Latest CV update.

[swestrup]

I've just updated my CV again, and I was wondering if anyone had any critques on its latest incarnation?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

no HTML version that one can read online ?

just wondering

[swestrup]

Well, you can see an html version here, but the formatting is a bit messed up. That's why I don't usually bother doing an html conversion.

I don't know of a single product with html output that I like.

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

emacs, vi

eventually AbiWord, because it is w3 validated (or it is a bug)

[thebabynancy.livejournal.com]

html version is horribly aligned, fyi. apart from containing a litany of information... a scary amount of information... I believe the rule of thumb is that a resume/cv should be no longer than 1 page... but that as we get older... we have that much more time to account for... but still more than 1 page... my experience is that most recruiters usually chuck the hefty, lengthy resume/cv... in lieu of the crisp, concise, 1 page resume/cv... but that's just me...


:) Nancy

[swestrup]

Emacs doesn't do unicode. Last I heard, neither does vi. w3 validation is requirement, but it isn't sufficient. Outputting CSS aware code is.

[swestrup]

Yeah. HTML was autogenerated from the source, and sucks badly. I've always stuck with a 2 page CV, but I could consider cutting it further, I suppose.

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

Emacs and gvim both do UTF-8.

AbiWord outputs CSS aware HTML that validates, but it is inline... so probably not what you want.

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

No, I say stick with two. You just can't get enough relevant info onto one page, at least not for a programming job (where there's no associated portfolio or anything).

[thebabynancy.livejournal.com]

I know that when I edit resumes/cvs for clients... the turnaround is supposed to be one page... even if shrinking the font and widening the margins... It used to be that 2 pages was accepted... then people with 2 pages, pushed it to 3... and to 4 and so on... justifying the increase with extensive experience... which in my opinion, is kinda redundant at the time of the interview... I mean, a resume/cv should have some meat... but if it is explicitly detailed... how do you interview with any kind of elaboration?

[swestrup]

Emacs support of UTF-8 is seriously broken. I tried to write a complex unicode document a month ago, and it couldn't handle it at all...

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

I see you took my advice; I feel flattered. So needless to say, there's not much further I can tell you. You should probably find something to start off the "A wide range of networking and communication skills" bullet, as it doesn't quite flow with the rest of that section (perhaps "Knowledgeable in" or "Familiar with" or something similar, though they're not perfect). Your last bullet under SNT Satcom needs an "and" after the comma, and a trailing period, and even the PDF version is slightly weirdly aligned, but those are the only outright problems I see.

You may want to fiddle with sizing or page breaks or something to make it evenly fit the two pages; perhaps bump up the font size a notch or two and have some work history spill over onto the second page. And if you could come up with some sensible categories, you might want to subdivide the "skills" section a bit, as it's still a bit daunting (perhaps "languages", "software", and "systems" or something), but for all I know it'd make it worse. Anyway, the first page is now outstanding, and if it doesn't get you an interview somewhere, then you didn't want to work there.

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

I went down that road once, and it was an unmitigated disaster. There just wasn't the space to get into what I did at former jobs, so it just turned into "I worked here and there and this other place" which doesn't tell anyone much of anything about what I actually did, or what I'm good at. Whereas even with the details, there's still plenty of ways to go into further detail in the interview, or talk about how you did stuff, or whatever.

Like I mentioned, this is largely because there's no space for a portfolio; if you say "I designed this site" or "I took this photo", I can go to that site or look at that photo and see what you can do, so you don't need to say much more. But if I say "I worked at NITI", that doesn't tell anyone anything.

Anyway, the co-op department at Waterloo suggested two-page resumes for most CS people (not for first-year co-op students, for instance, but at least for me in particular when I had my resume critiqued a couple of years ago), so it's not universally shunned yet. It's nice if you can manage it, but I don't think Stirling's resume would fare all that well.

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, in the third bullet for Terrascale, "Installed" shouldn't be capitalized. "Kernel" and "User" technically shouldn't either, but they both look fine as-is so you could probably get away with leaving them.

This is the level of pickiness you've reduced me to. Well done.

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

btw in you document I don't see any need for UTF-8. And I myself just type entities... :-)

[swestrup]

Nah, *this* document is pretty simple. But if I'm going to adopt another editor and learn my 304th set of editor commands, it had damn well BETTER support all of unicode, and not just the characters that have simple entity names.

[swestrup]

That level of pickiness is appreciated. I'm also claiming to know something about technical writing, and so I should damn well make sure my punctuation, etc is without flaw.

[swestrup]

Well, as this is a second version of my CV, I don't see why I can't take Nancy's advice and try to make a 3rd version which fits on one page. It would take some major reorganizing, but it may be doable.

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

but surely not a wordprocessor, whichever it is :-)

Have you tried http://nvu.com ?

[swestrup]

My current wordprocessor (as opposed to a simple text editor) is Word Perfect. No, its not perfect, but its better than everything else I've tried so far, including Open Office.

I would love to see a wordprocessor that worked as well as a text editor, and that could seamlessly handle unicode. I actually have a design for one somewhere, but I saw a statistic somewhere that editors are the most common Open Source project, and most are stillborn, and I don't want to be another statistic.

[swestrup]

Just looked at nvu. All it does is HTML. I want something that can edit structured documents and output the result in HTML, pdf, and any number of other formats.

I certainly don't want the storage format to be HTML. HTML is just too broken.

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

PDF is not structure, but it is more a "rendering" format.

XML DocBook or LaTeX is probably what you want.

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

Touche, I guess. But if you feel like it's just not informative or eye-catching enough, don't waste several months of your life like I did by only giving out that version. I don't think anyone looking for someone with your skills will discard your resume because it spans two pages.

[swestrup]

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Words in CV

[helenkacan.livejournal.com]

Hi, hope I can offer some consructive comments.

I would change "highly experienced" to "experienced and effective" as "highly" seems to be too self-aggrandizing and not really descriptive.

Sp error under Skills: change "has lead small teams" to "has led small teams" as led is the correct past tense of lead.

I agree with someone's comment on the inconsistency, where most but not all bullets start with "Has" (an active verb would be stronger). Also, under Skills and Hobbies (or the whole thing, actually), I would change the focus from third person (after all, you are writing about yourself) to first person. I guess that would eliminate all of those "has" starts.

Hope the above is useful. By the way, I'm happy to see that someone out there actually does spell the noun "practice", 'cuz it's the verb that is spelled with an ess.

Hugs,
H.

Re: Words in CV

[swestrup]

Thanks for the constructive criticism! I was taught that a CV was one of the appropriate places for the passive voice, and that the word 'I' should never appear in one.

Maybe that's all changed by now?

Re: Words in CV

[helenkacan.livejournal.com]

With the bullets, you don't need a personal pronoun, therefore, no "I" is stated. 'Cuz, after all, you were starting a whole bunch of them with "Has"+verb, leaving the "He" implied.

In any case, consistency in content is the goal.

Hugs,
H.