Categories
Career Growth

What to put on a Software Engineer Intern or Junior-Level Resume

This is a rant from reviewing hundreds of resumes on a Sunday so forgive the occasional sarcasm. I am not a professional resume writer either; merely trying to help make the world a little better, one resume at a time.

Sure, some companies filter resumes using tools and keyword search so everyone just throws in every buzzword out there but we are secretly hoping we’re better than text mining algorithms (and we really love reviewing resumes) that I reviewed one by one.

Will try to make this quick

If you are still in school

  • Have your projects in Github or public repositories. They differentiate (at least as of this time not everyone has it yet).
  • Work on something outside your course requirements.
  • Join hackathons or coding competitions.
  • Talk about career with experienced people, look for heroes. Your professors could be that person but not everyone has real-world experience and those matter.

General

  • Please, pretty please read the job requirements. Most companies put a lot of thought on them, we will also benefit from the saved time.
  • Watch your spleling
  • Watch you’re grammar – I’m no grammarian and don’t expect people to be one either but this tells me that the person has low attention to detail or did not take the resume seriously enough to have someone else review it. And detail is very important in engineering.
  • Cover letters help (show interest and effort) but keep them very short. Save the details for the resume.

Formatting

  • Please use a nice font (please reflect the beauty of the world and embrace typography) but don’t be too flashy either.
  • PDF than Word Doc
    • more control on how it will look like versus depending on whether reader has MSOffice, OpenOffice or none that could read doc/docx at all
    • most browsers have plugin it opens right away
  • Do NOT try too hard to fit everything in a 1-page resume. Few is better but please do NOT remove the margins to make it “shorter”. Simplify your content instead.

Summaries

  • Do NOT highlight your “low” GPA/Grade– I could be missing something but I wonder why some put those that seem to be lower than most. I think it could actually anchor the viewer negatively.
  • Do NOT list technologies you have only coded a few lines for or those you just learned by listening in class.
    • make sure you have actually coded or wrote an application that is either 1) used in production or 2) a publicly available web site
    • you can put them at the end as hobbies if you want
    • having all the possible programing language in the world could make someone think you don’t have enough depth. If you must insist on some archaic language, better be sure that most engineers know that it’s a beautiful language or hard to code unless you are a master
  • Do NOT list non-job related experiences – again you can point this out at the bottom (or if you want to still establish work history – just put a line, no need to describe too much).
  • Customize your resume a bit to highlight the needs of the position.
    • e.g. for a Java role, it’s sometimes useful to list Java first before other languages (and keep the list short – unless you are applying for a polyglot position)
  • Do NOT list Outlook, Word, PowerPoint or the likes unless you are a ninja on those apps.
  • Common, you are not a 10 in Java after school otherwise you would not be looking for a job (that job will be looking for you).

Experience

  • Do NOT explain what APIs are or do. It’s OK to explain the system you worked on but not something like “API is used to access the database”. Ah sure…
  • If listing your company/internship, say something about what you did. Unless it’s Google or Facebook people might think you did nothing amazing in that company.
  • Co-founder/founder always helps (for as long as it’s true). If it failed, leverage it by stating what you learned from them.

Projects

  • Sure, list your projects – but make their descriptions brief – most people will think you were required to do something anyway so they are not really differentiators.

Things that are true for all resumes/applications/branding
(you know these but apparently not everyone follows or maybe they don’t agree?)

  • Linkedin
    • good profile photo (not so trying hard – look positive, eager to learn)
    • for goodness sake, don’t look sad in your photo
    • list your top skills (and ask people to endorse them) –  if nobody endorses them, it’s worse than not being there
    • recommendations are helpful so ask for them – Yes, I don’t have recommendations there either but hey I am not looking for a job – you are
  • Build your online reputation
    • Blog if that’s your thing (or you can)
    • Twitter (and say sensible things, not test posts – or nothing)

Noise words
Unless you are submitting to an applicant tracking system that searches for just keywords, in my opinion these are just noise in your resume. In case companies filter out on those it’s probably a bad company to work with since they don’t really “look” beyond what machines can see.

  • Object Oriented Analysis
  • Design, Development, Implementation and Deployment of Software (or xxx)
  • Relevant graduate courses (all if not most, took them) unless you are applying for something super specialized and you took a class that matches that and is super specialized too (and only 5 students took it)
  • Good communicator – let your resume do/say/show that instead
  • Team player – yet to encounter someone say they are NOT and they hate people – eccentric geniuses exist but they don’t pass/write resumes – they don’t have to

Almost there…

  • Ready? Not yet. Have someone who has experience review your resume or better yet, pay for good professional writer/reviewer.
  • I have a tendency to read from bottom to top.  I look at “progression” after school and density of work/experience and not years. So don’t put messy stuff just because you think it’s at the bottom and nobody would read it.
  • Look at other people with your profile. Do you feel you have a differentiator?
  • Read articles on what hiring managers look for. Put yourself in their shoes, research online what to look for candidates and you will see common themes (e.g. smart + gets things done). Then figure out how you can be that person.
  • Be responsive when you get a response about the application. Not hearing back from candidate for days that is a red especially for positions where responsiveness is expected (e.g. Ops Engineer)
  • Remember, hiring managers do not do screening full-time. I am doing this on a Sunday so the easier you make the review the more lovable you will be.

More experienced/higher level position applications are a whole different discussion so will leave that to professional resume writers/bloggers.

Finally, if you are not yet in school but thinking of doing so also think about this
Either:

  1. Go to a great school (CMUs and Stanfords of the world) and just do your best to keep up (most of the time, the environment there will drive you to succeed)
  2. Or if you cannot for some reason, go to a reputable school that will allow you to have time  for outside projects

Imagine two candidates:
Candidate 1

  • GPA 4.0 in not so bad school
  • has github projects X, Y and Z
  • committer for Apache XXX project
  • Regular course work

Candidate 2

  • GPA 3.8 in some school better than above
  • Regular course work

Who do you think will have an edge?

Thank you for indulging in my rant and hope this makes the world a little bit better. Have a good week ahead!

Categories
General

Of course, a nerd future dad will post his baby’s registry on his site

And that would be me. Yes, Lauren and I are expecting a baby boy!

So that friends and family would get easier directions if they want to share in our registry, I am posting it here, now.

Click the link below to access the registry

http://babyli.st/lauren-and-ryan

Categories
.NET

this application failed to start because side-by-side-configuration is incorrect

it could be other things but in my case (which is common apparently) is was just caused by having an ampersand (&) within one of the values in the web.config/app.config appsettings key-value pairs

the fix is to simply change & to &

this is because the xml reader is not able to parse the *.config file properly unless the value is xml encoded. this applies for these characters as well (and their correct/encoded representation)

"   "
'   '
<   &lt;
>   &gt;
&   &amp;

there could be various other complex reasons (you can search for the full string online and you will find them)

but hope that helps

Categories
Web

WordPress 3.8 is a welcome upgrade – nice admin fonts

Just upgraded (went out Dec 12 but just saw it) to WordPress 3.8.

Love the new admin interface (way better fonts).

And as always, it’s great having to upgrade something and not have to worry about things being broken. Good job WordPress!

Categories
Web

Something is up – my Alexa Rank dropped by 4 Million+ in past 3 months

Happy New Year everyone!

Nothing much I just wanted to share:

* I ended up in alexa for various reasons and figured hey might as well check my rank and guess what I found – dropped from ranking around 4M to 8M in the world in the past 3 months. Don’t get me wrong, I am not in the business of making my blog popular but a drop of 4M, something must be up. Could there be a surge of new sites (that many new sites? that many new businesses? in the past 3 months). Or maybe the holiday season and people just hit some existing sites they hit only seasonally. Not really into solving this mystery but interesting nevertheless.

alexarankdroppedby4millionin3months

 

I guess I am not a popular kid anymore 🙂

And can I just say wow, there are lot of sites out there…

 

Categories
Career Growth Engineering Leadership Startup

My Quest to be a Better Leader

leadershipimage.jpeg
Leading Engineers

Engineering Leadership (or management – some engineers are not fans of the term “manager”) is not easy as some people think. Leadership is hard enough, the complexity of people then add to that the complexity of engineers. There’s not a lot of books on the specific subject so it’s not surprisingly that I still hear top executives saying that one just needs be technically proficient/architect, sure – architect of teams/people maybe but not just of systems/code. That’s where the challenges of engineering leadership comes in, one is expected to be both good at systems/engineering and people. Those two could mean different worlds.

Long topic but I wanted to share what I hope to follow and achieve. These are taken mostly from Google’s Proxy Oxygen (Google’s Quest for a Better Boss), books, articles I have read on the subject (you can catch some at my GoodReads account) and experience from peers, friends and my own.

These are “big” topics on their own, (obviously thousands of books have been written on leadership), my goal is to simply to share in case it helps and for others to remind me should I forget to walk the talk.

Also, though useful in most cases, it could vary depending on what stage your company/team is in. If you are just starting up, you need more coding + pitch/sales/marketing power more than maybe engineering leadership.

There is no timeline to get these right (if even possible at all), it’s a lifelong process and better have a target than nothing at all.

1. Be a good coach

  • Provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing the negative and the positive.
  • Have regular one-on-ones, presenting solutions to problems tailored to your employees’ specific strengths.
  • Learn more about coaching and apply (and be more organized, templates etc)

2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage

  • Balance giving freedom to your employees, while still being available for advice. Make “stretch” assignments to help the team tackle big problems.
  • Give them tools to enable them to do their best
  • Demand the very best, help if possible, otherwise find other options, if all is exhausted cut losses
  • Trust them to do their best
  • Emphasize results, not time spent
  • Delegate that which is not your strength

3. Express interest in team members’ success and personal well-being

  • Get to know your employees as people, with lives outside of work.
  • Make new members of your team feel welcome and help ease their transition
  • Treat them well
  • Know what makes them tick (money, power, status, popularity, greater good)
  • Appreciate individuality
  • Do the hard work of knowing but also ask what motivates them

4. Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented

  • Focus on what employees want the team to achieve and how they can help achieve it.
  • Help the team prioritize work and use seniority to remove roadblocks.
  • Shield the team from distraction
  • Manage external expectations

5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team

  • Communication is two-way: you both listen and share information.
  • Understanding is the goal, communication is just a tool
  • Hold all-hands meetings and be straightforward about the messages and goals of the team. Help the team connect the dots.
  • Encourage open dialogue and listen to the issues and concerns of your employees.

6. Help your employees with career development 

  • Mentor when you can, refer to someone if outside your expertise
  • Training time on regular work week hours (internal + external expertise)

7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team

  • Even in the midst of turmoil, keep the team focused on goals and strategy.
  • Involve the team in setting and evolving the team’s vision and making progress toward it.
  • Team vision, Core values
  • Where does each one fit in the team (roles)
  • To be the best, know the best (who are our competitors)
  • When saying no to roadmap/tasks, support it by giving costs

8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team

  • Roll up your sleeves and conduct work side by side with the team, when needed.
  • Understand the specific challenges of the work.
  • Learn their code base – invest time on this
  • Good architecture – “With good architecture, debugging is a breeze because bugs will be where they should be.” – David May
9. Integrity
  • Just, fair, transparent
  • Do not commit without consulting them
  • Admit mistakes
  • Give people proper credit
  • Confront problems, not people

10. Advocate Quality

  • Test, Test, Test
  • Code review
  • Simplify, Simplify
  • Continuous integration
  • Cannot commit if builds are failing
  • 5 whys – incident report always
  • Do not build something you cannot measure
  • Have a Devil’s advocate, 10th person on architecture decisions

11. Innovation

  • Advocate design thinking – emphatize, define, ideate, prototype, test
  • Safe environment to learn from instead of fear failures and move on
Categories
Agile Community Startup

Hack Cafe Idea

I believe in startup communities. Idealistic, some may say but I like to think that I never stopped believing in doing small (or big) things to make the world a better place and startups contribute a lot.

And one way to help build those communities is having a space to encourage it.
Sharing one idea I’ve been thinking (and hoping) can be implemented in Manila and Philippines (my home country) in general. I’m sure I’m not the only one but sharing nevertheless and if someone beats me to it all the better.

A coffee place where generating great ideas/work comes first before great (or even just good coffee).

Disclaimer: I do not claim any intellectual property on this (and in fact this is brought upon by different ideas from friends and people I’ve met). I hope that by sharing this, it becomes real (or if it’s already real I can help market/support it)

Categories
Investing Startup Venture Capital

Venture Capital 101 – Google Hangout with Dr. Clint Korver

Had a great opportunity to talk to and discuss about Venture Capital investing with Dr. Clint Korver – Co-founder and Partner of Ulu Ventures, serial entrepreneur earlier today.

Venture Capital is not everybody’s game and there’s not a lot of information about there and even more know, the number of VC firms struggle to stay afloat, you can almost imagine that some will keep their trade secrets. Client and Kauffman Fellows are one of the few (if not the only) who goes out of their way to share on this topic.

This is part of VC101 (NovoEd) class where Clint was one of the mentors (along side others from Kaufman Fellows Academy)

Learned a great deal in the very limited minutes (not to mention Google Hangouts technical issues) and most of all got a lot of my questions answered. Including:

  • How involved are VCs with valuation vs seeking expertise outside the firm
  • How VC on a high level come up with exit multiples
  • How to become a VC (straight from a VC)

Sharing here (in two parts due to some technical issues)

Aside from Engineering & Leadership, I hope to learn more and share about building and funding things of great value and it might take time but as they say seek your path and this is one of mine.

Thanks Clint for sharing your time and knowledge, hopefully soon I could pay back the honor or pay it forward.

Categories
Community Investing Startup

Philippines Startup Report

Thanks to the nice folks rappler.com I’ve had the chance of watching online what’s happening (or has happened) in Geeks on a Beach – a brand new conference for everyone who is passionate about startups, technology, design, and making the world a better place that was held yesterday in Boracay Island, Philippines (the best beach/island in the world – though I might have a slight bias since I was born 2 hours away from those islands).

rappler online video coverage here

Although from a global perspective, the startup scene here is average (needs more entrepreneurs, needs more information, more funding) with my interest in this subject (with my goal to be an angel investor) and having the privilege to know some social entrepreneurs in the country I would say that these are exciting times for the startup and enterpreneurship in the Philippines.

Philippines Startup Report – 2013 from Ron Hose

Stay tuned!

Oh and I just learned too that Ms. Philippines won title of Ms World 2013 (Megan Young)! Hurray for the Philippines…

Categories
Web

Switched my blog’s social media plugin to AddThis

Just wanted to share (ran into this) social media plugin and figured what better way to test it than use it in my site. So far so good. Impressive simplicity but powerful analytics (smart enough to show which channel/media the user uses to share often)

It’s easy – just go to https://www.addthis.com/ then sign-up

I wouldn’t describe steps (because yes, it is that easy). But of course you might not always be lucky (so feel free to shot me a message if I could be of help).