Facebook groups for novice programmers are often asked how to improve a resume to make it easier to get a job. Over the course of my 12-year career, I have gone from a junior to a technical director - and a resume has never been useful to me. Not that I did not try. It's just that they never asked me.

I worked in four companies, and a couple of months ago I created the fifth myself (Bootstrap Shuffle). I'll tell you a secret. He will give you a significant advantage over other candidates, and recruiters will hate me!

What's the secret?

First work (2007-2009)

In 2007, while studying (finance and banking), I started making a bot working on the Gadu-Gadu network, at that time the largest Polish messenger. In 2007, it was bought by Naspers for $ 154 million (Gadu-Gadu, not a bot).

A simple bot reacted to commands (for example weather), checked the data in various services and returned the result to the chat. It was written in TCL.

The project interested Gadu-Gadu. I was invited to a meeting in Warsaw, offered good money for a license for the project and offered a job. Of course, I agreed - and earned my first money! (By “pretty good money,” I mean good money for someone who has never earned anything before).

I found the first job (in fact, the job found me!) Because someone saw the potential in my amateur project and / or in me!

No one asked for a resume.

The second work (2009-2010)

In 2009, the popularity of Facebook began to grow in Poland. I was interested in how to use their API, I did some tests and started creating a project using this API.

Since I did not have experience in SaaS (I was 23 years old), I wrote a letter proposing cooperation to one specialist in creating Internet startups (I knew this from blogs / articles / interviews) - Rafal Agnieszczak, CEO of Fotka.pl, on that moment the largest social network in Poland. After the meeting, he offered me a job as a programmer in his company.

I found a second job because I offered an interesting idea to the right person at the right time (Facebook was just starting to grow in Poland). I did not have to write a resume again.

Third work (2010-2017)

The project with Rafal did not work, there were many technical problems. I don’t remember why, users had to pass us their passwords (!?) From social networking sites. Perhaps Facebook and other services did not share all the data we wanted to collect. Unfortunately, this did not work.

However, interest in the Facebook API has persisted.

I launched the StreamPublish project: a Facebook posting tool with the correct formatting (today this is no longer possible, but then various parameters were added to the message via the API).


StreamPublish.com (2010)

In 2010, Rafal interviewed Lukas Misiukanis(YouTube shows 2012, just re-downloaded it). There, Lukasz said that he was creating the Social Media Agency and wanted to get into the top 3 of this category in Poland. At the time of the interview, he had only one employee named Agnieszka.

I decided to write to Lukash with a proposal for the StreamPublish project. We met, and so I got another job. I became the third employee at Socializer, a company of Lukas. He did not ask for a resume.

The company grew to more than 200 people, it was bought by the Dentsu Aegis network for $ 8 million, and after the purchase I worked as a technical director for three years with a team of about 30 programmers.

Note: so that foreign readers can understand which companies I ended up with without a resume, I will show the cover of the book “Evangelists. Learn from the creators of the Polish Internet ”(2012):


“Evangelists. Learn from the creators of the Polish Internet ”

The fourth and fifth work (2017− ...)

With the experience gained, everything has become easier. After Dentsu / Isobar, I joined my friends from Flying Bisons, where I was tasked with creating a group of leading developers.

After a year of working at Flying Bisons, I decided to completely go for free bread, and of course, this did not require a resume;)

What are the findings?

Start creating.

In the first three companies, I got a job because I created my own projects after hours. If it worked three times in a row, then there is something to it!

Find a topic of interest and create something yourself. Not a new search engine for movies on IMDB, not tic-tac-toe in JavaScript, but something that solves an urgent problem and is useful for you personally. If you do not have all the competencies (for example, you only know the external interface), try to find someone with the necessary skills.

Then you will stand out from dozens of candidates. You will prove that you are able to implement projects. That you can cope with obstacles.

You will learn a lot!

Third-party projects are a win-win option. Since I always tried to create my own projects, I have no problems with the frontend, backend and infrastructure.

The competition in the junior market will be more and more. Over the past few years, I have seen hundreds of resumes, and few of them stand out.

Good luck

PS If you already have some kind of third-party project, share the link in the comments!