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Show HN: What Do You Think Of My Resume?

141 points| KleinmanB | 15 years ago |on.fb.me | reply

79 comments

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[+] danilocampos|15 years ago|reply
I was initially curious, thanks to the novelty, but that quickly wore off. There's a cost involved in parsing the chalkboard text that doesn't exist when you're reading computer-generated text. A lot of clicks, too.

At the same time, it's less dull than a standard Word resume template, or something, so maybe you're on the right track.

My suggestion: Tell a more compelling story. You're rattling off a bunch of historical points, which, fine, that's how resumes work, but as long as you're breaking the mold, break the hell out of it. Start with a hook. Start by saying something so wildly compelling I cannot stop clicking until my curiosity is satisfied. Prove your worth by grabbing attention.

[+] ibdknox|15 years ago|reply
Telling a more compelling story is definitely a big part of it and another thing to consider is doing something simlar, but not on Facebook. If you can control the surroundings and the interaction mechanism, you can create a much better experience (hopefully with fewer clicks/hopping around).

Being unique and visual is a good way to get "noticed", but you have to weigh that very carefully against being overly taxing on the reader. In this case, the amount of increased interest is not worth the effort it takes to get through it.

Lose Facebook, tell a story, and make me care.

[+] olsaintpaul|15 years ago|reply
I think this is pretty solid on advice. At first I thought "wait, where does he want me to put my mouse and what am I supposed to be reading?" Still, better than a word doc by a wide margin.

I appreciate that you are trying to be statistics driven and creative at the same time. Keep it up

[+] T-hawk|15 years ago|reply
What the naysayers are missing is that it probably IS a good way to get hired. Yes, he's going to get dismissed by a sizable chunk of resume readers for all the reasons listed: no Facebook account, doesn't fit into HR's straitjacketed process, harder to mentally parse the handwritten low-contrast text, the focus on presentation buries the content, or just plain crackpot. But he needs to connect and stand out sufficiently to just one hiring manager to be a success.

He may have lowered his mean perception among readers of the resume, but he blew the variance through the roof. And that's what you need to be picked as the one best candidate for a job hire. Your mean perception has no relevance when you need to be 3 standard deviations above the population mean to get your desired result of being the top 1 out of 300 candidates.

[+] dododo|15 years ago|reply
i cannot read it. apparently you need a facebook account to see it.
[+] jmulho|15 years ago|reply
I think I am not going to open a Facebook account just to read it. Number one rule of resumes: don't get yours thrown in the trash unread. In the immortal words of Donald Trump "You're not hired!" Or if you prefer Paul Graham, I clicked your link, and waited for your resume to load with finger poised over the back button. If I had immediately seen some magical chalk board I might have spent a minute learning about you. But instead I got a login screen.
[+] alttab|15 years ago|reply
I have to log in to some arbitrary thing to know who you are. Why?
[+] robryan|15 years ago|reply
This is targeting someone trying to employ him for a digital marketing position, if they didn't have some sort of Facebook account I don't think that's where he would want to work.
[+] 16s|15 years ago|reply
Seconded. Several billion of us don't use FaceBook.
[+] whiletruefork|15 years ago|reply
Perhaps the type of people that would employee a man of this skillset are more likely to have a facebook account than the general population. It's also not that far off to imagine that those folks would be logged in already via cookies. For that target population the user experience probably works.
[+] pmcginn|15 years ago|reply
Is "I don't have facebook" the new "I don't own a TV?"

Congratulations on avoiding a popular website you crazy unabomber.

[+] Alex3917|15 years ago|reply
Ignore the haters, this is great. Obviously it won't resonate with everyone, but you're still going to do way better with this than with a traditional resume.
[+] JohnnyBrown|15 years ago|reply
In fact, he already has. His resume is on the front page of Hacker News
[+] patio11|15 years ago|reply
I am much more impressed by the contents than the presentational aspect. It buries the lede that you're a social marketer who empirically, repeatably gets measurable results.
[+] jarin|15 years ago|reply
I love how so many people feel the need to point out that they are too cool for Facebook.

I rank that up there with people who love to point out at every possible opportunity that they don't own a TV. Congratulations, here's a cookie.

To Mr. Kleinman: awesome idea :)

[+] jarek|15 years ago|reply
Because the only reason not to have a Facebook account is because you're too cool for it.
[+] stonemetal|15 years ago|reply
I think the idea is to give him feed back on how many people can't read his resume, not some desire to point out how they are not on facebook.
[+] sammcd|15 years ago|reply
I'm a a bit curious about "Apple's TextPlus" I don't think Apple has an app called TextPlus.
[+] tommusic|15 years ago|reply
As far as I can tell, TextPlus is an app made by someone else that is distributed via Apple's iOS App Store.

Claiming it is an Apple product in such a case is probably a bad idea.

[+] michaelschade|15 years ago|reply
I agree, I found that a bit misleading. I would reshoot that slide with different wording (unless Apple does indeed have some product called TextPlus, then go with it!)
[+] requinot59|15 years ago|reply
Thanks for sharing a link only Facebook users can access. In the pure hacker spirit: open, transparent access for anyone.
[+] starpilot|15 years ago|reply
This is a powerpoint presentation written in chalk. No thanks.
[+] bvi|15 years ago|reply
Yes, but do your presentations have a guy smiling and winking in them?

I thought so.

[+] ajaimk|15 years ago|reply
What strikes me about this is the positions he is looking at would be great with a creative thinker on board. And this shows his creativity.

It might not be as efficient as some of the other ads for being hired but it does the deal in being interesting and catching your attention. In the end, does anything else matter?

[+] mrphoebs|15 years ago|reply
You should really run funnel analysis to see how many people loose interest at each successive screen.
[+] chrisclark1729|15 years ago|reply
I like what danilocomaps said. I would also add, put your e-mail address and phone number at the bottom of every chalkboard. No sense alienating someone who likes it but is too busy to get to the end.
[+] KleinmanB|15 years ago|reply
Thanks for the tip. I will throw it in the comments.
[+] gchucky|15 years ago|reply
My only concern is that some of your friends have commented on the pictures, and it kinda detracts from it. (example: second picture, comment at 9:30 am) What if someone were to say something negative?
[+] robryan|15 years ago|reply
Isn't that good though? He's not projecting some type of censored/ideal version of himself like what you would normally get from a resume.
[+] SeoxyS|15 years ago|reply
He can delete unhelpful comments…
[+] reason|15 years ago|reply
I don't find the facebook login page a terribly compelling resume.
[+] hansef|15 years ago|reply
The naysayers below aren't part of your target audience. As someone who is, I think it's brilliant.
[+] stevenbrianhall|15 years ago|reply
This method displays personality too often lacking in standard text-based CVs, so I like the idea of breaking the mold, but also agree with comments about not taking the idea far enough.

Facebook just recently changed the way Facebook pages operate, and you can now embed a media within an iframe. http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/462

I say keep FB (because, as you say, people will be checking for it) but throw in an intro video and some links to a CV and past work, and you'll be able to make the experience that much richer.

[+] Halos04|15 years ago|reply
This is a brilliant idea. I wish I thought of it first. Its creative and gets the point across perfectly. Resumes need to be more creative and this is an amazing start!
[+] jarek|15 years ago|reply
> I wish I thought of it first.

> created: 2 hours ago

[+] Leopeptards|15 years ago|reply
It utilizes social media and is interactive, while still providing core information to the reader. It definitely catches my attention.
[+] gjm11|15 years ago|reply
Account created 10 hours ago, no other comments or submissions.

So far, that makes two completely new accounts (Leopeptards, Halos04) commenting here to say how good this resume is, plus one instance of someone "else" answering for KleinmanB (shakeshake, see elsewhere in the discussion) ... and the somebody-else in question, with whom KleinmanB "occasionally shares" a laptop, just happens to have submitted a link to the same resume with the title "The Most Creative Resume I Have Seen In A Long Time".

If anyone with HN superpowers is reading this, they might want to take appropriate action. Unfortunately, all that's in my power is to flag it and express my hope that anyone reading KleinmanB's resume stumbles across this discussion and considers carefully whether they should trust someone who engages in such sockpuppetry.

[+] marcamillion|15 years ago|reply
This is wonderful, but I would have used less words on the chalkboard as danilocampos points out.

Nice and creative though.