Usually I rely on my network & haven’t needed this kind of document in ages, but I’ve been tasked with creating a résumé for myself. I’ve grown more privacy-conscious every year & I think it’s weird that we are expected to give out so much information about ourselves to companies that lie about their culture & don’t want you sharing salary information with your coworkers. I have read stories about how these documents & information can sometimes get leaked & shared on the web which is pretty sketch.
TIL about “functional résumés” which it appears are usually meant to cover up your lack of work experience, but I like the idea of covering up a lot of my specific history as it is the skills that should matter more, no? Do you give out all of your info?
I don’t think you need to post your address like the old days, I would never notice nor care about such an omission.
I do always look at job history, and I don’t out a lot of stock in the skills section because most of the time people lie or exaggerate there.
Nope. Just a name, email, and phone (could be optional). Most recruiters reach out by email first.
If you’re working in any kind of technology space, do yourself a favor and get your own domain for your email and homepage, and reference both in said resume. On your homepage, show link out to any relevant work, and maybe think about doing some writeups somewhere related to your specific work or specializations. Get hit tracking going as well so you can gauge interest and see who is visiting after you submit your resume. All this should only take a few hours of your time, and will make you stand out.
It’s good advice, but it depends on how you do it.
Since I wanted to show off my strengths in web dev and design, I’ve been working on my website for over two months hahaha.
Avoid my mistake and just pick some wordpress template if you want to do it in “a few hours”.
Yeah but does a WordPress template build to an 800kB distributable? Checkmate B)
Thats really funny though, Ive been doing about the same thing. Did you by chance also get yourself through one of those bootcamps? I feel burned by it honestly
:D
I went to a startup bootcamp years ago and I quite liked it - I’ve learned a lot about my strenghts and weaknesses and thought about what I actually want to do in my life.
The startup methodology part was really boring though and didn’t align with my values at all, so I just ignored the instructions and did my own thing.
Ah that sounds interesting, I took a full stack web development one. We just blazed through the fundamentals of JS before landing on MERN architecture the last couple weeks of class, my class of 28 was reduced to 15 by the halfway point, then 10 by the end.
I certainly dont feel ready for the field by any means but I’m still yet to send it. I would honestly consider a class over managing a freelance business, but I’d be afraid it would pan out how yours did
Very sound advice.
Yeah, always had fun in the job skills section for people. I worked IT for about 15 years doing what I was hiring for. I was just looking for basics a lot of the time, for what they put down on their resume. If it’s on there I am gonna ask about it.
Have git on your resume I am gonna ask about pulling, pushing and branching. Have Linux I am gonna ask how to grow a disk in it and basic shit you will run into as a sysadmin. Networking I am gonna ask someone in networking because that’s black magic lol. I had a CCNA at one point but never used it but I know when to pull people in
How do you grow a disk in linux? I am tempted to make a joke about planting hard drive seeds but I do genuinely want to know what you mean.
Or they actually think they’re good at something when they’re not 😕
I’m a consultant so whenever I’m applying for a new gig I need to provide a consultant profile, which is very similar to resume.
Over the years I’ve learned that most customers are not very interested in the “personal stuff” sections - they just want to know you have the skills required, so try to minimize the amount of personal data and concentrate on skills and past gigs (anonymizing customers/companies) etc.
But - unfortunately you have to tell something about yourself and your ability to work together with others, there’s really no way around it. It’s also more and more customary that (for some reason) they want your photo. Stuff like education, certifications need to be there, but keep it very short. Think about “social media profile page”.
Provide stuff like contact info, address, phone, date of birth (if required) and references separately - don’t put them into your resume. You can add something like “Personal information and references provided separately by request” in there, that way, even if the document is shared, all they get is something resembling a LinkedIn profile.
You can also try to add “confidential” to the document header, but I’ve noticed it’s not respected very often.
Never include a photo in the US. Most companies will immediately discard anything with a photo due to the risk that it can bias the evaluator, intentionally or unintentionally, in terms of race, sex, or age.
My LinkedIn has a real picture and it’s linked on my resume, but I’d never put my picture ON the actual resume. That just seems like a bad idea all around.
more and more customary that (for some reason) they want your photo
Gotta keep the people with different skin colour out
For starters, don’t use é anytime you say resume. It may be correct but it gives the impression that you’re pretentious. Resumes are all about a first impression and what you can do.
Would be a good filter against those places that would actually get hung up on this
Maybe they are pretentious and applying to a pretentious inistute of prestige. Any resume without an é is immediately burnt in a fancy fireplace and the applicant is shunned from the pretentious society forever. Its possible, right?
Meh. I’m a privacy focused individual, but when it comes to job hunting the prospect is difficult enough without gimping yourself with arbitrary resume requirements. Put the work history that you think is relevant, relevant skills, your name and contact information, and be done with it.
Most people don’t validate anything on a resume, depends on industry. If you think its too personal, dont put it. Make it up. Dont put your phone number or address if you dont want to. Or lie. Most applications I applied for I put the address of the town center in the city I live in. They dont need to know my actual address until I talk with payroll.
I wouldn’t say just omit it. If you don’t include a phone number or address they are most likely to ask, rather than skip you over or something. Especially if you applied via some sort of managed recruiting system that most companies use as all responses will automatically go to your email.
You don’t need to give away very specific personal information on your resume. It just needs to list your work experience, skills, and certifications. That’s it. You don’t even need to put your education if you’re not a fresh graduate. The most personal info you’ll need to include is your name and maybe your general area of residence (i.e. city and state).
Luckily I don’t need to think too much about that anyways.
In my country lots of personal information is public information. If anyone knows my name they could very easily find my exact address and the names of everyone that lives at my address and their phone numbers, what me and they earn, and so on.
I’m only referring to information I consider to be “private” like phone numbers, names, addresses. Job history and such is not that private.
My resume is here: https://kevincox.ca/resume/
I do have a flag to build it with personal information included, but that is just my phone number, and honestly I don’t even remember the last time I did that. I basically “print” the public version to PDF and share.
Just about all of the information on the resume could be found elsewhere online. None of it is stuff that I consider private.
