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Ask HN: Critique my resume. Looking for a career change

7 points by jtd00123 ↗ HN
Hello guys, I'm looking for a more traditional developer role. I was hired on my latest job in February but am realizing that I am learning skills that aren't directly related to how I want to grow as a developer. I am being pruned into what is more like a controls engineer rather than a programmer, the latter of which is more related to what I went to school for. (Don't ask how I got my current job. All I'll say is that I got bait-and-switched)

After a rocky start, they now really like me and I like the people I'm working with, but I would really rather be doing a more traditional programming role. (i.e. working with mainstream programming languages, larger codebase than what you get with PLC coding) With my experience, can I pivot to a programming role? If yes, is this resume any good?

Please help and thanks in advance!

Here is the resume: https://raleigh.craigslist.org/res/6949503782.html

EDIT: I realize I have a couple of typos in my resume. It is also heavily redacted b/c you know, the internet. Will edit the typos later. Employers will get an unredacted version

9 comments

[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 28.8 ms ] thread
Chyzwar
Buy yourself professionally written CV. Get nice looking template and hire someone to check content and help with personal statement. Create linkedin profile and start building network.

Do some actual training towards role you want: Udemy, Coursera, Linux Academy etc. This important as it would help to prove you have right skills and "passion".

Instead focusing on your responsibility you should focus on business impact. I would avoid grading your skills. You do not have enough experience to objectively measure these skills.

jtd00123
Thank you for looking at my resume Chyzwar. I'll look into professional resume writer. I am told that I am one of the handful of people that actually "make money" for the company, whatever that means. With that said, my business impact is difficult to qualify and quantify since the company is so hush-hush about finances.
gt2
That's par for the course (hush hush part). Rather than finances you can quote other relevant numbers like user engagement, time to implement a system, number of bugs/code quality figures.
sosilkj
i think everything you do include on the resume is good (in broad terms), but the challenge you have is figuring out the most appealing way of ordering it and laying it out.

- you don't include a bachelor's and that could be a red flag for some recruiters, like it or not. if you actually do possess a bachelor's i'd suggest including it, regardless of the major.

- if you put a date on a degree, put the month, not 'winter'. you can also leave off the date altogether.

ps101
I'd like to reiterate the first point because it's important - in a thorough interview process you will be asked about your bachelor's degree anyway. You're much better off including it here and being prepared to address any questions and concerns about it rather than appearing to hide it.
laken
I've never been asked about formal education in an interview beyond entry-level. Once you have a couple years of experience, formal education generally isn't as important in this field.
theworld572
Hey, your CV looks good, I wouldn't worry too much about the template, layout etc. at the end of the day employers decide to interview you based off of you experience and education - not because you picked a nice font for your CV.

That said a couple things you could change are:

1. Add a few sentences at the top, saying who you are and what kind of job or company you're looking for. i.e. "I am a systems engineer with experience coding in Python and am looking for software developer roles."

2. Your work experience is far more important than your education, so move the education part down so in between "recent work experience" and "volunteer work".

3. "Software Specialist"? Is that your official title? Can you just change the title to something else like "Software and Systems Engineer"? The difference is tiny but could make it a lot easier getting past recruiters and HR.

4. Emphasise the programming part of your current role in both your CV and when you talk about it in interviews.

Finally, pick what kind of a developer role you want - your CV says you know python, git, sql, linux - so maybe you want to be a backend python / django developer? If so start a github profile and contribute to open source python projects.

Personally I have an "Open Source Contributions" section on my CV with links to each codebase I have contributed to and a short description of what I did. This kind of thing will be extremely helpful for you starting out.

hazz99
> employers decide to interview you based off of you experience and education - not because you picked a nice font for your CV

Anecdotally, I've got a lot more call-backs and interviews with a nicely presented, professional-looking resume.

Same information, just organised differently and with nice colors and shapes.

I find that design is extremely undervalued in a lot of technical circles - including employment.