Joel Spolsky on Resumes

Joel’s latest article is about what he is going through sorting through hundreds of applications for two internship positions open this summer at his company, Fog Creek Software. Joel offers some good advice on what not to do. I was hoping he would go into more detail about what does catch his eye in the résumé process. Fog Creek Software reads through résumés by hand, other companies parse and rank. One of the reasons I moved my weblog over to my domain is that I wanted to associate all of my work in one location. If someone sees an e-mail from xyz @niallkennedy.com they may check out the domain and learn a bit more about me. I think of a résumé as a document bound for HR in companies with hundreds of employees. In case there is a techie in the group, I have started putting together a more detailed description of what I have done in my tech career. Once you do not care that the résumé fits on one page, I want to provide a way to easily find out more. Sure it is not personalized, but it does challenge the employer to ask more interesting questions than the standard fare. I am looking for new work but not blanketing the world with résumés. If the back-end is well taken care of then marketing myself should become easier.