• (cs)

    Holy cow, I think I interviewed Alvin a week ago.

  • Jonh Robo (unregistered)

    ...my resume is 6 pages long to cover all of my IT experience spanning nearly 30 years. I figure if the hiring manager really wants to know me they have the info. Sure, they can stop reading as soon as they have the info they need. They don't have to read all of it.

    I know this is not the "accepted practice" for resume length...but I'm exceptional!

  • Joe (unregistered)

    I think Alvin works in my company. Is this the guy whose code blocks include comments like

    "Code sample provided by UltimateFreeCode.com"...

    Captcha: onomatopoeia - too many letters for a captcha.

  • Bob Villa (unregistered)

    My resume is almost one and a half pages!

  • SM (unregistered) in reply to Jonh Robo
    Jonh Robo:
    ...my resume is 6 pages long to cover all of my IT experience spanning nearly 30 years. I figure if the hiring manager really wants to know me they have the info. Sure, they can stop reading as soon as they have the info they need. They don't have to read all of it.

    I know this is not the "accepted practice" for resume length...but I'm exceptional!

    OK, but when it's that long there's a good chance that they probably just won't read any of it.

  • Perl Guy (unregistered) in reply to Bob Villa

    Mine is 1 and a half pages, but that's because I have a varied background experience. Management (US Army), Technical (both perl and C#), and Education experience do that to my resume. The problem is, I don't have enough experience in any on of the three fields to be a good fit for any one of the three as a 'midlevel', so I am 'junior' level even though I have 4 years of college and 4 years in the outside world.

  • (cs)

    my resume is 73 pages long...

    i like to include nice full-page pictures of photos over a wooden table showing me and the things i like and dislike...

  • diaphanein (unregistered) in reply to SM
    SM:
    Jonh Robo:
    ...my resume is 6 pages long to cover all of my IT experience spanning nearly 30 years. I figure if the hiring manager really wants to know me they have the info. Sure, they can stop reading as soon as they have the info they need. They don't have to read all of it.

    I know this is not the "accepted practice" for resume length...but I'm exceptional!

    OK, but when it's that long there's a good chance that they probably just won't read any of it.

    I definitely look down upon 6 pages of resume. Especially when its riddles with typos and bad grammar. Not that I'm trying to be grammar/spelling police, by any means, but people, please. Your resume is the first (and potentially last) impression you make with an interviewer. PROOF READ. I recently had a guy that graduated in "Sprint 2005". (Although, spelling and grammar aside, he actually turned out to be a good interview).

  • (cs)

    Do you think there is any chance Alvin might read this and be, you know, insulted?! </sarcasm>

  • (cs)

    Mine is 2-3 pages depending on the job I'm applying for (though I'm happily self employed now, 5 years and counting!)

    I got fed up of trying to cram everything in so the front page just includes 2 main sections - a list of technologies worked with (mostly TLAs - I even added "TLAs" as a joke), and a list of "soft skills".

    Funny thing is this means a constant stream of recruiters emailing/calling me because my CV in their database got hit in a keyword search...

  • (cs) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:
    Do you think there is any chance Alvin might read this and be, you know, insulted?! </sarcasm>
    Not since the third time his code turned up on here, no.
  • Hej (unregistered)

    I hope the "C-pound" was a joke, though I didn't get the sense of 'ha ha' afterwards....

  • BenF (unregistered)

    I once had someone tell me that regression testing was when you tested backwards. (Impressive off-the-cuff creativity, I thought. But we didn't hire him.)

  • my name is missing (unregistered)

    I would have asked something non-sensical and timed how long it took for him to give up on finding it online.

    "What does the eephus keyword do? How can it make multityping easier?"

    Seriously these guys are why I hate looking for a job, everyone assumes you are an Alvin.

  • SomeCoder (unregistered) in reply to Hej
    Hej:
    I hope the "C-pound" was a joke, though I didn't get the sense of 'ha ha' afterwards....

    It is a joke - see: http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/5_years_C-pound_experience.aspx

    Good times that one :)

  • (cs) in reply to Hej
    Hej:
    I hope the "C-pound" was a joke, though I didn't get the sense of 'ha ha' afterwards....
    I don't know, I think it works quite well in that regard.
  • (cs) in reply to diaphanein
    diaphanein:
    I definitely look down upon 6 pages of resume. Especially when its riddles with typos and bad grammar.

    (Emphasis added)

    Ironic, nu?

  • SomeCoder (unregistered) in reply to SomeCoder
    SomeCoder:
    Hej:
    I hope the "C-pound" was a joke, though I didn't get the sense of 'ha ha' afterwards....

    It is a joke - see: http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/5_years_C-pound_experience.aspx

    Good times that one :)

    Sorry, let me make that a link: http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/5_years_C-pound_experience.aspx

  • Tobias (unregistered) in reply to Hej

    There was another story from the interview where the interviewed C#-specialist pronounced C# as C-pound. So it's just a easteregg for the long-term-readers ;)...

    mpG Tobias

  • john (unregistered) in reply to Hej
    Hej:
    I hope the "C-pound" was a joke, though I didn't get the sense of 'ha ha' afterwards....
    this was from a previous WTF
  • RogerN (unregistered)
    Could you tell me the difference between a static and non-static class?

    According to the C# documentation, the "static" keyword cannot be applied to a class. Perhaps they meant to inquire about singletons?

  • whicker (unregistered)

    I never understand these fake facades people create in an interview setting.

    If a person is that bad, why even thank the person for the time spent and why even give the "will contact you in a few weeks" speech?

    If you want employees to be honest in their interviews, why do the people hiring feel they need to hide their true impressions?

    Let that person know it. What's the worst that person can do, actually gain the knowledge required for that position? Or, are hiring people afraid that as candidate F's number of interviews with constructive feedback increases without bound, the probability of passing the screening without actually having the skills approaches 1?

  • SomeCoder (unregistered) in reply to RogerN
    RogerN:
    Could you tell me the difference between a static and non-static class?

    According to the C# documentation, the "static" keyword cannot be applied to a class. Perhaps they meant to inquire about singletons?

    Then the documentation is wrong. I applied it to a class today :)

    public static class MyClass { }

  • Z (unregistered)

    The hiring manager knew what instantiation and managed code was?!

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to SomeCoder

    I've heard this story before from someone I work with except that the person on the other end was an engineer from the Indian outsourcing firm they were going to hire.

    This is either an urban legend or it is a fairly common occurrence.

  • Edward Royce (unregistered) in reply to Jonh Robo

    Hmmmm.

    Actually I've got a 6 page resume as well to cover a 29 year career. Well actually only the 20 years since I figure anything older than 20 years ago is sufficiently obsolete that nobody is going to care.

    I've tried working with a 1 page resume but every single time I get a request back for more detail. Eventually it all ends up with me sending the 6 page resume so I don't bother anymore. I include a 1 page summary as the first page and then all of the rest as detail filler.

    shrug it works.

  • publius (unregistered) in reply to RogerN

    I want some of what you're smoking.

  • Justin (unregistered) in reply to RogerN
    RogerN:
    Could you tell me the difference between a static and non-static class?

    According to the C# documentation, the "static" keyword cannot be applied to a class. Perhaps they meant to inquire about singletons?

    Try the .Net 2.0 documentation. As of 2.0 you can declare a class static and prevent it from ever being instanted. (Yes, the last word was a joke).

  • (cs)

    I would have asked what keyword do you use to create a 'goatse' class.

    That would have given him the clue to not lookup the answers to questions.

    PS: Don't google that word.

  • Bomm (unregistered)

    6 pages doesn't even look that bad to me anymore. I've recently interviewed a guy who had 8 pages and I've seen 10 pages before. We didn't even interview a guy with 10 page resume because it's clear that he was either a) stupid b) ignorant/impolite c) lone cowboy with no experience in corporate environment. Screw that.

    Come on people... 6-8 pages, even if you've 20 years of experience is quite stupid. Four is most that I will ever read.

  • RobDude (unregistered)

    My resume is now 3 pages long..and I'm 24. Even back when it was 2 pages; pretty much everyone said that I was a fool for having a 2 page resume.

    But I haven't had any trouble getting interviews or getting jobs.

    It's a good resume - name/contact info at the very top and a very brief (normally 1 line) sort of introduction. 'Experienced programmers seeks work' kind of a thing. Then I've got a small list of buzzwords. This list is important because most of the people who handle your resume won't know ANYTHING about computers. To the average HR lady 'C#' and 'VB.Net' have nothing in common. My point is - put the buzzwords so the headhunters and HR people can quickly and easily find them.

    Then I've got a list of the jobs I've had. Each entry is short and to the point - Name of the company, my position, dates employeed and 3 bullet points explaining what I did. They are listed most recent to oldest.

    So, on the first page - you know who I am, what I want (a job), a list of what I do, and my most recent/current employeer.

    Anyone who says 'Well, his qualifications on this first page look great; but he's got more pages, let's not look at them' is a tool and I don't want to work with a bunch of tools. If they take the time to flip to page two, they'll see even more jobs I've had and technologies I've worked with.

    Any job I've worked that is relevent to the job I'm trying to get should be on my resume. Sure, if you are filling it up with your summer working at McDonalds; that's crap, and it should go.

    When you go to hire a consulting firm to take over some development project....would you look at their webpage and go 'OH GEEZ - Look at this crap; they've worked for FIFTY different clients and all 50 were really happy with their work - but well, we only wanted 1 page of previous customers...let's find a different company' - I sure hope you wouldn't. That's how I feel about my resume. Every job listed is relevent to the job I'm going for, and every former boss/manager listed will speak highly of me.

    And any job I lose because of it, is a job I wouldn't have wanted.

  • Bomm (unregistered)
    RobDude:
    Anyone who says 'Well, his qualifications on this first page look great; but he's got more pages, let's not look at them' is a tool and I don't want to work with a bunch of tools. If they take the time to flip to page two, they'll see even more jobs I've had and technologies I've worked with.
    Agreed, but you still have to keep it reasonable. Have you ever been presented with 10 resumes of your potential co-workers? 6-8 page resume tells me that the person doesn't respect other people's time. Make it 3-4 pages. Leave only names and dates for the projects from 10 years ago. Be reasonable.
  • dkf (unregistered) in reply to Bomm
    Bomm:
    Come on people... 6-8 pages, even if you've 20 years of experience is quite stupid. Four is most that I will ever read.
    To every rule there is an exception. I once saw a CV that was that sort of length, and that was just with the guy's recent publications. He was a freaking paper writing machine. In the end we didn't hire him because we didn't have a senior-enough position open, but we did forward it on to a number of other departments...
  • (cs) in reply to whicker
    whicker:
    I never understand these fake facades people create in an interview setting.

    If a person is that bad, why even thank the person for the time spent and why even give the "will contact you in a few weeks" speech?

    If you want employees to be honest in their interviews, why do the people hiring feel they need to hide their true impressions?

    Let that person know it. What's the worst that person can do, actually gain the knowledge required for that position? Or, are hiring people afraid that as candidate F's number of interviews with constructive feedback increases without bound, the probability of passing the screening without actually having the skills approaches 1?

    Mainly it's a corporate CYA issue - our HR department is very insistent on not saying anything that can be used against the company (and that includes opinions of any type). shrug

  • Top Cod3r (unregistered)

    Its obvious that Brent, having lacked experience in hiring developers, failed to accurately advertise the requirements for the position he was trying to fill. Now that he has gotten the wrong type of candidate, he's trying to cover up his own mistake by ripping on the applicant.

    If it were me, I would hire Alvin immediately after the phone interview, because its obvious that he is the kind of go to guy who you can count on to find the answer and solve problems on his own using Internet resources when necessary. And they didn't say, but if this was a telecommuniting position, he seems like the perfect fit.

    Maybe Brent should go read some books on interviewing skills and not publicly ridicule applicants for his job posting. Its no wonder he can't hire anyone.

  • Anon Fred (unregistered)
    Brent wanted to talk to both candidates on the phone first to assess their competence levels prior to a face-to-face interview. First they called Alvin

    So, what happened to the second guy?

  • some dude (unregistered) in reply to Top Cod3r
    Its obvious that Brent, having lacked experience in hiring developers, failed to accurately advertise the requirements for the position he was trying to fill. Now that he has gotten the wrong type of candidate, he's trying to cover up his own mistake by ripping on the applicant. .... Maybe Brent should go read some books on interviewing skills and not publicly ridicule applicants for his job posting. Its no wonder he can't hire anyone.

    Uh, oh. I think we found Alvin. Either that or someone seriously forgot their <sarcasm> tags.

  • (cs) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    Bomm:
    Come on people... 6-8 pages, even if you've 20 years of experience is quite stupid. Four is most that I will ever read.
    To every rule there is an exception. I once saw a CV that was that sort of length, and that was just with the guy's recent publications. He was a freaking paper writing machine. In the end we didn't hire him because we didn't have a senior-enough position open, but we did forward it on to a number of other departments...

    CVs are more or less expected to be long. They aren't resumes. My advisor's CV is 22 pages.

  • (cs)

    6-page resume with correct spelling, legitimately 6 pages of relevant work experience = good 6-page resume with spelling/grammar errors, excessive detail/filler to make 2 or 3 jobs look more significant = bad

    I see more of the latter than the former, and I'm just a developer who does the occasional technical interview. I think that's why the long resume gets a bad rep, for every guy with 15 years experience there's ten guys trying to stretch 2 jobs into six pages by telling me about every single bug they ever fixed.

    One guess what nationality I see this from the most...

  • (cs) in reply to zip
    zip:
    One guess what nationality I see this from the most...

    Please tell...

  • Daniel (unregistered) in reply to ParkinT

    Yeah, but he'll probably end up seeing it during another phone interview, so he'll have to stifle.

  • Borat (unregistered) in reply to zip
    zip:
    6-page resume with correct spelling, legitimately 6 pages of relevant work experience = good 6-page resume with spelling/grammar errors, excessive detail/filler to make 2 or 3 jobs look more significant = bad

    I see more of the latter than the former, and I'm just a developer who does the occasional technical interview. I think that's why the long resume gets a bad rep, for every guy with 15 years experience there's ten guys trying to stretch 2 jobs into six pages by telling me about every single bug they ever fixed.

    One guess what nationality I see this from the most...

    Kazakhstan
  • Martini (unregistered) in reply to Diamonds
    Diamonds:
    I would have asked what keyword do you use to create a 'goatse' class.

    That would have given him the clue to not lookup the answers to questions.

    PS: Don't google that word.

    Don't google "pain series" either. Really NSFW. Or viewing in general.

  • kimbo305 (unregistered) in reply to some dude
    some dude:
    Uh, oh. I think we found Alvin. Either that or someone *seriously* forgot their <sarcasm> tags.
    They just weren't good at sarcasm.
  • Dave Krause (unregistered)

    In today's market if you don't mention every facet of every technology you've worked with resume readers will consider your skills as inadequate because a specific tool you may have used was not mentioned. I have experimented with both short resumes (1 page) and long resumes (12 pages).

    The winner, hands down, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is the long resume. Employers can and do sometimes act shocked at their length, but who cares? If they were able to find you and your specific skill sets and you were able to find quality employment, the length of the resume never becomes a topic of discussion again.

    Bottom line - don't knock a guy because he has a really long resume. Quality still reigns high over quantity in all facets of our work, including resumes. But this does not necessarily mean that all of the skills and tools we have used should fit neatly in one page.

  • Bob N Freely (unregistered)

    When I'm interviewing, I will only skim anything beyond the first two pages. In the software industry, any work experience more than 5 years in the past is likely obsolete, and if you've had more than 2 pages worth of jobs in the last 5 years, I would consider that a red flag.

    Either way, I only want to see examples that show you are current on the required technologies, and that you are capable of working in the project environment.

  • (cs) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    we didn't hire him because we didn't have a senior-enough position open, but we did forward it on to a number of other departments...

    Yeah, I've heard that one before. That's like the "It's not you, it's me" of job interviews.

  • Chris (unregistered) in reply to Top Cod3r
    Top Cod3r:
    Its obvious that Brent, having lacked experience in hiring developers, failed to accurately advertise the requirements for the position he was trying to fill. Now that he has gotten the wrong type of candidate, he's trying to cover up his own mistake by ripping on the applicant.

    If it were me, I would hire Alvin immediately after the phone interview, because its obvious that he is the kind of go to guy who you can count on to find the answer and solve problems on his own using Internet resources when necessary. And they didn't say, but if this was a telecommuniting position, he seems like the perfect fit.

    Maybe Brent should go read some books on interviewing skills and not publicly ridicule applicants for his job posting. Its no wonder he can't hire anyone.

    Surely you can't say that you would hire this guy? I man if you are recruiting for an experienced coder and the guy is simply regurgitating what he sees on a website you can't honestly expect him to have the understanding required for the role? I dont think the guys interviewing skills are at question here, if the interviewee clearly has no clue about the questions asked then it's not the interviewers fault.

    I think the interviewee was just trying to be optimistic in his skills and hoping to get lucky with a job. Whilst he has shown some google skills I don't think you should be hiring everyone who can put "static class" into google.

  • Dave Krause (unregistered) in reply to Bob N Freely

    You must never have been, nor hired, a contractor before then. I have worked on 20 different projects in the past 5 years. I usually spare the gory details of all of them on my resume.

    Still a red flag to you? Then you are the one missing out, not the resume writer.

    Also you overlook the part of the process the got that resume in front of you in the first place. Some HR person or head hunter, with absolutely no IT experience at all, scans resume databases looking for the key words you wrote in your requirements.

  • Anon Fred (unregistered) in reply to Bob N Freely
    Bob N Freely:
    In the software industry, any work experience more than 5 years in the past is likely obsolete,

    oh geeze. . .

    Either way, I only want to see examples that show you are current on the required technologies, and that you are capable of working in the project environment.

    ha ha ha! That was funny!

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