Assume that I am looking at 2 resumes; both use skill bars. One uses a 5-star system, and one uses a 10-pip system. Ok, so each star is worth 2 pips.
The 5-star candidate has 4 years of experience at two companies that do extensive front-end work.
They rated themselves a 3 on HTML, a 2 on CSS, and a 4 on JS.
The 10-pip candidate has done a 6-month internship, and a 3-month bootcamp, and are looking to get their first role.
They rated themselves a 7 on HTML, a 5 on CSS and a 9 on JS.
Does that mean that the intern is better than the developer with work experience (it's certainly possible, but I'm asking if I can tell that, based on the fact that the intern's 9 would be equal to the employee's 4.5... but the employee only has a 4).
I've published libraries in JS for all kinds of things; I've hosted seminars and workshops and conference talks; published articles; architected and engineered applications, mentored, and led multiple teams, simultaneously, while working with multi-billion dollar clients in several regulated spaces (medical, financial, insurance, et cetera) in multiple paradigms... does the intern's 9 mean that they are better than I am, if I only consider myself, like... a 7.5, compared to people like Brian Lonsdorf and Reginald Braithwaite and John Carmack and Michael Abrash?
Again, I'm not saying that it's impossible; Carmack was a dropout, and I never went to university in the first place, so maybe this intern really is John Carmack levels of good... but whose 9 is it? What does that 9 represent?
Is it the 90th percentile of all people on the globe who are familiar with JS?
Is it the 90th percentile of the people in the intern's class / work-placement who are familiar with JS?
Is it the 90th percentile of the intern's relative perception of their own skills... where they have exactly one 10/10 (gymnastics), and every other skill is relative to their own perceived mastery, compared to their mastery of gymnastics... (which raises a new question... if they are a 10/10 in gymnastics, as it represents their strongest skill, how does their strongest skill relate to the strongest people in that discipline? How do they match up versus Simone Biles, because their 10/10 might only be a 2, compared to her... which means that their other skills must only be worse from there).
It all goes back to looking at those two resumes a 5-star and a 10-pip. Which one do you call for an interview?
The point of the scale is to see how they rate their own fluency against their actual experience. There is no baseline or litmus to base it against. It doesn't matter what scale the other guy is using at all.
It's a way to frame the conversation. And not a means for doing flat comparisons between candidates.
I understand that is the intent of the person who is putting it on the resume. That makes complete sense, and if people decide they want it for the aesthetic or the novelty, regardless, who am I to say no?
Instead, I am asking how a hiring manager, a talent scout, et cetera, will be able to tell all of the relevant scores apart, relative to one another, if you have 3 people with score bars, and 0 of those people provide reference points for their scoring systems, and 0 of those people provide justification for the scores they have chosen, and you don't have enough time in the day to review all GitHub profiles to choose who to move forward with, and rather, review GitHub in a secondary screening process.
A few, simple words would remove ambiguity in the eyes of the scout, and help that process along.
That's why I wrote this blog post. Of course I see why someone put this on their resume. I did it too. It looks nice and of course I would never say: Never do this! There are use cases and employers who prefer graphics and visual representations of the skills on resumes. I'm just very interested in points why you should and why you shouldn't. In my opinion it would be the best solution just to provide a GitHub link to show what you are able to do and work with, of course 😂
That's not always possible I know.
I'm not an employer and it would be very interesting what the opinions of real team managers are.
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Assume that I am looking at 2 resumes; both use skill bars. One uses a 5-star system, and one uses a 10-pip system. Ok, so each star is worth 2 pips.
The 5-star candidate has 4 years of experience at two companies that do extensive front-end work.
They rated themselves a 3 on HTML, a 2 on CSS, and a 4 on JS.
The 10-pip candidate has done a 6-month internship, and a 3-month bootcamp, and are looking to get their first role.
They rated themselves a 7 on HTML, a 5 on CSS and a 9 on JS.
Is it the 90th percentile of all people on the globe who are familiar with JS?
Is it the 90th percentile of the people in the intern's class / work-placement who are familiar with JS?
Is it the 90th percentile of the intern's relative perception of their own skills... where they have exactly one 10/10 (gymnastics), and every other skill is relative to their own perceived mastery, compared to their mastery of gymnastics... (which raises a new question... if they are a 10/10 in gymnastics, as it represents their strongest skill, how does their strongest skill relate to the strongest people in that discipline? How do they match up versus Simone Biles, because their 10/10 might only be a 2, compared to her... which means that their other skills must only be worse from there).
It all goes back to looking at those two resumes a 5-star and a 10-pip. Which one do you call for an interview?
The point of the scale is to see how they rate their own fluency against their actual experience. There is no baseline or litmus to base it against. It doesn't matter what scale the other guy is using at all.
It's a way to frame the conversation. And not a means for doing flat comparisons between candidates.
I understand that is the intent of the person who is putting it on the resume. That makes complete sense, and if people decide they want it for the aesthetic or the novelty, regardless, who am I to say no?
Instead, I am asking how a hiring manager, a talent scout, et cetera, will be able to tell all of the relevant scores apart, relative to one another, if you have 3 people with score bars, and 0 of those people provide reference points for their scoring systems, and 0 of those people provide justification for the scores they have chosen, and you don't have enough time in the day to review all GitHub profiles to choose who to move forward with, and rather, review GitHub in a secondary screening process.
A few, simple words would remove ambiguity in the eyes of the scout, and help that process along.
That's why I wrote this blog post. Of course I see why someone put this on their resume. I did it too. It looks nice and of course I would never say: Never do this! There are use cases and employers who prefer graphics and visual representations of the skills on resumes. I'm just very interested in points why you should and why you shouldn't. In my opinion it would be the best solution just to provide a GitHub link to show what you are able to do and work with, of course 😂
That's not always possible I know.
I'm not an employer and it would be very interesting what the opinions of real team managers are.