I love this article... partially because it echoes what I've found from my surveys and career coaching.
The thing is that people form their first impression of you from your resume/cv. They form that impression in 60-90 seconds. After that they'll look at whatever else you've sent.
So while github and portfolio do have an impact on how people view you, the problem is does it change their mind TO YOUR BENEFIT. That is where those materials are like threading a needle a bit and huge time commitments.
Whats worse is you don't have any idea what they're judging you on when they look.
So the order of importance I teach where I can get 100% interview rates is this:
Resume/CV
Cover Letters
LinkedIn/Portfolio/GitHub
You can get to 100% after number 2, but people won't stop obsessing about 3, so I address it with them. Even after they start getting interviews every time they insist they have to have those extra things.
Hopefully this doesn't turn into some sort of thing about cover letters being a thing of the past.
Thanks a lot for the feedback and sharing your insights. Really fascinating.
I'm curious now. Is this advice also valid for developers without professional experience? And if you don't provide any proof of your technical skills how can you convince a hiring manager of giving you a shot?
So there are two things that it comes down to for me.
First, the interview is where your skills are measured. The resume and all those things provide a strong indication that you'd be a good fit. No amount of portfolio or github replaces that, so thats why they're still secondary materials.
Second, for folks starting off with no previous dev experience, unless they've never worked anywhere they actually DO have experience, just not paid development experience. So their resumes and everything emphasize how they still can deliver results regardless of their environment, and their technical skills is yet another way they can do that.
Its that last sentence that makes the difference. If we reduce ourselves to a collection of technical skills we actually don't have value for companies and teams. The magic is connecting our effort to results.
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I love this article... partially because it echoes what I've found from my surveys and career coaching.
The thing is that people form their first impression of you from your resume/cv. They form that impression in 60-90 seconds. After that they'll look at whatever else you've sent.
So while github and portfolio do have an impact on how people view you, the problem is does it change their mind TO YOUR BENEFIT. That is where those materials are like threading a needle a bit and huge time commitments.
Whats worse is you don't have any idea what they're judging you on when they look.
So the order of importance I teach where I can get 100% interview rates is this:
You can get to 100% after number 2, but people won't stop obsessing about 3, so I address it with them. Even after they start getting interviews every time they insist they have to have those extra things.
Hopefully this doesn't turn into some sort of thing about cover letters being a thing of the past.
Thanks a lot for the feedback and sharing your insights. Really fascinating.
I'm curious now. Is this advice also valid for developers without professional experience? And if you don't provide any proof of your technical skills how can you convince a hiring manager of giving you a shot?
So there are two things that it comes down to for me.
First, the interview is where your skills are measured. The resume and all those things provide a strong indication that you'd be a good fit. No amount of portfolio or github replaces that, so thats why they're still secondary materials.
Second, for folks starting off with no previous dev experience, unless they've never worked anywhere they actually DO have experience, just not paid development experience. So their resumes and everything emphasize how they still can deliver results regardless of their environment, and their technical skills is yet another way they can do that.
Its that last sentence that makes the difference. If we reduce ourselves to a collection of technical skills we actually don't have value for companies and teams. The magic is connecting our effort to results.