I've been thinking about this topic since
reading this recently. The writer uses a rather extreme example of lying (claiming a degree where none exists), but it also points up lesser problems.
I did a major overhaul of my CV a couple months ago. A lot of it was innocuous. Do I
really need 3 paragraphs about a job ending in 1993, or 3 sentences about something in the mid-80's? I refocussed the document to more directly support my abilities and aspirations as they are now, not when I wrote the first version of this thing a decade ago. All well and good.
But I did two other things. I took out a fair amount of puffery and piffle. Partially because my goals have changed. But also because maybe I'm more comfortable in my skin than I was and no longer need to do this. And was increasingly uncomfortable with it. So I whacked it and I like the result. Less is more. And I refocused on my current goals, expanding the portions which show skills supporting my goals and shrunk the sections which did not.
I've seen a rather paradoxical result to this. A couple of times in recent days I've been accused of
understatement. One fellow in particular seemed to think it was a bit unethical not to put down the whole story.
Some of this is entirely deliberate on my part. I had a very intense project using Perl about 3 years ago which is barely mentioned. Perl is a great tool for shell-hacking but I DO NOT WISH to write another system using Perl. Special circumstances forced my hand that time. So the Perl episode is barely mentioned.
Another thing which is underemphasized is
testing experience. Not quite a lie because I've never held a testing title. Not quite the complete truth because I have worn the testing manager hat among other duties and know enough about testing to be able to perform in a testing role. I don't normally aspire to those kinds of roles. As far as I'm concerned radical and exhaustive testing is a mark of the better developers. I'm gratified to see industry thinking migrating to that POV with things like
JUnit and it's children and TDD. But I use indirection because I don't want recruiters ringing me with every junior testing role available based on a keyword search.
A third category of underclaim is home work. I do a fair amount of exploration on my own time when I'm working and more when I am not. I also read a lot. I used to put a lot of this on my CV but have largely cut that out. If I can't present it as commercial experience I either omit or de-emphasize it.
Given the reactions I wonder whether I didn't overdo the cuts.
What should one put on the CV and what to omit? Opinions anyone?
[ December 09, 2004: Message edited by: Don Stadler ]