Resumes
The most valuable resources of any successful hi-tech company are its engineers for without them there would be nothing to sell and it is they that chiefly set the company apart from others with which it competes. But good engineers are always in short supply and high demand, predictably leading to a glut of mediocre engineers looking to fill that gap. However, it is a widely-observed fact that a single brilliant hacker is more productive than an entire team of mediocre code-monkeys. For this reason we make every attempt to keep the bar high when hiring new engineers at VMware, even if it means running short-staffed for a while.
Since the best people to recognize good engineers are other good engineers, we actually have our engineers voluntarily pitch in to filter out the piles of incoming resumes. I took my turn this Friday, spending an hour going through the weekly stack of resumes along with 4 other engineers. It was a fascinating experience as I've never really had to do this before (with the possible exception of my stint at the job fair in Wisconsin). I was astonished at the lack of care most of the applicants appeared to have put into their resumes, apparently failing to appreciate that this document is their 1st impression on a prospective employer who is sifting through a big pile of them. Here are some of the most memorable faux pas I saw:
I guess this is yet another advantage that the Waterloo co-op system bestows upon those who wrangle with it for 4 years.
Since the best people to recognize good engineers are other good engineers, we actually have our engineers voluntarily pitch in to filter out the piles of incoming resumes. I took my turn this Friday, spending an hour going through the weekly stack of resumes along with 4 other engineers. It was a fascinating experience as I've never really had to do this before (with the possible exception of my stint at the job fair in Wisconsin). I was astonished at the lack of care most of the applicants appeared to have put into their resumes, apparently failing to appreciate that this document is their 1st impression on a prospective employer who is sifting through a big pile of them. Here are some of the most memorable faux pas I saw:
- XML described as Xtreme Markup Language;
- Mac OS X listed as MAX OS;
- Hard line-breaks in the middle of a sentence;
- Experience in something called JAVA;
- C listed as the 'C' programming language (in case we might have no idea what it was, I'm sure);
- Internet Explorer listed under software skills (because it's hard to find people who can surf the Web, presumably);
I guess this is yet another advantage that the Waterloo co-op system bestows upon those who wrangle with it for 4 years.