Work experience - good or bad?

[amritvani]

Took a break from updating resume to write this. For the first time I am changing resume to say "over 20 years of experience" instead of 25 years of experience that I have. Seems people don't like too much experience or are they afraid the employee will cost more???

Have you done that and to what result?

[echarcha]

Basically your first two lines in the resume need to capture what you are and what you bring to the table. The years dont matter so much.

So something like

'Experienced Pasta and Pizza Dough Maker with a diverse experience in pizza and Italian cooking career that spans 20 plus years ...' would be better as it first talks of your skills and experience and then mentions a number for that experience.

Many resumes start with 'Over 100 years experience in ....' ...

No I prefer to first read what are the areas you are into and immediately get an idea if I want to read further if you match my requirements. If they do, then I will look at the years you have put in so that I can get an idea of your worth to the requirement at hand.

[swami]

More please....

I also need to make a resume,would be glad to copy lines from this thread :up:


'Experienced Pasta and Pizza Dough Maker with a diverse experience in pizza and Italian cooking career that spans 20 plus years ...' would be better as it first talks of your skills and experience and then mentions a number for that experience.



Cha mera rep power chori karke tune khud ka nuksaan kar diya :mad:

Imagine me repping you with a rep power of 4800+ and now with a rep power of 440 would be an insult to your posts ;)

[echarcha]

Cha mera rep power chori karke tune khud ka nuksaan kar diya :mad:

Imagine me repping you with a rep power of 4800+ and now with a rep power of 440 would be an insult to your posts ;)

Rep? what rep? I am happy that you found my reply helpful to you. The joy you received is my reward, my rep :) (tathastu!)

[Diplomat]

Awesome advice 'Cha pai. I quickly pulled up my resume and discovered that I do not even mention how many years of experience I have in the Summary section. I simply talk about my skills and my goals there. Is that good or bad?

[kkkk]

Awesome advice 'Cha pai. I quickly pulled up my resume and discovered that I do not even mention how many years of experience I have in the Summary section. I simply talk about my skills and my goals there. Is that good or bad?

that would depend on how many years of exp you actually have.
I feel one should definitely mention the exp if total exp is less than 12 years. That quickly establishes if you are new comer, mid level or going towards senior level.
for ex if I am looking for a junior developer to join my team, I wouldnt want anyone more than 4 years exp.
ofcourse this is more true to Indian style of work and recruitment than american.

[echarcha]

Awesome advice 'Cha pai. I quickly pulled up my resume and discovered that I do not even mention how many years of experience I have in the Summary section. I simply talk about my skills and my goals there. Is that good or bad?

that would depend on how many years of exp you actually have.
I feel one should definitely mention the exp if total exp is less than 12 years. That quickly establishes if you are new comer, mid level or going towards senior level.
for ex if I am looking for a junior developer to join my team, I wouldnt want anyone more than 4 years exp.
ofcourse this is more true to Indian style of work and recruitment than american.

You must mention your number of years. Does not matter if you have less than 12 years. It only means you are a mid level guy and are ambitiously applying for a position requiring a bit more years.

You have to give a concise picture of yourself. Imagine you are in an elevator which takes 30 seconds to go from ground floor to destination. And you are with the Hiring manager who has no more time than the elevator time. What will you tell the manager about yourself in 30 seconds to pique his interest?

[echarcha]

that would depend on how many years of exp you actually have.
I feel one should definitely mention the exp if total exp is less than 12 years. That quickly establishes if you are new comer, mid level or going towards senior level.
for ex if I am looking for a junior developer to join my team, I wouldnt want anyone more than 4 years exp.
ofcourse this is more true to Indian style of work and recruitment than american.

You may see 12 years on resume but expect no more than 4 years. Fine. So imagine the years are not written. Then you will surely read the resume and realize that the candidate has more than 4 years.

The flip side is, oh okay so this guy has 12 years of experience. Hmmmm ... I dont need him right now for this position but maybe my organisation needs him for some other position that might be open. You get to refer such a candidate and earn goodwill of your HR. Win win on both sides.

[GameOn]

I noticed that resume preparation and submission is almost like some kind of a martial art and chess hybrid in Europe and North America...

put your experience as x+ if its more than 16 years 17 months 18 days and 19 hours...otherwise mention the exact number...

dont use past participles such as had to do, had to learn etc..

dont go more than 2 pages and 4 lines and column 16 in line 5, with 65 characters max across the entire resume.

only use pink paper and yellow paper clips to hold the sheets together...it should smell of victoria's secret chocolate flavoured lingerie

etc...etc.....etc...

I have never worked under anyone ever anywhere...and my resume right out of university had 5 years experience...yeah I came out of university at age 45 and thats the reason nobody would hire me...

anyway, what I realised is packaging oneself is not necessarily something everyone is good at and sometimes too much focus on a candidates wrapping can lead to selecting candidates that know how to game the system well...

this resume/recruitment thing always reminds me of the scene from the movie 21 where Jim Sturgess gets interviewed for the robinson scholarship at harvard med and the interviewer tells him you look like everyone else...can you tell me something that dazzles me....

I never could and still cant pick people based on their ability to produce christmas card like pieces of paper they call resumes..but then with such a wild career graph as mine, I am the odd one out...

[echarcha]

At least for the tech industry, if the resume does not open with a concise statement explaining what you can do and what your experience is, then the hiring manager has no more incentive to read further.

So getting a good opening line is like a pitch you make at a sales meeting. If you dont know how to pitch yourself then you have lost attention of the hiring manager, however good you maybe.

Once you get the hiring manager interested, you can move forward with more of your skills and experience.

And no, in the tech industry no one looks for pink or colored paper resumes.

People generally expect the format as follows

1) Opening statement of who you are and what you bring to the table

2) Technical skills -since tech skills are what is important because you will not be getting the same kind of job or product or project to work on, the list of technical skills and proficiency in various technical frameworks, etc. is of utter importance. So if your opening line is great, the hiring manager is going to scan your tech skills and see if some keywords he is looking for exist in that area.

So you need to mention 'Pepperoni Chives' - multiple years of experience making 'Pepperoni specials', etc.

3) Then comes the part where you mention in brief your role at your last project/product at the company you worked for last or are currently employed. Some folks will write paragraph or more of what the company does or what the project was. Believe me, hiring manager can google for your company name and get to your website and understand. So if your resume says 'Domino's Pizza' you dont have to explain what Domino's does. Even if it was obscure like 'We Roll This Dough and Bake It' , the hiring manager will google it anyway.

So just keep it brief to a line. Explain your product in a line or two and your role in a line or two. If its interesting and the hiring manager has reached so far, he will call you for a phone screen at the very least and learn more about you.

4) Resumes should not be more than 2 pages, 3 is tops. No one is reading beyond your first page anyway for initial scan and filtering.

[Parijataka]

At least for the tech industry, if the resume does not open with a concise statement explaining what you can do and what your experience is, then the hiring manager has no more incentive to read further.

So getting a good opening line is like a pitch you make at a sales meeting. If you dont know how to pitch yourself then you have lost attention of the hiring manager, however good you maybe.

Once you get the hiring manager interested, you can move forward with more of your skills and experience.

And no, in the tech industry no one looks for pink or colored paper resumes.

People generally expect the format as follows

1) Opening statement of who you are and what you bring to the table

2) Technical skills -since tech skills are what is important because you will not be getting the same kind of job or product or project to work on, the list of technical skills and proficiency in various technical frameworks, etc. is of utter importance. So if your opening line is great, the hiring manager is going to scan your tech skills and see if some keywords he is looking for exist in that area.

So you need to mention 'Pepperoni Chives' - multiple years of experience making 'Pepperoni specials', etc.

3) Then comes the part where you mention in brief your role at your last project/product at the company you worked for last or are currently employed. Some folks will write paragraph or more of what the company does or what the project was. Believe me, hiring manager can google for your company name and get to your website and understand. So if your resume says 'Domino's Pizza' you dont have to explain what Domino's does. Even if it was obscure like 'We Roll This Dough and Bake It' , the hiring manager will google it anyway.

So just keep it brief to a line. Explain your product in a line or two and your role in a line or two. If its interesting and the hiring manager has reached so far, he will call you for a phone screen at the very least and learn more about you.

4) Resumes should not be more than 2 pages, 3 is tops. No one is reading beyond your first page anyway for initial scan and filtering.

Very good advice...

[GameOn]

At least for the tech industry, if the resume does not open with a concise statement explaining what you can do and what your experience is, then the hiring manager has no more incentive to read further.

........................................................................

4) Resumes should not be more than 2 pages, 3 is tops. No one is reading beyond your first page anyway for initial scan and filtering.

Its the same generic art of war chun chu style shenanigans everywhere...in all industries

I was referring to the basic structure and the logic of the whole exercise itself as described by you above...

most of the emphasis is on making the right pitch, saying the right things etc..screeners/HR/recruiters all work with the same mindset too...okay this is what we are looking for, someone who can make a chapati thats 2 cms thick and has diameter of 5 cms...does it say so in the first two lines..yes..okay this is fine...does it not say 2 by 5 anywhere...okay fry this rsume on the tava then...

I was just commenting on the fact that this approach generally leads to gamers and players which is manifest in the fact that increasingly organisations have more attrition and a more guarded and hostile internal environment...because alot of the people are gamers...insecure in their actual knowledge but have gained entry through using the right words and phrases...something like search engine optimisation...

but then that is a bit of a digression..was just an observation from my end as a pure entrepreneur with absolute 0 work experience as an employee...that this whole emphasis on CV's and trying to figure out if people can be right for you by looking at the structure of the CV's....I am not too sure...its almost a 100% of what all recruiters today do...but then almost 100% of the worlds population is also relatively average performing middle class and below as well...

so what kind of resumes do they like in tech then???plain white saturn/silk paper with ribbons around it??

[Indian]

good going ...you guys are really cooking the resumes :D

[echarcha]

Its the same generic art of war chun chu style shenanigans everywhere...in all industries

I was referring to the basic structure and the logic of the whole exercise itself as described by you above...

most of the emphasis is on making the right pitch, saying the right things etc..screeners/HR/recruiters all work with the same mindset too...okay this is what we are looking for, someone who can make a chapati thats 2 cms thick and has diameter of 5 cms...does it say so in the first two lines..yes..okay this is fine...does it not say 2 by 5 anywhere...okay fry this rsume on the tava then...

I was just commenting on the fact that this approach generally leads to gamers and players which is manifest in the fact that increasingly organisations have more attrition and a more guarded and hostile internal environment...because alot of the people are gamers...insecure in their actual knowledge but have gained entry through using the right words and phrases...something like search engine optimisation...

but then that is a bit of a digression..was just an observation from my end as a pure entrepreneur with absolute 0 work experience as an employee...that this whole emphasis on CV's and trying to figure out if people can be right for you by looking at the structure of the CV's....I am not too sure...its almost a 100% of what all recruiters today do...but then almost 100% of the worlds population is also relatively average performing middle class and below as well...

so what kind of resumes do they like in tech then???plain white saturn/silk paper with ribbons around it??

The point is to get attention to yourself. Even if you have skills which require a more detailed explanation you have to first jump the entry level hurdle - the resume screener (HR person OR recruiter).

Once you get the first phone screen call, you are then on your way to ensure you get a in person interview opportunity.

[amritvani]

Once you get the first phone screen call, you are then on your way to ensure you get a in person interview opportunity.

Chapai, any guideline on when to expect phone screen call? obviously it would be different for different employers but

- does the hiring manager wait until there are sufficient applications before screening and calling them?
- does the screening happen while job remains posted to public or after the posting has expired
- if no one calls for a month after applying, can the candidate safely assume that that opportunity is gone?

[echarcha]

Chapai, any guideline on when to expect phone screen call? obviously it would be different for different employers but

- does the hiring manager wait until there are sufficient applications before screening and calling them?
- does the screening happen while job remains posted to public or after the posting has expired
- if no one calls for a month after applying, can the candidate safely assume that that opportunity is gone?

No direct answers, but from my experience
1) NO, the hiring manager or HR recruiter will not wait till they get sufficient applications. Usually the HR recruiter is trained to look for keywords and phrases in a resume. If they find those, and see that you are overall an experienced candidate 'suitable' for the current position, then you will get a call or an email informing you about a phone screen.

2) Yes, job postings are done on websites like monster and dice. When you post a job it remains there for some default time. The employer has to specifically take down the listing once hiring is complete. So you might find the job there even after you get a phone screen.

3) Depends on size of company. For example, Cisco used to take a while before calling a candidate. The HR processes for recruitment are different at companies. For smaller companies the response is usually faster. So should you assume you are not suitable? Probably. Should you give up hope? No, because in larger companies where the HR processes are well defined, they will at least send you an email saying 'Your resume is on our active records, but at this time we dont find your skills are a match for our requirements'.

So I would suggest you not pin your hopes on this one company but keep looking. If you get a call, great, if not, well, you tried.


Remember, the opening lines are very important and the immediately following Tech Skills area is very important too.


So, for a tech developer, say with mid level experience, I would expect something like

"Seasoned developer in Java and web 2.0 applications with complete fluency in all aspects Software Life Cycle Development with over 5 years experience looking for a challenging opportunity"

Then I would like to see something like this

Skills:
Java, OOP, OOD ===== JDK1.6, Rational UML, etc.
Web 2.0 frameworks ====== Struts, Sping WebFlow, etc.
Browser technologies ======= JQuery, Flex, GWT, or such


Now within the first scan I immediately know the following facts

1) You are a java developer with 5 years experience - Helps me decide if you are fit for the job which requires 5 yrs. min experience
2) Your tech skills talk of the key words I am looking for like 'Struts, JQuery, etc.'

Now I want to call you.

[sunnykode]

bhau very good advice...thanks a lot :up:

[LifeBuoy]

Took a break from updating resume to write this. For the first time I am changing resume to say "over 20 years of experience" instead of 25 years of experience that I have. Seems people don't like too much experience or are they afraid the employee will cost more???

Have you done that and to what result?

Duruing CPT (crruulum practical trianing), I approached a desi consulting firm (just went with the sheep, school would not grant CPT, if you dint have an offer letter - which desi cconsulting company was ready to vie). My resume was hyped up - with 6 yrs of exp in software field. I did not feel comfortable attending interview (dint tae calls, used to tell them interviewers that i do not know anythign they ask and they are just wastign their time interviewing me). With time - i realized i have to get a job so flew witht he flow. i took calls and got 2 jobs. Joined a banking firm. Joba dn duties went fine, all went fine. but i always had this feelign that am c heating osmeone. Manager was a very good person. DInt fell likle it, so i did not extend the corntact, returned back to school submitted my thesis and joined this present company as a fresher with an internship experience at that banking firm :D

[echarcha]

Duruing CPT (crruulum practical trianing), I approached a desi consulting firm (just went with the sheep, school would not grant CPT, if you dint have an offer letter - which desi cconsulting company was ready to vie). My resume was hyped up - with 6 yrs of exp in software field. I did not feel comfortable attending interview (dint tae calls, used to tell them interviewers that i do not know anythign they ask and they are just wastign their time interviewing me). With time - i realized i have to get a job so flew witht he flow. i took calls and got 2 jobs. Joined a banking firm. Joba dn duties went fine, all went fine. but i always had this feelign that am c heating osmeone. Manager was a very good person. DInt fell likle it, so i did not extend the corntact, returned back to school submitted my thesis and joined this present company as a fresher with an internship experience at that banking firm :D

Good for you that you had an option of returning to your school to submit thesis, etc. In many cases you dont have a choice but to take up a job.

Another problem is that the quality of recruiters has gone down. Today any idiot gets to be a recruiter. Recruiters are supposed to screen your resume and then short list candidates for the first phone screen round.

However, with the number of candidates and general lack of competence of recruiters the only things that get scanned are some 'key words'. So if a job requires you to have Java, J2EE application server, etc. skills, the recruiters will just look for those words in the resume. Even job sites allow the recruiters to scan and filter resumes based on key words.

That should be okay still, but recruiters are supposed to then read the resume, which they dont. I have met very few, really few, recruiters who have read my resume properly and have called me with a job that really suits my skill sets and experience. They have exactly understood what I do, and what I am looking for and how the job they have is a near match to my requirements.

So till situation improves with recruiters, you still have to go with 'tailoring' your resume by 'highlighting' certain aspects which are in demand.

[LifeBuoy]

Good for you that you had an option of returning to your school to submit thesis, etc. In many cases you dont have a choice but to take up a job.

Another problem is that the quality of recruiters has gone down.

Even job sites allow the recruiters to scan and filter resumes based on key words.

So till situation improves with recruiters, you still have to go with 'tailoring' your resume by 'highlighting' certain aspects which are in demand.

True. I had an option to turn the contract down, cuz i knew what i would do next - go abck to school. Not many would have such a n option - and would have to stick on and get used to it and flow with the flow for whatevr reasons - fend family and such which is very unfortunate.

Right on...about recruiters (am talking about those from desi consulting firms ....those Mike Pratapa, Sam Sandeep and suchs.....just change their first name to mike or some sam...tweak the accent a bit ...read out the keyword and pass the resume on...hehe).

Yeha till the situation improves may be.