But this is stupid, write as much as you need. Do not write obvious things, remember unusual stories and tasks. Seek value in your experience. I may spend 10 minutes longer, but you will have a chance to go further. If there is nothing in the resume, then there’s nothing to talk about.
Resume can be up to 4 pages. This is a lot, but can be done conveniently. On the first page the most important thing: a story about yourself, that same cover letter. So I will find out who you are and what will suit us. On the second - all working projects. On the third - personal. On the fourth remains what is not important for work, but it can be interesting. Maybe you didn’t speak at conferences, but you want to. Or they used to work in sales, so you can understand the problems of users. This will be read by the most persistent, but the text is optional.
Minimum design hygiene: clickable links, the essence of the project, your role and achievements.
Sometimes projects are no longer available or closed. Describe as you can: attach screenshots, tell in text. If you can’t talk about the project under the contract, then tell us about your contribution, because you somehow grew up during the work.
Without a description of your development, I will not be able to evaluate the project. You worked on it for a long time, but I see that the swipe to go back does not work in navigation. It’s easy to find problem areas, but hard to feel good. Tell us how long they did the project, how much they supported, what unusual problems they solved. It is interesting to know how many users you had and how you worked with them. You can write a small project with 100 downloads, but grow madly on it.
Yes, all the same. But instead of projects, you may have read books, completed tutorials, and test assignments. It is not so important where and what you are now, how you have grown over the past six months and who you will become after a year.
It makes no sense to write for a vacancy of 200+ thousand ₽ without notes that you do not need so much, but really want to work with us. Tell me why, otherwise I won’t believe it. Infect with energy. Maybe we don’t have junior vacancies, but your energy will bribe.
Writing a good resume is always difficult. It is hard to remember tasks, collect projects, write a text. It may turn out that nothing strong has been done. Most likely, tasks seem common only to you, for other people they will be a curiosity.
I caught the designer on this, he did not know what to tell. At the same time, he was making apps for China on WeChat: a different interface, a different approach, a different language, a different culture. But for him it has already become a familiar thing. But this is hoo!
Maybe you are not looking for work right now. But then you have to write something. What the story will be in the resume depends on your actions today. Make the task so that it would be interesting to talk about it later. Maybe you will write about it in the resume, or maybe it will become an article or you will make a report.
I didn’t need advice, but I liked the way of thinking. With the resume the same thing: let it always be with you. They did an interesting task - write down a fad, otherwise you will forget it later.
Install the program and find out what you have to work with! Obvious advice that no one should follow.
Close the knowledge gaps you know about. It is unlikely that you will have time to learn something new, just polish what you are good at. It’s better to say that you didn’t work with technology than to scatter questions about it.
If you have been denied, be sure to ask what you lacked and what can be improved. Not all companies will answer, but this may be a good point in your growth.
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- Send a resume, the programmer will look at it, like it if everything is fine. The recruiter will call and ask a few questions.
- Meet or call us. We will find out what kind of specialist you are.
- Come on a test day. Get to know the team and work together. Talk with the technical director, discuss salary and receive an offer.
For three months I was the programmer who evaluates a resume. I have something to talk about with you.
A series of articles “HR through the eyes of programmers” :
1. Our first lunch together: why and how we spend a test day .
2. I read 80 resumes, I have questions.
3. Loading ...
Funnel Resume
For 2 months on the vacancy of iOS-programmer:
- 52 resumes I rejected;
- 18 rejected the recruiter;
- 6 people did not pass the technical interview;
- 1 did not agree with the service station;
- 1 adopted and passed the trial period.
As a result : 78 people sent a resume, and took one. I don’t know how successful this percentage is, but it hurts me for those 52 resumes that I rejected.
Most importantly, your resume is one of dozens, you have to be someone special to stand out. If I accept the resume, then we both spend several hours and may not come to anything, therefore the screening is strict. There is a myth that a recruiter watches a resume for a minute, but with each resume I spent 10 to 40 minutes reading and trying to understand what kind of person is in front of me. Almost never worked out. There are reasons for this.
Let's talk about your resume
1. Headhunter pattern
Hh.ru suggests filling out a typical candidate form: education, where he worked, what is his name. It is dreary, takes time and has almost no result.
I can find out what your car is, but I don’t know what kind of person you are.
Here everyone is mowing. The man spent two years on the project, did a bunch of tasks, was worried, angry, blissed out by the result. And he writes: "fixed bugs, sawed features." Let me list the templates, and you will remove them from your resumes:
- Finalization of the finished functionality.
- Development and implementation of new functionality.
- Identification and correction of errors.
- Release and download on the App Store.
- Participation in every stage of the development life cycle.
- Work on agile methodology.
So after all, everyone works, there is nothing new here, this does not distinguish you from the candidates. But that’s half the text in every resume.
You can write stories from each work, because you did wonderful things on them. What were these tasks? What part of the program are you writing? What did you rewrite? What was difficult? What have you learned? Where are you doing it? What was suggested? What failed?
For example: I tried to implement Kotlin Native, wrote sub-samples and integrated the build, but the team did not accept the technology: there were risks and infrastructural difficulties that were avoided. Six months later, they introduced less in the project: they saved on development and covered better with tests.
For some it will turn out to be a difficult task, for someone simple, but it has something to discuss.
2. Technology
This is my favorite. Write down a set of frameworks and external dependencies and pass them off as your knowledge - wow! These are terribly general things that don't say anything.
UIKit, AutoLayout, Foundation, MapKit, CoreData, Realm, Alamofire, Git, TDD, CI.
These are frameworks, not your knowledge.
It is useless to list, tell us about a few, but in detail. Maybe you write awesome scripts or you know how to write a tricky layout for a collection. You will not guess which of this is important to me, but the level of your dive will tell a lot.
It is interesting if you basically avoid any technologies. Never draw an interface in Interface Builder? Throw Alamofire and rewrite to NSURLSession? Tell us about the reasons and results, we will discuss this at a meeting.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a viper in our architecture or not, the decisions that were behind the choice of technologies and the conclusions after their application are important.
3. Tell us about yourself
It is a pity that in Russia there is no culture of covering letters: this is when you write about yourself, telling what you are good at and why you are suitable for this work. Hh offers a couple of paragraphs for the story about himself, everyone believes that this is enough. Not! Do not submit your resume until you have completed sheet A4.
What to write about? Introduce your colleague. What do you know about him? What tasks can only he do? What is he doing badly? What does he want to do better? How did he get into the profession? What experience did he have before? Why are you pleased to work with him? What annoys him? What is he striving for? What task would you entrust him with? What is he: sociable, persistent, modest?
And write about this, but to yourself. You are my future colleague and I want to understand why it is worth choosing you. I want to imagine how you will complement the other guys and what the team will be like.
Find the cons in yourself, otherwise I won’t believe it.
4. Do not write short
On the Internet they write that the resume should be one page. But this is stupid, write as much as you need. Do not write obvious things, remember unusual stories and tasks. Seek value in your experience. I may spend 10 minutes longer, but you will have a chance to go further. If there is nothing in the resume, then there’s nothing to talk about.
Resume can be up to 4 pages. This is a lot, but can be done conveniently. On the first page the most important thing: a story about yourself, that same cover letter. So I will find out who you are and what will suit us. On the second - all working projects. On the third - personal. On the fourth remains what is not important for work, but it can be interesting. Maybe you didn’t speak at conferences, but you want to. Or they used to work in sales, so you can understand the problems of users. This will be read by the most persistent, but the text is optional.
5. Projects
Minimum design hygiene: clickable links, the essence of the project, your role and achievements.
Sometimes projects are no longer available or closed. Describe as you can: attach screenshots, tell in text. If you can’t talk about the project under the contract, then tell us about your contribution, because you somehow grew up during the work.
Without a description of your development, I will not be able to evaluate the project. You worked on it for a long time, but I see that the swipe to go back does not work in navigation. It’s easy to find problem areas, but hard to feel good. Tell us how long they did the project, how much they supported, what unusual problems they solved. It is interesting to know how many users you had and how you worked with them. You can write a small project with 100 downloads, but grow madly on it.
How do I know about your growth by the screenshots in the app?
What to do if you are new
Yes, all the same. But instead of projects, you may have read books, completed tutorials, and test assignments. It is not so important where and what you are now, how you have grown over the past six months and who you will become after a year.
It makes no sense to write for a vacancy of 200+ thousand ₽ without notes that you do not need so much, but really want to work with us. Tell me why, otherwise I won’t believe it. Infect with energy. Maybe we don’t have junior vacancies, but your energy will bribe.
A good resume is a long business
Writing a good resume is always difficult. It is hard to remember tasks, collect projects, write a text. It may turn out that nothing strong has been done. Most likely, tasks seem common only to you, for other people they will be a curiosity.
I caught the designer on this, he did not know what to tell. At the same time, he was making apps for China on WeChat: a different interface, a different approach, a different language, a different culture. But for him it has already become a familiar thing. But this is hoo!
Maybe you are not looking for work right now. But then you have to write something. What the story will be in the resume depends on your actions today. Make the task so that it would be interesting to talk about it later. Maybe you will write about it in the resume, or maybe it will become an article or you will make a report.
Once I heard a tip: write a letter of resignation on the first working day in order to feel free at work. It can be in a drawer, but without a date and signature it is not valid. If you get tired of everything, then finishing things will be very simple.
I didn’t need advice, but I liked the way of thinking. With the resume the same thing: let it always be with you. They did an interesting task - write down a fad, otherwise you will forget it later.
You were invited to chat. What's next?
Install the program and find out what you have to work with! Obvious advice that no one should follow.
Close the knowledge gaps you know about. It is unlikely that you will have time to learn something new, just polish what you are good at. It’s better to say that you didn’t work with technology than to scatter questions about it.
If you have been denied, be sure to ask what you lacked and what can be improved. Not all companies will answer, but this may be a good point in your growth.
UPD:
There are many questions “why I am a watchman and easily refused 52 people”.
We had a vacancy on the iOS Signora, many large and complex tasks. From unusual interfaces to acquiring. Work experience 3-6 years.
On the other hand, we can take with simpler skills, if the candidate is impressive. I watched everything that they send us, so as not to lose a potentially good candidate.
As a result, 5 resumes were in the spirit of “I don’t know anything, but I want to program”. 15 resumes were from people whose experience is less than a year. 18 has been programming for less than two years, but certainly not up to par. Another 14 from middles of different levels, but lacked skills. All who went further were strong middles, but there were doubts about someone. HR confirmed the fears. As a result, we turned out to be two who are approaching the position of Signor, but they did not find the middle. 2 signora for 80 candidates is a normal figure.
This is not an instruction manual, just a different look at writing a resume. I am not an expert in this field, but an ordinary developer who just wants people to pay more attention to their resumes and find the most suitable job for themselves.
Subscribe to the mobile development channel at Dodo Pizza .