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davidk01 asks:

My resume is no longer relevant. It can no longer contain an adequate description of my technical abilities. One can get a much better sense of what I am capable of by looking at my GitHub repositories, my Stack Exchange profiles, and the various courses that I am taking at Udacity and Coursera. The problem is that I have no idea how to tell employers that those are the places to look if they want an accurate description of what I can do.

Every time a recruiter contacts me I gently nudge them towards all the resources I just mentioned and I also provide a link to a publicly visible Google doc that contains my resume along with links to all those resources. Yet, they keep coming back asking for a more descriptive resume.

How can I make it even more blatantly obvious that if somebody wants to hire me then they can save themselves a whole bunch of trouble by just clicking on a few links and browsing around?

Related: "At which point do you "know" a technology well enough to list it on a resume"

The 3-second rule (73 votes)

tdammers replies:

Look at a resume as a distilled brochure that advertises highlights from your skills and experience. A combination of your GitHub and SO profiles and a bunch of other online resources may be complete and accurate, but it isn't sorted or otherwise prepared for easy reading in any way. People who hire want you to tell them what you think distinguishes you from the rest, so your resume should be written so that you pass the first three seconds of eyeballing; if it doesn't, three seconds is all you get. Nobody can form any useful opinion about your skills in three seconds of looking at your GitHub account page.

If you have too much to fit on your resume, great—pick the absolute highlights, and refer to online resources for more. Aim for 'impressive', not 'exhaustive'.

More reason than ever to resume (106 votes)

Yuriy Zubarev replies:

I would argue that "in the age of GitHub, Stack Exchange, Coursera, Udacity, blogs, etc," the relevance of a concise and a well written resume is more important than ever.

As an employer, I am not going to start with your GitHub projects and blog posts. I might end up checking them if:

- your resume is relevant to my job requirements;

- and your resume demonstrates a track record of achievements.

You do not even have to put links to all the aforementioned sites on your resume. I will google your name if I'm interested.

Related: "When do you drop old technologies from your resume?"

Know the process (15 votes)

jfrankcarr replies:

Most HR screening these days done by recruiters and corporate HR departments is automated resume reading. A human never sees your resume/application. A computer program that searches out keywords in a plain text, HTML, or Word document determines if your resume matches the specified job criteria.

If it's a match, a HR person, who knows nothing about GitHub or StackExchange, looks at your resume and double checks the computer results. They may call you on the phone to make sure that you aren't a total loser or liar. Then, they'll submit your resume to the department or client along with a stack of other qualifying resumes. (Smaller companies who don't use a recruiter usually start at this point.)

Then, the hiring manager will begin to sort through a stack of resumes, scanning them for certain keywords/buzzwords and making some subjective judgments. For example, you may have graduated from the same school so you end up on the callback pile. They then ask the recruiter or HR to setup a face-to-face or phone interview for those selected.

In the interview, that's the time you can bring up things that you do online. They'll probably Google you and check out what you've given them after that if they like you in person. However, this can work against you in some organizations. They may think you're too dedicated to outside projects, like a blog or open source projects. They may see a Facebook entry where you're out partying or being openly religious and be offended by it. They may not like your code style or be intimidated by it. Then again, some hiring managers won't even bother to do even a Google search and base their decision on the interview alone.

So, a resume still remains an advertising brochure for you because it's easily automated and quick to read/scan. Online qualifications are generally something that can be a deal maker or breaker after an initial interview with a hiring manager.

Related: "Should I not show all my skills?"

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