Very nice job. I like the feeling you are going for and the illustrations. I've marked-up this image ( http://i.imgur.com/HWiw7.jpg ) with some suggestions and things I would cleanup. Notes transcribed below. Hope these help!
1) Center the headshot vertically with the bubble.
2) Don't use an image to round corners, use CSS3 property border-radius instead.
3) This font is unique to this callout, use the Amethysta font face used on the rest of the page.
4) This isn't centered on my screen. Use font-align to center this text, not a static margin.
5) Using a large typeface for the first line/paragraph of text works well to call attention to detail. Make the following paragraphs the same font size.
6) The background colors of the images and the box they sit in are all slightly different.
7) I wasn't sure if this title was supposed to be sitting on the right margin. Centering it would work better I think.
8) These are links, but do no look like links. Use color to show they are clickable.
Thank you, great suggestions. Point by point:
1) Why is this better?
2) Started out using CSS3, but found this easier to accommodate older browsers. Maybe I should do both?
3) Tried to make it look like the Google Map bubble, that's why it's different.
4) OK, will test.
5) Second paragraph is somewhat of a subtext to come to the conclusion in the third paragraph, but you're right in that it screws up rhythm.
6) Yep, that's a non-designer trying design for ya.
7) It has the same left-margin as the other headers and most paragraphs, but the leading dots give a somewhat false illusion, I think.
8) Thanks, good suggestion, will do.
Putting your Myers-Briggs personality type in your CV suggests to me that you probably believe in horoscopes, too. At the very least, you think it's relevant somehow and reflects positively on you (or why would you include it?). It's twee, self-indulgent, and pseudo-science - I want more from my developers.
Wow, it's great to be so confident. You must be correct then. /sarcasm
If you dig a little deeper into the foundation of analytical psychology, you might be surprised. Carl Jung popularized the terms Extravert and Introvert, and there have been at least 2 studies (that I know of) in neuroscience showing that dichotomy to exist, physically in the brain.
I'm hyperrational, started 2 successful companies, majored in CS, atheist, don't believe in horoscopes, or any bullshit for that matter, but do believe not all brains process information in the same way.
Now to say the MBTI test does not have some validity issues, would be delusional. But on the other hand, only an arrogant fool, would conclude that therefore there is a fundamental problem with the theory.
For example, if I construct a test that asks 500 people (assuming highly randomized sample) if they like sugar. And 250 people say "yes". One cannot conclude 50% of people like sugar.
The best you can hope to conclude is that 50% of people, self report as "liking sugar".
So what this means is that the test makes some flawed assumptions: eg
1. people are honest (consciously and/or subconsciously)
2. people know themselves enough, to give accurate responses
There may be more, but those appear to be the major flaws accounting for validity and reliability issues (engineering synonyms are, accuracy and precision). It is also plausible, that these challenges are not insurmountable.
For some reason, there's a popular myth that Myers-Briggs has any scientific basis. It doesn't. Please don't use it and thereby perpetuate this insult to the genuine social science research that is done.
Putting your Myers-Briggs personality type in your CV suggests to me that you probably believe in horoscopes, too.
That was harshly said, but the OP appeared to be looking for constructive criticism, so that comment is warranted. The unvalidated Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® is no more useful to employers than horoscopes, and likely to expose employers who use it to legal liability. Here are some standard references on the subject:
"Overall, the review committee concluded that the MBTI has not demonstrated adequate validity although its popularity and use has been steadily increasing. The National Academy of Sciences review committee concluded that: ‘at this time, there is not sufficient, well-designed research to justify the use of the MBTI in career counseling programs’, the very thing that it is most often used for."
MB is not magic. It does not produce new information out of thin air like horoscopes. You give it your psychological traits in pretty much clear text, and all it does is reduce these to a few categories. Strictly scientific? Probably not. But neither are a lot of useful things in psychology. Anecdotally accurate? Check. Has a reasonable model? Check. Works for me.
I know, there's probably a crazy cult about MB somewhere, but such things are around pretty much anything remotely interesting.
One thing I am realizing is that they put ISTJs/ESTJs in the interviewer seat. Your liked minded INTPs are all developing, not interviewing.
They don't find certain fluffy things as impressive. They like concrete, palpable information.
That's why you have to take it off to increase your chances...you'll be with your other INTPs after your hired...just have to make it through those SJs...
As a designer (which I know you are not) this resume is a bit of a visual mess. Font sizes are all over the place, color blocking is sloppy and unclear and the visuals overlap the text in several places. It also doesn't adapt to mobile devices well.
Pick 2 or three font sizes and cascade them.
Pick one serif and one san serif font.
Pick a base text color one accent color for your section headers.
Clearly separate your text from your visuals.
Use some bold within body text.
Break longer text up.
Shorten the entire resume to focus on only your best work, provide an appendix at the end for your full list.
I built a clear and simple adaptive resume I made a few years back here:
Hi Chris, thanks for the comments. I agree it's a bit of a visual mess compared to yours, kudos there. Although yours renders as a blank page in my Firefox (v12.0).
Your resume neglects to mention which City/Country you live in. You list a phone number and email so I assume you want people who don't know you to contact you, but where are you?
You're a mental mess if you're going to pick on those things in an awesome resume that's solely using the idea of visual expression to better articulate itself. Find another thread to pick on pal...
This is a bit wordy. If you are looking for a freelance gig
or business op then you really should be building a business
front. As a freelancer, you aren't sending out resumes, you
are a business selling a service. Your business is very
similar to hundreds of others, but yet none of the top
providers in your space would even consider using a site like
this as a sales tool. So, you need to figure out what you are
really trying to accomplish here, are you trying to get a job
or are you trying to start a business?
Don't mention on Hacker News that you are running out of
money. Any potential partner or consumer of your services
could be put off by that info. If you are running out of
money, then what happens when your business goes completely
broke while you are working on my project? Does my project
take a back seat? Do you disappear while my project goes
off the Rails? If you fail to deliver a single piece of value
then will you be able to refund any of my money?
Ultimately, this will probably do the trick as a lot of people
out there aren't really picky. However, perception is
important. If you look like a world class provider, then
clients won't blink when you hand then a world class quote. ;)
ETA: I see you do have a link to your company, which is a web development service provider. Why not point people there rather than the location you posted here?
Hi, I've spent my career looking at thousands of resumes so I hope you'll take my opinion seriously on this.
I appreciate the idea of trying to break out of the fold. People will use new fonts, new structure, diagrams, etc. I understand why people do it, and why they think it's a good idea. That said, it's not a good idea. As the guy looking at resumes, I just want to know what you're doing, what you've done and what education you have in as little time as possible.
A few specific points:
- Your latest project is waaay down at the bottom. It should be at the top. What you've done most recently is the most relevant, right? Put it right in my face.
- The first two sections are vaguely written in the third person which IMO doesn't help me figure out anything about you.
- I can't figure out if you have any formal higher education. If not, that's cool, but because the resume is in a strange format, I can't tell either way.
People don't read resumes like they read a book, they scan them, then might drill into some details. Changing the standard structure is like when Facebook changed to the Timeline.
To be honest, I've grown so tired of resumes in general that I just go to people's LinkedIn. It has standard formatting that is easy to scan and figure out what they've done and what they're currently doing.
You bring up education a few times. Given the length of his work history, is it even important at this point? Why are you so interested in it?
I ask because a lot of people claim that education only really matters for your first job. After that you let your experience speak for itself. So I'm interested in hearing you perspective.
Developer here. I feel there's too much info there. I read 2 or 3 titles, skimmed over the wall of text, looked at the pretty pictures for a full 2 seconds and then got bored. I suggest either extracting 5 sentences that would represent you best and focus on communicating those. If you still insist that all the info there is relevant, at least hide it under expandable sections. My 2c. Good luck!
Wow we have lots in common, except your resume reads like a grown up version of mine!
"I'm a small business owner, programmer, biker and overall nice and knowledgeable guy. I love creating beautiful code and simple interfaces."
I may be still a university student, and my "freelancing business" is worth only $10k a year, but I'm also a biker (started this year), a nice and knowledgeable guy, and the passion of mine in software is beautiful code and simple interfaces. You're an independent contractor, and... I guess, me too.
I too am involved in development of the entire website - backend, frontend, database, the whole thing, but the number of technologies I know is around a third of yours. Maybe I can describe myself as "I am an aspiring FULL STACK developer"?
I'm going to assume those programming traits are shared by all programmers because I have those too.
At least your list of projects is completely different to mine (and much bigger)... And of your list of 6 techniques & best-practices I only actively employ three.
Definitely a grown-up version of my resume alright.
Thanks. Don't worry about the number of technolgies, just make sure you do one stack (one server-side language, HTML, JavaScript and CSS) well, and call yourself a full stack developer.
One little tidbit, you might want to fix up that image of your "full" stack. It looks like you grabbed a bunch of images off Google Images and threw it together in MS Paint (it doesn't help that GIF is messing up the colour palette).
As some one who has stared at a couple of resumes and been annoyed when a resume looks weird it may help a little bit.
Thanks. That's exactly what I did (in Photoshop, not paint) when I created the first concept. I thought I could pass it of as 'design' so I didn't clean it up, but maybe I should.
A note for readers who might think this type of resume could help land a job in a traditional company (AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, and any other software company, large and small, who employs recruiters).
Know your customer. Your customer is the recruiter.
A typical recruiter spends less than a minute looking at a resume. Much less than a minute in some cases. This presentation makes it impossible for the reader to skim and get the salient point of why you might match the requirements of a particular position.
The only reason a recruiter would actually read this type of resume is if you were a referral. Otherwise, the recruiter will skip to the next resume on their stack.
I'm a recruiter. I also used to be a programmer, so perhaps I'm not entirely typical, but I actually really enjoyed this format, in general (though I agree with another commenter about how it's a bit harder to scan for salient information than ye olde LinkedIn profile).
Anyway, the reason I enjoyed this format is that I look at huge stacks of resumes on a regular basis, and most of them are completely soulless piles of keywords/buzzwords. Anything that breaks up the monotony and screams, "I am passionate about something" is going to stand out.
This resume doesn't look to be angling for traditional companies so probably not an issue for the author. However you have a point. I'd say though that catering to recruiters, an industry that seems to add nearly negligible value to the recruitment process, would not be all that well advised even in general.
I'm aiming for the second step with this: after I've sent a recruiter my MS-Word curriculum vitae in Dutch, per specifications, and they're including it in their selection to the prospective client, I'ld like the potential client to consider me for an interview based on the online version.
I've done my share of recruiting and here is some brutally honest but hopefully helpful feedback:
1) The caricature of yourself is the first thing I noticed and it put me off. It's a bad drawing and triggered a negative responsive - I now have to make a mental effort to screen it out and avoid referring to you as "the dev with the sh*tty drawing". I'd just stick to your photo, which looks much better and gives me the impression that you're a pleasant chap to work with.
2) Your CV is a visual mess - serif font with varying sizes and styles... I felt lost.
3) Too much waffle, i.e. too many words. Focus on your recent achievements, major obstacles you've encountered and how you overcame those etc. something to peek my interest.
4) Horrible color-scheme (might be the texture and the poor gradient further down), reminds me of old battle-ship gray Windows 95 apps. If you want to use gray, see how Apple's website is using it.
5) I'd avoid words like "cool" or "mad skillz".
In short, keep it simple and stick to what recruiters are used to seeing. Some examples of nicely formatted and easy to scan resumes are:
Very helpful feedback, thank you. Did you know you can create your own (less sh*tty) caricature at my homepage (peterdevos.com)? The first resume you link to is based on a standard resume template featuring C'thulhu (http://css-tricks.com/one-page-resume-site/), I wanted a more personal approach but I guess I pushed it too far for your taste.
Thank you for the kudos. I experimented with the order a bit, but myself and a friend that looked at it found the flow of information a bit weird when starting with the specifics.
I'm bootstrapping a SaaS business but running out of cash and resources, so I'm open to business propositions or freelance gigs for the next six months or so. This is how I try to promote myself. What do you think?
Maybe it's a cunning plan to avoid being contacted by certain people, but I've known plenty of people who would be put off by seeing "laziness" listed as one of your traits.
I really like it. Sure there is scope for improvement (the graphics and typography) but there is enough here to make interested people pick up the phone or send you email. I'd put a carefully worded synopsis at the head to enable everyone to get the gist and to motivate interested people to read on.
I'll bet this inspires lots of people to make their own version.
Curiosity is misspelt and para 2 of "full stack" is in the wrong font (Firefox/OS X).
FWIW, your layout is completely broken for me in Firefox on Windows XP, and the web font looks terrible on this platform (sorry).
I agree with much of the other constructive criticism you've received. In case it's helpful, your 20 seconds of attention on a first look over a CV would go something like this if I were the reviewer:
1. Made an effort to produce a distinctive on-line CV. Good.
2. Layout at top of page is broken and chose an unusual and poorly rendered web font. Bad.
3. What does he actually do? Generic terms like "building web systems" and "creating beautiful code" don't tell me very much. Neutral (but wasting time).
4. Ah, OK, he's a full stack guy, with a variety of modern tools listed. Better.
5. But despite talking about HTML5, CSS3, and other modern front-end technologies, the layout is completely broken again around that diagram, and neither the typography nor graphics are well done generally. Bad.
6. Despite claiming many years of experience, the practical skills and attention to detail aren't up to professional standards.
7. No hire.
I am left with the impression of a Jack of all trades but master of none. I did read on to the end of your CV after I recorded the above, and to be brutally honest, it reinforces that impression.
You're a contractor and keen to learn new technologies, which suggests that while buzzword-compliant you don't necessarily have much depth behind any of the technologies you mention throughout the CV, and nothing you say anywhere really counters that impression with hard data about years of experience with each tool, how many projects you've done with each tool and what kind of scale they were on, etc.
You're a UX designer, but your CV isn't optimised for scannability at all.
You adapt to change, yet the reason your layout is broken right at the top of the CV is that you're using a static background image to create a bubble that doesn't quite fit the text you wanted to show in it, instead of gracefully degrading CSS3 that would have expanded automatically to fit that text.
You believe in lots of testing and continuous integration, yet you've failed basic cross-browser compatibility on several counts, all of which would be common knowledge to a good web designer/developer.
OK, enough with the negativity. I figure that usually being brutally honest on these occasions is more helpful in the long run than sugar-coating stuff that is bad, but please don't take any of this personally or think I'm just having a dig.
If I were you, I would either spend a bit of time polishing up my front-end skills to get the design into shape or acknowledge the limitation (both personally and by toning down the related content in the CV) and get help from someone who is an expert in that particular area. I would also get help from a professional careers advisor or other CV-writing expert on how to organise your content for the way real people are going to read that CV. You do have a lot of potentially interesting material in there, and I totally respect that you've made the effort to present it nicely, but the rookie mistakes in the design and lack of scannability are letting you down right now.
Thank you for your brutal honesty, I really appreciate it. Regarding some your points:
2. How's the layout broken? I'm on Firefox on Windows XP as well, and regarding fonts, this was one of the few Google fonts that actually rendered nicely on my screens in different browsers. Some are utter crap, I really thought I had found one that isn't. Maybe specifying absolute font sizes would fix things.
5. Ouch. Although I'm not sure the layout is completely broken, the graphics could use some more TLC. The 'full stack' image is supposed to convey some mosaic-like design (with the shades of grey) instead of a 'clean' version, but I'm aware a failed miserably in this regard. Will redo the image.
7. No problem.
> I am left with the impression of a Jack of all trades but master of none.
> you don't necessarily have much depth behind any of the technologies
I figured the industry experience covered some of this
> You're a UX designer, but your CV isn't optimised for scannability at all.
Well, I've played the role of UX designer, not the same thing. I focused more on story-telling than scannability here, good suggestion though.
> you're using a static background image .. instead of gracefully degrading CSS3
> you've failed basic cross-browser compatibility
> polishing up my front-end skills to get the design into shape
Good points, thanks. Please consider this version 0.1.
> how to organise your content for the way real people are going to read that CV
If by 'real people' you mean recruiters, that's not my primary target audience, I have an utterly boring, scannable MS-Word document for them if needed. Also, the page doubles as an 'about me' page for peterdevos.com and my resume, this may have been a bad decision to begin with.
> rookie mistakes in the design and lack of scannability are letting you down right now
Agree to some extent. That's what this 'Show HN' post was for, to get initial feedback. Again, thank you, much appreciated.
It's a refreshing take on the standard developer white-dress-shirt-no-tie-and-slacks resume, but I abhor the phrase "clean code". It's self-important and utterly meaningless given that code you write will be picked over by multiple people throughout the lifetime of the software. Instead, I personally value developers who understand effective abstraction.
Mentioning 'clean code' is surely a message that the OP understands that his code will 'be picked over by multiple people throughout the lifetime of the software'?
I'll take clean domain level clear and concise coding even if it under-delivers on the abstractions occasionally. Code will always be read and maintained more often than it is aggressively extended.
One thought - one of the first things I do is search for GitHub on these pages. I see that your 'programmer' link points to your GitHub account, but you might want to add the keyword there too.
It has some nice points, but I quickly hit tl;dr mode. Resumes or resume analogues should be concise unless they're actually portfolio demos, in which case they should still be concise.
[+] [-] hailpixel|14 years ago|reply
1) Center the headshot vertically with the bubble.
2) Don't use an image to round corners, use CSS3 property border-radius instead.
3) This font is unique to this callout, use the Amethysta font face used on the rest of the page.
4) This isn't centered on my screen. Use font-align to center this text, not a static margin.
5) Using a large typeface for the first line/paragraph of text works well to call attention to detail. Make the following paragraphs the same font size.
6) The background colors of the images and the box they sit in are all slightly different.
7) I wasn't sure if this title was supposed to be sitting on the right margin. Centering it would work better I think.
8) These are links, but do no look like links. Use color to show they are clickable.
edit: spelling, grammer.
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vecinu|14 years ago|reply
I didn't know you can round the corners of an image in CSS ...
[+] [-] peteretep|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wamatt|14 years ago|reply
If you dig a little deeper into the foundation of analytical psychology, you might be surprised. Carl Jung popularized the terms Extravert and Introvert, and there have been at least 2 studies (that I know of) in neuroscience showing that dichotomy to exist, physically in the brain.
I'm hyperrational, started 2 successful companies, majored in CS, atheist, don't believe in horoscopes, or any bullshit for that matter, but do believe not all brains process information in the same way.
Now to say the MBTI test does not have some validity issues, would be delusional. But on the other hand, only an arrogant fool, would conclude that therefore there is a fundamental problem with the theory.
For example, if I construct a test that asks 500 people (assuming highly randomized sample) if they like sugar. And 250 people say "yes". One cannot conclude 50% of people like sugar.
The best you can hope to conclude is that 50% of people, self report as "liking sugar".
So what this means is that the test makes some flawed assumptions: eg
There may be more, but those appear to be the major flaws accounting for validity and reliability issues (engineering synonyms are, accuracy and precision). It is also plausible, that these challenges are not insurmountable.[+] [-] casca|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokenadult|14 years ago|reply
That was harshly said, but the OP appeared to be looking for constructive criticism, so that comment is warranted. The unvalidated Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® is no more useful to employers than horoscopes, and likely to expose employers who use it to legal liability. Here are some standard references on the subject:
http://www.skepdic.com/myersb.html
http://www.psychometric-success.com/personality-tests/person...
"Overall, the review committee concluded that the MBTI has not demonstrated adequate validity although its popularity and use has been steadily increasing. The National Academy of Sciences review committee concluded that: ‘at this time, there is not sufficient, well-designed research to justify the use of the MBTI in career counseling programs’, the very thing that it is most often used for."
http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/deve...
http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Personality-Testing-Miseducate-Mi...
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raquo|14 years ago|reply
I know, there's probably a crazy cult about MB somewhere, but such things are around pretty much anything remotely interesting.
[+] [-] mattmorgan|14 years ago|reply
One thing I am realizing is that they put ISTJs/ESTJs in the interviewer seat. Your liked minded INTPs are all developing, not interviewing.
They don't find certain fluffy things as impressive. They like concrete, palpable information.
That's why you have to take it off to increase your chances...you'll be with your other INTPs after your hired...just have to make it through those SJs...
[+] [-] tsunamifury|14 years ago|reply
Pick 2 or three font sizes and cascade them.
Pick one serif and one san serif font.
Pick a base text color one accent color for your section headers.
Clearly separate your text from your visuals.
Use some bold within body text.
Break longer text up.
Shorten the entire resume to focus on only your best work, provide an appendix at the end for your full list.
I built a clear and simple adaptive resume I made a few years back here:
www.constantwanderer.com/resume
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emp_|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rrreese|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rtrocc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gexla|14 years ago|reply
Don't mention on Hacker News that you are running out of money. Any potential partner or consumer of your services could be put off by that info. If you are running out of money, then what happens when your business goes completely broke while you are working on my project? Does my project take a back seat? Do you disappear while my project goes off the Rails? If you fail to deliver a single piece of value then will you be able to refund any of my money?
Ultimately, this will probably do the trick as a lot of people out there aren't really picky. However, perception is important. If you look like a world class provider, then clients won't blink when you hand then a world class quote. ;)
ETA: I see you do have a link to your company, which is a web development service provider. Why not point people there rather than the location you posted here?
[+] [-] trimbo|14 years ago|reply
I appreciate the idea of trying to break out of the fold. People will use new fonts, new structure, diagrams, etc. I understand why people do it, and why they think it's a good idea. That said, it's not a good idea. As the guy looking at resumes, I just want to know what you're doing, what you've done and what education you have in as little time as possible.
A few specific points:
- Your latest project is waaay down at the bottom. It should be at the top. What you've done most recently is the most relevant, right? Put it right in my face.
- The first two sections are vaguely written in the third person which IMO doesn't help me figure out anything about you.
- I can't figure out if you have any formal higher education. If not, that's cool, but because the resume is in a strange format, I can't tell either way.
People don't read resumes like they read a book, they scan them, then might drill into some details. Changing the standard structure is like when Facebook changed to the Timeline.
To be honest, I've grown so tired of resumes in general that I just go to people's LinkedIn. It has standard formatting that is easy to scan and figure out what they've done and what they're currently doing.
Hope that helps.
[+] [-] doug11235|14 years ago|reply
I ask because a lot of people claim that education only really matters for your first job. After that you let your experience speak for itself. So I'm interested in hearing you perspective.
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andreigheorghe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meric|14 years ago|reply
"I'm a small business owner, programmer, biker and overall nice and knowledgeable guy. I love creating beautiful code and simple interfaces."
I may be still a university student, and my "freelancing business" is worth only $10k a year, but I'm also a biker (started this year), a nice and knowledgeable guy, and the passion of mine in software is beautiful code and simple interfaces. You're an independent contractor, and... I guess, me too.
I too am involved in development of the entire website - backend, frontend, database, the whole thing, but the number of technologies I know is around a third of yours. Maybe I can describe myself as "I am an aspiring FULL STACK developer"?
I'm going to assume those programming traits are shared by all programmers because I have those too.
At least your list of projects is completely different to mine (and much bigger)... And of your list of 6 techniques & best-practices I only actively employ three.
Definitely a grown-up version of my resume alright.
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
Drive safe.
[+] [-] callumjones|14 years ago|reply
As some one who has stared at a couple of resumes and been annoyed when a resume looks weird it may help a little bit.
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frouaix|14 years ago|reply
Know your customer. Your customer is the recruiter.
A typical recruiter spends less than a minute looking at a resume. Much less than a minute in some cases. This presentation makes it impossible for the reader to skim and get the salient point of why you might match the requirements of a particular position.
The only reason a recruiter would actually read this type of resume is if you were a referral. Otherwise, the recruiter will skip to the next resume on their stack.
[+] [-] leeny|14 years ago|reply
Anyway, the reason I enjoyed this format is that I look at huge stacks of resumes on a regular basis, and most of them are completely soulless piles of keywords/buzzwords. Anything that breaks up the monotony and screams, "I am passionate about something" is going to stand out.
[+] [-] lucisferre|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryodesign|14 years ago|reply
1) The caricature of yourself is the first thing I noticed and it put me off. It's a bad drawing and triggered a negative responsive - I now have to make a mental effort to screen it out and avoid referring to you as "the dev with the sh*tty drawing". I'd just stick to your photo, which looks much better and gives me the impression that you're a pleasant chap to work with.
2) Your CV is a visual mess - serif font with varying sizes and styles... I felt lost.
3) Too much waffle, i.e. too many words. Focus on your recent achievements, major obstacles you've encountered and how you overcame those etc. something to peek my interest.
4) Horrible color-scheme (might be the texture and the poor gradient further down), reminds me of old battle-ship gray Windows 95 apps. If you want to use gray, see how Apple's website is using it.
5) I'd avoid words like "cool" or "mad skillz".
In short, keep it simple and stick to what recruiters are used to seeing. Some examples of nicely formatted and easy to scan resumes are:
http://resume.justindickinson.com/ http://oaktreecreative.com/resume/
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angelbob|14 years ago|reply
With that said, I would put more of the specifics (my software) earlier and some of the generalities (traits of a great software engineer) later on.
If you start with a lot of generalities, it's easy to think, "oh, he has no specifics to recommend him" when in fact you do.
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corin_|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epo|14 years ago|reply
I'll bet this inspires lots of people to make their own version.
Curiosity is misspelt and para 2 of "full stack" is in the wrong font (Firefox/OS X).
[+] [-] thibaut_barrere|14 years ago|reply
I would probably put that at the top, and consider the rest are details for the interested visitor.
Hope this helps!
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Silhouette|14 years ago|reply
I agree with much of the other constructive criticism you've received. In case it's helpful, your 20 seconds of attention on a first look over a CV would go something like this if I were the reviewer:
1. Made an effort to produce a distinctive on-line CV. Good.
2. Layout at top of page is broken and chose an unusual and poorly rendered web font. Bad.
3. What does he actually do? Generic terms like "building web systems" and "creating beautiful code" don't tell me very much. Neutral (but wasting time).
4. Ah, OK, he's a full stack guy, with a variety of modern tools listed. Better.
5. But despite talking about HTML5, CSS3, and other modern front-end technologies, the layout is completely broken again around that diagram, and neither the typography nor graphics are well done generally. Bad.
6. Despite claiming many years of experience, the practical skills and attention to detail aren't up to professional standards.
7. No hire.
I am left with the impression of a Jack of all trades but master of none. I did read on to the end of your CV after I recorded the above, and to be brutally honest, it reinforces that impression.
You're a contractor and keen to learn new technologies, which suggests that while buzzword-compliant you don't necessarily have much depth behind any of the technologies you mention throughout the CV, and nothing you say anywhere really counters that impression with hard data about years of experience with each tool, how many projects you've done with each tool and what kind of scale they were on, etc.
You're a UX designer, but your CV isn't optimised for scannability at all.
You adapt to change, yet the reason your layout is broken right at the top of the CV is that you're using a static background image to create a bubble that doesn't quite fit the text you wanted to show in it, instead of gracefully degrading CSS3 that would have expanded automatically to fit that text.
You believe in lots of testing and continuous integration, yet you've failed basic cross-browser compatibility on several counts, all of which would be common knowledge to a good web designer/developer.
OK, enough with the negativity. I figure that usually being brutally honest on these occasions is more helpful in the long run than sugar-coating stuff that is bad, but please don't take any of this personally or think I'm just having a dig.
If I were you, I would either spend a bit of time polishing up my front-end skills to get the design into shape or acknowledge the limitation (both personally and by toning down the related content in the CV) and get help from someone who is an expert in that particular area. I would also get help from a professional careers advisor or other CV-writing expert on how to organise your content for the way real people are going to read that CV. You do have a lot of potentially interesting material in there, and I totally respect that you've made the effort to present it nicely, but the rookie mistakes in the design and lack of scannability are letting you down right now.
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
2. How's the layout broken? I'm on Firefox on Windows XP as well, and regarding fonts, this was one of the few Google fonts that actually rendered nicely on my screens in different browsers. Some are utter crap, I really thought I had found one that isn't. Maybe specifying absolute font sizes would fix things.
5. Ouch. Although I'm not sure the layout is completely broken, the graphics could use some more TLC. The 'full stack' image is supposed to convey some mosaic-like design (with the shades of grey) instead of a 'clean' version, but I'm aware a failed miserably in this regard. Will redo the image.
7. No problem.
> I am left with the impression of a Jack of all trades but master of none.
I prefer to think of myself as a specializing generalist, see http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/generalizingSpecialists....
> you don't necessarily have much depth behind any of the technologies
I figured the industry experience covered some of this
> You're a UX designer, but your CV isn't optimised for scannability at all.
Well, I've played the role of UX designer, not the same thing. I focused more on story-telling than scannability here, good suggestion though.
> you're using a static background image .. instead of gracefully degrading CSS3 > you've failed basic cross-browser compatibility > polishing up my front-end skills to get the design into shape
Good points, thanks. Please consider this version 0.1.
> how to organise your content for the way real people are going to read that CV
If by 'real people' you mean recruiters, that's not my primary target audience, I have an utterly boring, scannable MS-Word document for them if needed. Also, the page doubles as an 'about me' page for peterdevos.com and my resume, this may have been a bad decision to begin with.
> rookie mistakes in the design and lack of scannability are letting you down right now
Agree to some extent. That's what this 'Show HN' post was for, to get initial feedback. Again, thank you, much appreciated.
[+] [-] philwelch|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] politician|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benjaminwootton|14 years ago|reply
I'll take clean domain level clear and concise coding even if it under-delivers on the abstractions occasionally. Code will always be read and maintained more often than it is aggressively extended.
I vote to keep it in!
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidjgraph|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdkess|14 years ago|reply
One thought - one of the first things I do is search for GitHub on these pages. I see that your 'programmer' link points to your GitHub account, but you might want to add the keyword there too.
[+] [-] sitetechie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glimcat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Peteris|14 years ago|reply