The system is broken, but apparently those with the power to repair it are in denial.
Bullets, bullets, bullets everywhere
Not too long ago, a recruiter published an article on LinkedIn asking candidates not to submit resumes containing “eighty-plus technologies crammed into the skills section.” I’m not going to repeat everything he said, and whether I agree with him or not is irrelevant. I’ll just say that, in his opinion, it’s better to have 10 skills you can defend than to list 80 skills you can spell.
Early in my career as a software engineer, I learned Fortran in school. It was my very first programming language. I had no idea how computers worked, even less how to program them. Later on, I learned 8080 assembly language programming in school because it was a completely different paradigm. In both cases, I needed a very solid foundation so I could understand how computers work and how I could make better use of them. From then on, everything I learned in computer science, from firmware to operating systems and from device drivers to applications, compilers with linkers and loaders, dozens upon dozens of languages, APIs, object models, and frameworks, and so many technologies and architectures available, all of which I can explain in detail, I learned by myself. I had mentors and coaches, books, cheatsheets, online references, and tutorials, but especially got burned while learning. Learning is not memorizing the syntax or a diagram, but building something practical to solidify the concepts acquired.
Project management is my current career. I couldn’t learn it in books, courses, or home lab. Project management is an art and a science; the science is the science, but the art…
When you apply for a given position at a regular company, you’ll encounter your worst enemy: the ATS. Applicant tracking systems are an important component of the candidate selection and hiring process, but some of them have a stupid module that scans the resume (or application form), matches keywords with the job requirements, and rates the candidate based on the percentage of matches. Depending on the threshold defined by whoever is in power, a number of candidates are automatically excluded. That’s how an application you submitted on a Saturday morning is rejected on the same day before lunch.
Why does that stupid module even exist? Because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people applying for the very same position. Furthermore, there are companies that want to hire a new individual with a given profile. They can’t find a suitable candidate internally, so they call their contract houses to bring in candidates, which in turn will call their own subcontractors. If the company can’t find the right fit, they’ll call their class B tiers. And then class C. That’s how I have a multitude of recruiters (sometimes from the same company) offering me the very same position (but the lower the level, the lower the pay).
Not too long ago, I was hiring 3 scrum masters. We received hundreds of applications. I summarily ignored the rating given by that pesky module. Instead, I wanted to give all candidates the dignity of having their resumes evaluated by a real human being. It took me considerable time to read every single one. At the end, it paid off! Not only I was able to hire 3 extremely talented professionals, but I also got to meet a lot of very exciting people.
How can you circumvent this unfair practice? Easy: throw in bullets and more bullets. If a given company is looking for a new change management manager, but you have change and release management listed on your skill section, then you’ll need to break it down in two, otherwise the ATS will send you packing.