# Hey coops.. # # Imagine yourself on the other side of the table: two job openings, hundreds of resumes, # _all of which_ look friggin' identical. Yeah, the HR departments at your MegaCorp XYZ are using # automated tools to scan for keywords, and the coop department at your school is trying to beat # you into submission to follow some "predefined template".. But, unless what you're aspiring to # is to be an automaton at MegaCorp XYZ, relegated to writing test harnesses for code that will # never see the light of day.. please do yourself a favor, and _be different_! Be bold, dammit. # # (Frankly, I'm falling asleep while reading your resumes.. Wake me up! Srsly.) # # => Stuff we care about # # Yeah I'll ask you about your strengths and weaknesses, but really, the best indicator of who # you are is what you do with your free time. School projects are great, so is work experience. # But if you wrote a JQuery lib on the weekend, you know, for fun.. Now that is hot. That says # a lot, tell me about it. # # You know what it shows? Passion. You cared enough to do it on your free time - that already # puts you in less than 10% of the population of all students (srsly). # # Show me your blog, tell me a story. An interview is your opportunity to show off your stuff. # Grab my laptop and show me a code snippet you're proud of, or tell me about a problem you're # currently trying to solve. # # => Useless stuff # # Your GPA is possibly the least useful predictor for a good interview - in fact, it appears to # have an inverse correllation. That is, of course good grades are good, but they don't tell the # story, so don't sweat it. Same goes for your high-school hobbies: show me your recent work # instead. # # Oh, and don't even get me started on keyword stuffing. I'm sure that you're bright, but I doubt # you managed to grok C/C++/Java & Erlang all at the same time, after taking CS 133. Know your # strenghts, advertise them. If you know C++ inside out, that won't stop me from hiring you for # a Ruby position. # # => In conclusion... # # Being exceptional requires hard work, but trust me, it's worth the effort. Let the automatons go # where they ought to go.. to the MegaCorps who filter on keywords and require pre-formatted resumes # printed on 95% brightness, extra-think, A4 paper. But you my friend, you're different... so be # different, dammit. # # Kthnx, # # Ilya Grigorik - CTO / Founder - postrank.com # (twitter: @igrigorik, email: ilya@postrank.com, blog: igvita.com, github: github.com/igrigorik) # # # P.S. Yeah, we're hiring at PostRank. In fact we're never not hiring, so if you think you got what # it takes... then drop me a line, or even better, send me some code. Happy to chat. # # P.P.S. So I took 15 minutes to draft a _different_ kind of resume. You know, one that would guarantee # an interview... Fork it, modify it, use it, do whatever you want. Point is, do something different. # class Student < ActiveRecord::Base has_one :passion, :conditions => "project.type = 'web'" has_many :skills, :through => :practice has_many :relevant_courses, :through => :university, :include => :group_work has_and_belongs_to_many :projects, :through => :github, :foreign_key => "github.com/username" validates_presence_of :agile_team validates_presence_of :innovation validates_presence_of :learning_opportinities def self.objective "Learn & improve my skills in an environment that will push me to learn new things " \ "while having fun and contributing to projects that will have an impact ot the end user" end def self.toolkit { :strong => %w(Ruby Rails JQuery CSS), :familiar => %w(C++ Java Erlang Flex Flash SQL), :want_to_learn => %w(MacRuby JRuby) } end def self.experience past = [] past.push {:company => "XYZ", :title => "Ruby Wrangler", :date => (1.year.ago .. 6.months.ago), :description => "Built A because of B, responsible for X", :reference => "John Smith ", :url => "http://awesome-rails-app.com"} past.push {:company => "CDF", :title => "Server Admin", :date => (6.months.ago .. Time.now), :description => "Migrated X to cloud platform Y", :reference => "Bob Smith ", :url => "http://more-awesome-rails.com"} past end def self.education { :university => "Waterloo", :level => "2A", :degree => "Bachelor of Computer Science", :grades => "Available on request, checkout my projects instead" } end def self.contact contacts = [] contacts.push {:email => "name@me.com"} contacts.push {:twitter => "username"} contacts.push {:phone => "519-000-0000", :time => "10am - 6pm"} contacts end def method_missing(method, *args, &block) "Happy to answer any questions about #{method} (#{args.join(', ')})" \ "please contact me for futher discussions." \ end end