Fediverse friends, can you help me out?

[johnlogic@sfba.social]

Fediverse friends, can you help me out?

I've been an independent contractor for a long time. Now that my salesperson is retiring, I'm looking for work, and open to contract work or regular employment (i.e. "get a real job") in or near Sunnyvale, CA.

I have degrees in computer science and management, usually develop systems of electronic circuits and software, and have been the principal engineer for a startup that grew to about 170, and a project's principal hardware engineer within a company of about 130,000.

Lately I've been getting highly motivated to find work, and open to nearly anything that offers at least a living wage.

I think that I might be doing something wrong with my resume.

If you are so inclined, would you please have a look at my resume (here in HTML, with contact info redacted) and perhaps offer a critique? Please feel free to message privately.

Thanks

https://www.syncopate.us/resumes/carlsen

#FediHire

[lawyersgunsnmoney@mstdn.social]

@johnlogic Hey John, boosting here. 👍

[chessert@mastodon.online]

@johnlogic

My 2¢, with the caveat that I've been fully retired for 4 years, and am nowhere near as accomplished as you clearly are.

I think you need to...

1. Decide what position you want: managing/mentoring others; managing major projects; coding independently? When I read your resume, you're clearly overqualified for nearly every position except very senior management.

2. Cut your timeline down to the past 10 years, with "other references and qualifications available on request".

1/3

[codedude@floss.social]

@johnlogic I think you resume is preatty good.
I can share my resume, probably you can get ideas
https://codedude.xyz/resume.html

[chessert@mastodon.online]

@johnlogic

3. Define what you're looking for. The HR person reviewing your resume isn't going to guess correctly (see also 1.).

4. Consider defining multiple resumes targeted for multiple job possibilities. Make it easier for the HR person (AI software) to find matches between their search and your resume.

Just some suggestions from an old fart. I wish you very well in your search!

2/3

[chessert@mastodon.online]

@johnlogic

From my time in the corporate world, I observed that if you had a "career" in management, you were expected to move on from job to job every 2-3 years (change companies), gaining position/status and responsibility with each step. Gradually managing more people and more resources as you advanced.

You need to be able to document those stages: who you supervised (# of subordinates), what resources ($$) were involved, and what corporate goals were achieved.

3/3

[chessert@mastodon.online]

@johnlogic

Short version: sharpen your target focus.

[beachbum@mastodon.sdf.org]

@johnlogic look at my timeline, I posted two in the last couple days.

[oaktag@infosec.exchange]

@johnlogic
First notes: Chris is right

You're probably also running into some ageism

When you cut everything from the 90s and 00s, you gain some space to increase line height a bit

Might also need some more examples of value provided

I'll see if I can come back to this

Also the market is hard right now :(

[toddz@social.linux.pizza]

@johnlogic Well your qualifications and experience are impressive as hell.

There's tons of contradictory advice out there, but points Chris made seem pretty universal: it might be too much and too broad.

Most advice is to include the last 5-10yrs of experience, and bullet points relevant to a specific role. Front-line HR resume reviewers are just looking for an easy match for whatever opening they have.

The (freemium) service tealhq.com has a nice resume builder feature that lets you work from a complete master resume and select which roles and specific bullet points to include on each custom resume. It's meant to work in tandem with their job application tracker and some premium AI stuff, but it can be used to just generate ad-hoc resumes.
Might be worth a look.

Also, Bryan at "A Life After Layoff" puts out a lot of legit, current material like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sMb-oywEHs

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@johnlogic

Without looking at your resume, have you been drawing on your social network? If you haven’t noticed ageism is a thing in tech, but social contacts are your most valuable resource.

[johnlogic@sfba.social]

@GhostOnTheHalfShell

By posting on here, tapping into my social network is exactly what I'm trying to do.

I've heard that weak ties can be the most powerful, especially when job seeking.

I also have a pretty extensive professional network, as I volunteer for the world's largest technical professional organization, IEEE.

[radiofreelunch@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@johnlogic I’d remove the AA and the “just classes” from education. If you’re concerned about gaps, you already call it “career impact” so it doesn’t have to be complete.