EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
EEVblog => EEVblog Specific => Topic started by: EEVblog on December 28, 2014, 06:48:38 am
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Is Dave asking too much to get a resume without spelling or grammar mistakes?
eevBLAB #3 - Engineers Can't Spell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2sOEN_TVT4#ws)
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Not that important if you want your product descriptions to be in close competition with Chinese products.
Kidding of course. Nowadays it should be easy to write proper resumes (or CVs or however you call them in your place)
One of the important aspects of Engineering is communication and documentation, specially in large projects that you have to work with third party vendors. If you can't explain what you need then it's going to take way longer wasting resources and money.
So I agree with your, spelling and grammar are a good indicator of the person you are hiring.
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I've certainly put resumes in the fail pile due to poor presentation, grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Sending documents in word format also bugs the hell out of me and loses points. PDFs are pretty universal.
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Worse than Doc is sending as PDF that is only readable with Adobe reader, not any of the other PDF engines. Plain flat text does not need fields, form submit, embedded remote images, fancy non included and specialised fonts, and other tracking and cruft in it. Or something in docx format, when a lot of people use older versions of Office ( because it was paid for, and no need to upgrade for no real reason) or Libreoffice or OOffice, which sometimes has issues with the MS "interpretation" of what is a standard openxml definition.
Spellcheck at a minimum, using a localised dictionary ( no color or aluminum) for your country. TURN OFF AUTOCORRECT! That can and will mangle any document with anything other than plain 'Good morning how is the weather' into something that makes Chinglish look good.
As well, when it is an important document, when finished save it. Then proofread it, correct the glaring errors and save a V2 draft. Then have a 2 minute break, preferably away from the computer. go to the bathroom, have a wash and then go get something to drink and drink it ( preferably water) then come back with a new look and redo the proofread. Then save V3 and send this last draft.
I did this with this post, hopefully I did not make many mistakes.
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Spelling in such an official documents are really important, and not just in the EE area. Here it is considered that if you can't concentrate and deliver good CV then you probably wouldn't be able to concentrate on the project you're working on and will make all sort of stupid mistakes.You simply can't be treat serious if you're screwing up official documents.
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I agree. A CV with spelling mistakes pretty much goes straight on the bin. It's not that I want someone with perfect spelling, I just want someone who will take care over something important. Get your mum to proof read it if you like, I don't care. Of you can't take the time to get this right you clearly don't take enough pride in your work.
(Sent from Tapatalk and typed in a tiny box, so might contain spelling mistakes.)
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The theme of EEVblab#3 is quite correct, we all know how comunication skills generally have slipped but with your list of desired attributes you have or should have figured out which are of paramount importance. I doubt spelling is high on the list.
IMO grammatical correctness should be higher up the list and/or the ability to express oneself.
As their future employer it is only far and proper that you provide the tools to do a task as required.
Appropriate spell checking software must be accessable.
Unless their spelling is glaringly poor, you should focus back on your list of desirable skills.
Basic stuff is easily addressed with you setting expectations of improvement and/or assistance to do so.
Your view of this is only half the story, when an interview is finished and they have finally met you in person, had a look around and got a feel of your expectations, they may back out.
Are you prepared for that senario?
I envy you and I don't, appointment of staff is an exciting time, but the obvious can be easliy missed.
The best CV I have seen was set out in a timeline fashion and it demonstated the applicants on-going pursuit of qualifications throughout their career.
As he was to be appointed as a principal, it was important to have this influence of self-improvement impact on all the other staff.
The others that were involved in the process at the time just couldn't see that until it was pointed out.
Good luck.
BTW how do you get the posting spell-checker to work again as it once did?
Mine not working(can you tell?)
Somebody PM me please.
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It is strange that job applicants are judged on things that have almost nothing to do with their job. Writing skills, clothes, ..., while the most important aspects of their job are ignored.
Writing is important though, but are you looking for someone who can write well or someone who can do electronics well?
Even journalists and professional writers are being proofread before their texts are published, and they make mistakes too.
Furthermore, I hate first impressions.
I have some degree of autism. I do not make good first impressions. This ruins a lot of opportunities for me.
It is a pitty that "smooth talkers" can get their way into good jobs while maybe not having enough skills, while people who do have the skills get shown the door because they can't impress with words or appearance.
Hire the person with the right skills, not the person who seems to have the right skills. A portfolio should be infinitely more important than writing skills.
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(Sent from Tapatalk and typed in a tiny box, so might contain spelling mistakes.)
Small screen with tiny letters, big fingers and that annoying autocomplete ( which I turned off on the phone) though the one Nokia will not rotate the text screen at all though it does the other screens, are a pain.
I have sent many texts with spelling mistakes. :palm:
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Hire the person with the right skills, not the person who seems to have the right skills.
If you figure out a way to absolutely know a given applicant has the right skills let me know. ;)
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It is strange that job applicants are judged on things that have almost nothing to do with their job. Writing skills, clothes, ..., while the most important aspects of their job are ignored.
Who said that?
Hire the person with the right skills, not the person who seems to have the right skills.
That's why you interview people. But the fact is you most often can't interview everyone.
You have to decide who to interview and who not to and that is decided by the resume and their cover letter.
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Unless their spelling is glaringly poor, you should focus back on your list of desirable skills.
I think you missed the entire point of this, it's about a first impression, care, and attention to detail.
Most employers don't actually care if they spelled a word incorrectly, but it does potentially tell you something about the person.
Your view of this is only half the story, when an interview is finished and they have finally met you in person, had a look around and got a feel of your expectations, they may back out.
Are you prepared for that senario?
Of course.
But once again you are missing the point.
I can't interview everyone. Like it or not I have to chose who to interview based on their resume and cover letter and other info provided.
Spelling, grammar, resume format etc forms part of that judgement whether anyone likes it or not.
And yes, grammar is much more important than spelling.
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Hire the person with the right skills, not the person who seems to have the right skills.
If you figure out a way to absolutely know a given applicant has the right skills let me know. ;)
You can make an effort. For example interview the person, let him or her try for e few weeks or months, etc. I had to do this trial period for a year by the way and before I could start this trial period, I had to do a test.
There's also headhunting.
But no, you can't absolutely know.
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A few years ago we posted for a job and got about 125 applicants. At that time I thought that the format of the resume, the spelling and the content were all very important but now I am not so sure. We live in an area with a large ethnic mix. We interviewed a few people that had absolutely perfect resumes but they could barely speak English. Obviously they paid someone to write their resumes for them. We also found that a lot of foreign educations are not equivalent to our local education system. So I don't trust resumes that much anymore. The odd spelling mistake will at least indicate that it was likely written by the person applying.
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It's not about the spelling, it's about the accuracy & attention to detail, which are essential attributes in engineering. If someone can't be bothered to get someone to proofread a short document, what else will they not be bothered about?
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It is strange that job applicants are judged on things that have almost nothing to do with their job. Writing skills, clothes, ..., while the most important aspects of their job are ignored.
Who said that?
You, several times. You dismiss someone who wrote the third word wrong, you dismiss someone who writes bachelor wrong.
Your wife is going to be doing the interviews with you, you can be sure that appearance will be a contributing factor.
And then you go on that you make the same mistakes, you go on twitter defending people who make these mistakes (reference to Rosetta scientist), yet you handle these applicants as non living things who can not possibly make any mistake at all otherwise they get dismissed.
If you dismiss someone right away for writing a word wrong, even if it is a glaring error, you might have the chance ending up with nobody or with someone who is only a fraction of someone else.
What if that person was exactly what you were looking for? You didn't give him or her any chance. You made your mind up on one word. That's stupid, especially if it only takes you a few minutes to read on. This makes you look lazy.
I do agree that making glaring spelling mistakes makes the applicant look uninterested. It means they probably didn't proofread their own resume, or let it proofread by someone else.
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If you dismiss someone right away for writing a word wrong, even if it is a glaring error, you might have the chance ending up with nobody or with someone who is only a fraction of someone else.
I think Dave covered this in the video: under the same exact circumstances (same skills etc) he would first interview a person who've got better quality CV.
For example when you're just finishing uni there are loads and loads of people with nearly identical skills and at this point it's really all about showing you from all the best sides.
Also i didn't quite get the statement about laziness. Few extra minutes per each of 100s of applications (well, not in the case if Dave but in the case of applying for a big company which is what Dave was referring to i believe) costs you few hours extra. If the company would be able to find a suitable set of resumes to be continued with without investing those hours of time they'll for sure not invest them.
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... I hate first impressions.
I have some degree of autism. I do not make good first impressions. This ruins a lot of opportunities for me.
It is a pitty that "smooth talkers" can get their way into good jobs while maybe not having enough skills, while people who do have the skills get shown the door because they can't impress with words or appearance.
Hire the person with the right skills, not the person who seems to have the right skills. A portfolio should be infinitely more important than writing skills.
Absolutely agree 100%
Many opportunities are awarded on appearance or other 'glib value' assessments nowadays.
Not entirely ignoring skills, but the 'smooth talker'/shaved chest/ray-bans guy is often graded higher than the 'see what i have done /and/ can do' scale.
In some cases, when women are asked to apply, they are also profiled quite differently than the eage men in the group. (ignoring shaved chests).
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I'm with Dave on this one. Your resume or CV should be proof-read several times before it sees the light of day. Mine's a growing document which has evolved over many years and not a single typo, yet I still check it before it's sent to anyone. Whilst someone might be brilliant in one area, basic spelling and grammar (or at the very least the ability to check and correct) is a sign of ones attention to detail (or lack thereof).
At the very least authors should be using spell check (it's not that hard to double-check any red underlined words).
Not everyone is going to be a wordsmith but at least get it right. If a report comes over my desk that reads like crap, it gets flicked back for correction immediately, especially since very high ranking members of Government organisations could be reading it. Granted mistakes do happen, but we should all be striving for quality, not sloppiness.
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You, several times. You dismiss someone who wrote the third word wrong, you dismiss someone who writes bachelor wrong.
No, I did not say that I would dismiss that person based on that, you are the one who implied that.
All I'm saying that these things don't make you look impressive compared to the other applicants.
Your wife is going to be doing the interviews with you, you can be sure that appearance will be a contributing factor.
And then you go on that you make the same mistakes, you go on twitter defending people who make these mistakes (reference to Rosetta scientist), yet you handle these applicants as non living things who can not possibly make any mistake at all otherwise they get dismissed.
Nope, wrong again.
If you dismiss someone right away for writing a word wrong
I don't.
What if that person was exactly what you were looking for? You didn't give him or her any chance.
Not everyone can get an interview. The only thing I can base people on is their resume and cover letter.
You made your mind up on one word.
No, I did not.
I do agree that making glaring spelling mistakes makes the applicant look uninterested. It means they probably didn't proofread their own resume, or let it proofread by someone else.
Bingo.
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he is right Engineers Can't Spell but it should of been proof read by someone else.
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I would contend, that especially engineers should spell correctly.
But this bad spelling seems to be a culture independent trend around the world.
Lately I have received letters from high end companies here in Germany with some huge
spelling mistakes. But it seems that these people are very well capable of spelling correctly,
they just did not bother to proof read at all, before sending it.
May be a bad trend of our time, when everything has to go faster and faster and when there is less time to think.
Unless we become aware of this trend, it might get much worse.
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Wow, that thumbs down ratio, one of my biggest ever.
The amount of people who don't seem to understand the point in this video is quite staggering :-//
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Never underestimate the absolute value of human stupidity.
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Like everything in life, it is a compromise!
The most important factor is to carefully consider your audience, be that when you submit a CV, give a presentation, attempt to chat up your future wife or just attempt to impress your mates in the pub!
For example, if you are submitting a CV for a job that will attract hundreds, or even thousands of applicants, then your application must be 100% watertight. If you give someone the slightest reason to file yours immediately under B1N they will, spelling mistakes or poor grammar included.
But, if you are applying for a position that has a very specific skill, that is difficult to find, or requires specific experience, then the assessor is much more likely to ignore language errors, and interview you anyway as there resource pool will be much smaller.
In my experience, good engineers are good at everything, including spelling when they need to be. ;-)
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When I was doing my engineering degree back in the early eighties there was a nice bit of graffiti:
Yesterday I couldn't spell Engineer, now I are one!
But back on the topic, I'm currently job hunting and I spend hours tailoring the layout and content of my CV for each job. I'm sure the odd typo gets through but I think getting as near to perfection as possible is important simply because it is an indication of how much effort you're willing to put in to getting the job.
Errors indicate that the CV was rushed and the underlying implication is that the application isn't that important to the applicant.
One problem with spell checkers is that if you're too reliant on them the wrong word can slip through - e.g. your instead of you're (or even yore)!
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Apparently we see Entropy everywhere. While computers and spell-checkers would seem to make it easier for people to produce presentable communication, perhaps they have concurrently made people more lazy (or even basically ignorant) to check things for themselves.
But simple spelling mistakes (the kind that any basic spell-checker would fix) seem unforgivable. It indicates that the author/candidate either doesn't care enough about the job to take a few extra seconds, or that they are too unskilled in the kind of basic communications required for the job.
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But it seems that these people are very well capable of spelling correctly,
they just did not bother to proof read at all, before sending it.
Some time ago I did the conveyancing on the purchase of my house (my previous one). I was very annoyed to find that I had to spend a lot of time correcting very basic mistakes in legal documents produced by the seller's solicitors. They were supposed to be highly paid legal professionals yet were too lazy to even check for spelling and grammar errors, and I as a layman, ended up doing unpaid work for them for which the seller presumably was paying them!
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I've certainly put resumes in the fail pile due to poor presentation, grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Sending documents in word format also bugs the hell out of me and loses points. PDFs are pretty universal.
I used PDF's early on as I wanted the end user to have it formatted the way I intended.
However, later it concerned me as the company was using a online automated submission system that scanned the documents for key words and suspect they were unable to scan my resume.
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I have to agree with Mike (of electrics stuff fame). Poor grammar and spelling is indicative of a lack of attention to detail which is hardly what one wants in an engineer.
If one knows that one's grammar and spelling are lacking then even more time should be spent checking one's work. Furthermore don't rely on spell checkers; they can only tell whether the word is spelt correctly not whether it is means what you meant to say. Grammar checkers help but they are not perfect.
The whole point of resumes, business letters etc. is to clearly communicate something without the chance of being misunderstood, (unless you're a politician). Good spelling and grammar are important to help achieve this.
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you turning to a capitalist with corporate evil mind for just one job :-DD nah kidding
I did receive many resume myself ... and i feel that most applicant are not making any effort when writing their CV
You will be surprise that most mistake i saw are candidate don't know the name of the damn diploma they worked so hard to get , not to mention some don't know the name of their educational institute ...like someone who wrote " Essence " ( fuel ) instead of " licence " ... when i saw that mistake .. well you will never get job with such CV.
I don't think you exaggerating it only show that this person is not giving enough attention for such an important paper neither importance to double check what he wrote ( to be fair it's hard to detect your own writing mistake). i make terrible spelling mistake and it's only getting worst since i left university but i always check my mail or documentation before sending.
I even ask for more from ppl when i receive CV for internship or job , if i found just an " ugly " paper with some writing with " Time news roman font " not given enough attention to design a nice looking document , i throw it away .
I prefer ppl that take time to choose or make their own cv template, the most creative is the one i choose :D
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I never watched the series "The Office", but I liked the approach to CVs taken by the boss in that (which friends told me about).
He threw half the CVs in the bin without looking at them at all, as he said you'd be unlucky to have your CV thrown in the bin without being looked at - and he didn't want to employ unlucky people!
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Wow, that thumbs down ratio, one of my biggest ever.
The amount of people who don't seem to understand the point in this video is quite staggering :-//
I'm not surprised - the poor applicant is obviously a massive fan of yours and rather than focusing your video on the fundamental requirement of checking your CV you single him out by reference to his spelling mistake to make him feel even worse.
But at the end of the day if you send a CV with errors for a job that requires good communication skills, it's liable to end up in the bin!
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I never watched the series "The Office", but I liked the approach to CVs taken by the boss in that (which friends told me about).
He threw half the CVs in the bin without looking at them at all, as he said you'd be unlucky to have your CV thrown in the bin without being looked at - and he didn't want to employ unlucky people!
And that is exactly the kind of stupidity promoted by mindless and ignorant "popular entertainment" that is reducing the populace to idiots. I was never able to make it all the way through a single episode. It is just so mind-numbingly stupid.
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I never watched the series "The Office", but I liked the approach to CVs taken by the boss in that (which friends told me about).
He threw half the CVs in the bin without looking at them at all, as he said you'd be unlucky to have your CV thrown in the bin without being looked at - and he didn't want to employ unlucky people!
And that is exactly the kind of stupidity promoted by mindless and ignorant "popular entertainment" that is reducing the populace to idiots. I was never able to make it all the way through a single episode. It is just so mind-numbingly stupid.
I won't attempt to defend "The Office" as I didn't like it enough to watch it, but I did like that particular example of deliberate obtuseness. I think it is probably a British thing - we like our humour very silly (like Monty Python) and ironically enough it is best done by highly educated people often from Cambridge or Oxford (e.g. mr Bean aka Rowen Atkinson has two engineering degrees, the second from Oxford)
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The word doc vs pdf part is a bit beyond me, anyone can download open office or libre office.
It should be up to the employer to indicate the preferred format, if none was stipulated the most common of both for resumes has been word doc in my experience.
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Good lord! The number of people in the Youtube comments that don't get it is staggering. I've had to sort through/interview people before as well. Anyone that has done this will tell you that you as an employee are not given a ton of time to do this. One ends up taking reasonable shortcuts to increase the odds that you will get a person into an interview that is interesting for both you and and the candidate. This usually means trying to decipher from a few written pages (if you're lucky!) whether you are going to immediately flush the candidate (none of the required skills, etc etc) or if you should spend an hour talking with them to see what's what.
It goes without saying that a perfect resume does not mean anything in terms of the actual interview. But why would you present yourself as anything LESS than perfect on paper (without outright lying of course) when it is easy to do, requires almost zero effort to at a minimum spell check and proofread (and then ask someone else to proofread) your resume?
If I see spelling/grammatical errors, I have to assume as a reader that the author is either a) too lazy to use the tools available to them, b) does not consult others to help them check their work or, c) assumes they are infallible and don't need to check their work. None of those qualities are appealing to me or my employer. Especially when there are plenty of resumes that come in to choose from.
Just shocking.
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The word doc vs pdf part is a bit beyond me, anyone can download open office or libre office.
It should be up to the employer to indicate the preferred format, if none was stipulated the most common of both for resumes has been word doc in my experience.
I would never give me resume in a format that can be edited. Perhaps it is paranoid, but I don't want some glitch or screw-up reflecting on the work I did to present myself. Headhunters are particularly hostile to PDF; they typically "work over" your resume to include things they think will get you an interview, etc: tell me what I should focus on, and I'll do the edits thank you. :palm:
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I think it is probably a British thing - we like our humour very silly (like Monty Python)
The US version of "The Office" is even more unremittingly boorish. You are fortunate to not be exposed.
I liked Monty Python. However, when I visited England several years ago I was caught in a faux pas.
We were staying at a bed and breakfast in a large home in South Croydon.
When we came down to breakfast, they had a telly set up in the corner showing some sort of chat show.
I was chuckling at some of the exchanges, and my hosts asked me what was so funny.
I said that I thought it was a Monty Python parody, but they told me it was a REAL show on a serious topic. :palm:
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Wow, that thumbs down ratio, one of my biggest ever.
The amount of people who don't seem to understand the point in this video is quite staggering :-//
Don't fall into the trap of dismissing internet users like that. You really think all those 100+ people just don't understand your point?
I gave you thumbs down, not because I don't understand your point, but because I didn't like the "holier than thou" video about it. I realise you are probably just trying to educate on the importance of first impressions but your manner in the context of looking for an employee, and using an example from the real applicants just seems off to me.
But then I guess this new video series is designed to be controversial or make us argue a bit? :-//
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I gave you thumbs down, not because I don't understand your point, but because I didn't like the "holier than thou" video about it.
Wow, I don't understand THAT at all.
Have you never been in the position of owning, operating, or even working at a for-profit business?
Have you never been in the position of selecting, interviewing, or hiring employees?
If someone really doesn't understand Dave's style, they probably shouldn't apply for a job there.
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I gave you thumbs down, not because I don't understand your point, but because I didn't like the "holier than thou" video about it.
Wow, I don't understand THAT at all.
Have you never been in the position of owning, operating, or even working at a for-profit business?
Have you never been in the position of selecting, interviewing, or hiring employees?
If someone really doesn't understand Dave's style, they probably shouldn't apply for a job there.
Whether you understand is really neither here nor there...
In answer to your patronising questions:
1. Yes, I work for a for profit business and I own and operate another for profit business.
2. Not employees, but plenty of contractors. I do pay attention to how they present themselves when I am selecting one to use.
Personally I've made mistakes although I have to admit my CV is actually flawless for the reasons Dave outlines in the video.
I am a business owner and when the day comes that I hire someone as an employee I am sure I will be looking for any reason to cut down the list of applicants too.
My point is that I think Dave made a mistake doing a 7+ minute video continually referring to one mistake in one CV he's received. Just my opinion on one of the millions of videos on youtube, you don't see me giving you the spanish inquisition treatment about your opinion, do you? The reaction I had to the video is entirely subjective, and I know Dave is probably not trying to appear the way he did, but that's how I interpreted it.
I should add, I never gave Dave a thumbs down before. This video just rubbed me up the wrong way for some reason. I doubt Dave cares.
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My point is that I think Dave made a mistake doing a 7+ minute video continually referring to one mistake in one CV he's received. Just my opinion on one of the millions of videos on youtube, you don't see me giving you the spanish inquisition treatment about your opinion, do you? The reaction I had to the video is entirely subjective, and I know Dave is probably not trying to appear the way he did, but that's how I interpreted it.
Yes, now I understand your reaction. Thank you for the clarification.
But then I guess I have come to expect that kind of thing from Dave.
He goes off on all sorts of things that leave me shrugging and saying "so what"?
And he has a remarkable ability to go on about something for several minutes that would seem to be reducible to a couple of sentences.
But that appears to be part of the "entertainment value" of his "brand" doesn't it?
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It's not about the spelling, it's about the accuracy & attention to detail, which are essential attributes in engineering. If someone can't be bothered to get someone to proofread a short document, what else will they not be bothered about?
Precisely. Like it or not, that document is the key to the door of your career. For something so simple as running a spell checker and having someone else proofread it for you, I am confused why there is such surprise and hostility about it.
Equally, regarding the interview itself, I wouldn't turn up to an interview late or dressed in dirty clothes for example, hell, if it were me I might even take a shower and brush my teeth a few days before too, it's common sense. No one wants to work with a smelly git.
This is the real world, it's not American Pie or Animal House, and like it or not I guarantee that if you don't want to "conform" you're really doing neither yourself nor your career any favours at all.
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Dave, learn to say resume correctly!
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I think Dave touched a nerve here! While I am not an engineer, I do hire people and use the resume exactly as Dave suggests. A perfect resume is no guarantee of a good fit or even of good core skills. A horrible resume is usually a great indicator of someone who is not able to operate outside their direct job description. If I am hiring for a low end position, my expectations go way down in terms of a well written resume. When I am hiring someone for a professional position, I need to know that communications from them to other professional members of the enterprise will not be an embarassment, so I expect proper spelling and reasonably good grammar on their resume.
The resume is just there to weed out the obvious non-contenders for the position. It is the interview that wins or loses the job. A poor resume just reduces the chances of getting the interview in the first place, and that is Dave's point. People in technical fields often feel that raw technical skills are all that matters. They often have (or tolerate) poor communication skills, poor social skills and an attitude that being a good technician makes up for anything else. As a hiring manager, I am interested in good skills coupled with a reasonable level of education and social abilities. There is no perfect candidate, but they do need to fall somewhere into the window of acceptability on more than just technical merit.
Len
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tisk tisk spelling is a growing epidemic. Why? I believe its because cell phone usage and social networks are the cause. The text option is just not suitable for proper writing skills or spelling skills. Users are not supporting good grammar habits by using text messages to communicate. Why? It take to long to text a proper sentence.
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A resume is a potentially life-changing document, asking for decent spelling/grammar in it is not unreasonable. A good resume reflects the care and attention an applicant takes with their work.
My English skills are reasonably good for a non-native speaker but I still use spell checkers and have friends proofread important things like resumes.
If you know your writing skills are poor, use the tools available to help.
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I think you missed the entire point of this, it's about a first impression, care, and attention to detail.
Most employers don't actually care if they spelled a word incorrectly, but it does potentially tell you something about the person.
Well potentially by the very fact this rant exists it might also be true that the predictive value of that criteria is heading to zero in which case using it says more about the competitiveness of the employer than vice versa (nothing inherently wrong about judging an applicant on irrelevant skills, which is why I said competitiveness, an employer who just grits his teeth and bears it might get better talent on average). We'd need some blind testing to be sure :)
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College graduates should to be able to spell half decently, even more so in a CV? How dare you expect that from them!
But seriously, it's hilarious and scary at the same time that things that were considered common sense not so long ago seem outrageous
to so many people today. It's like going unshowered and smelly to a party and wondering why no one wants to talk to you.
"But I'm not a bad person if I smell!" No, you are just an idiot disconnected from reality.
No ragrets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkLKKgOMRY&feature=player_detailpage#t=25 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkLKKgOMRY&feature=player_detailpage#t=25)
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(nothing inherently wrong about judging an applicant on irrelevant skills
How are decent communication skills "irrelevant"?
How can someone judge your "relevant skills" if you can't communicate at some acceptable level?
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Hi.
Is it really that hard for professional blogger to make the audio right ?
Cheers :)
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Hi.
Is it really that hard for professional blogger to make the audio right ?
Cheers :)
Excellent point. As an audio professional I asked that myself.
Even though Dave owns a good wireless lav mic (Sennheiser G3), his response was "my audio is as good as any of the other YouTube bloggers.".
So apparently the bar is deliberately set lower. It is what it is. :-//
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How are decent communication skills "irrelevant"?
If I had said grin and bare it, would you have understood what I meant?
How can someone judge your "relevant skills" if you can't communicate at some acceptable level?
I'm saying that if you reduce what you consider acceptable to what is necessary to clearly communicate the technical concepts he will be working on you might get better talent (natural language is pretty poor at being unambiguous in the first place and as texting shows can be mangled quite badly while still being interpretable). I wouldn't know one way or the other, I'm just adding the possibility.
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I think that the view that technical skills are all that matters is something that young engineers tend to think. I thought that way myself to some extent when I'd just graduated - after all up to that point everything tends to be assessed on anonymous exams.
Unfortunately, in the real world, even technical people need to be salesmen. You may have to sell your project to higher management to get funding. You may well need to communicate and sell technically in support of sales and marketing. As Dave points out, the person he employs is going to need to communicate - Dave is so successful because he is a good and lively communicator (as well as having the technical skills - don't throw me off the forum ;)).
When I first worked for GEC one of the things they did was make us give a videoed presentation and then critically appraised it in front of us - I hated this but it was a good introduction as to what is important in the world of industry.
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Hi.
Is it really that hard for professional blogger to make the audio right ?
Cheers :)
Excellent point. As an audio professional I asked that myself.
Even though Dave owns a good wireless lav mic (Sennheiser G3), his response was "my audio is as good as any of the other YouTube bloggers.".
So apparently the bar is deliberately set lower. It is what it is. :-//
Maybe the one he finds will help with it and will push the 'normalize audio' button before uploading, or maybe he/she will know how to use dynamics compression, and also offload Dave with other details, so new videos can be deeper in details, but made in the same length of talking. :)
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I will almost always bin an application form to join our development team if it has bad grammar in it. When documentation is so important for ISO6061 projects and submission to the FDA (we design medical devices), an applicant that "can't write good" is never going to succeed.
Maybe the one he finds will help with it and will push the 'normalize audio' button before uploading, or maybe he/she will know how to use dynamics compression, and also offload Dave with other details, so new videos can be deeper in details, but made in the same length of talking. :)
Jeez, who the hell turns on audio compression other than the clinically insane :-- :--
How are decent communication skills "irrelevant"?
If I had said grin and bare it, would you have understood what I meant?
You mean "grin and bear it"?
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If I had said grin and bare it, would you have understood what I meant?
A few years ago, I may have just automatically assumed the "decent" interpretation.
But given the depths to which culture appears to have devolved, it makes me think about those references to "American Pie" and "Animal House", and take the word "bare" more literally.
I'm saying that if you reduce what you consider acceptable to what is necessary to clearly communicate the technical concepts he will be working on you might get better talent (natural language is pretty poor at being unambiguous in the first place and as texting shows can be mangled quite badly while still being interpretable). I wouldn't know one way or the other, I'm just adding the possibility.
If we don't maintain proper standards of grammar and spelling, the language will devolve back into caveman grunts.
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Jeez, who the hell turns on audio compression other than the clinically insane :-- :--
If you can tune parameters it can be useful in some cases, instead of manually tuning for every head movement, but I'm not the professional audio guy, and am clinically insane ;)
Anyway for the blab video - it's content is a big :-+
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Jeez, who the hell turns on audio compression other than the clinically insane :-- :--
I don't have a problem with in-camera limiting (or even "auto-level"). We hardly ever hear raw, unprocessed audio anyway.
It keeps the levels out of the mud at the bottom, and prevents clipping at the other end (which is truly horrendous here in the digital era).
I DO have a problem with that "off-mic" hollow room echo that, at least to my ear, is the quintessential hallmark of sloppy audio.
Especially when it can be solved with something as simple as a $5 clip-on computer mic which works remarkably well in consumer cameras.
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I DO have a problem with that "off-mic" hollow room echo that, at least to my ear, is the quintessential hallmark of sloppy audio.
Especially when it can be solved with something as simple as a $5 clip-on computer mic which works remarkably well in consumer cameras.
I can agree with you there :-+
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There are 2 interpretations of the video.
1. Dave is slagging off people / Engineers who cannot spell.
2. Dave is saying that if you cannot spell then you are up against stiff competition for the job as that is part of the requirements whilst making a point about presentation of the CV.
I expect the people thumbing down are interpreting as #1.
Personally I tend to send any CV's through as PDF AND DOC as sometimes the recruitment agencies request DOC so they can put their own headers on, but if I were to apply to a independent company via their HR department for example I would send just PDF.
I read the video as saying something along the lines of it is desirable to be able to spell, although most packages these days include a spell checker and grammar checker, so perhaps it is not vital, but if there is another applicant that can spell then they might be in with a better chance. If you do not bother to get a CV spell checked or proof read by someone before submitting then perhaps you are not that bothered about first impressions and you more than likely do not deserve the job over another candidate that has taken the time to go through and make sure their CV is up to scratch.
Perhaps do not fully disregard the badly spelt ones just yet just incase the meticulously written ones do not cut the mustard in the actual interview!
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Funny, I took the video as a PSA.
Dave simply said what to do to get your resume noticed. I would probably have added tape a bare pcb of your work or make up a pcb in the form of a business card and attach that.
I come from the hiring side and if you have 200 resumes sitting there you will narrow them down.
On the minus side, soup stains, 200 pages, 50 staples, hearts after every line.
On the plus side, business card attached, neat and readable first page, phone number
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Wow, that thumbs down ratio, one of my biggest ever.
The amount of people who don't seem to understand the point in this video is quite staggering :-//
I've encountered this too. I don't know why people are so precious about being judged on ability, not appearance. Part of the ability is to play the application game properly. You have to stand out in a crowd. What's the best way to do that? Nobody can spell any more, I certainly can't, but an inability to have your spell checker turned on is inexcusable.
I agree with your blab 100%. I would have binned those resumes almost immediately for taking the piss and wasting my time. They need some very remarkable skills to be evident very quickly to avoid it.
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I read the video as saying something along the lines of it is desirable to be able to spell,
I think that the video acknowledged that engineers tend to be bad at spelling but that for a document as important as a CV you should take the effort to check and make corrections.
Of course it is good to be able to spell, but it is almost as good to get the spelling right with the aid of a spell checker or a dictionary. I fall into the latter camp, even though one of my hobbies is doing cryptic crosswords I am not good at spelling, but I have an electronic dictionary to hand as well as a spellchecker. I also generally know that I've spelt a word incorrectly even when I can't work out the correct spelling without looking it up.
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I think I have to defend Dave on this one, with a slight proviso :-\
Whether it is hiring a candidate or buying a piece of equipment one should always try to get best value for money. Spelling is just one of many factors which contributes to value.
Consider if you were buying a used oscilloscope for your home (hobby) lab and you found two identical units at a flea market except one came with a calibration certificate that was two months old while the other one had a certificate that was two years old. Which one would you buy, all things being equal? It's probably not that a calibration certificate is essential to a hobbyist, and you would probably not pay much extra to get one, but if it does not cost anything....
Now consider you are an engineering student at a prestigious US institution like MIT, Cal Tech etc and that you were raised in the USA and are a native English speaker. IS it too much to ask that the instructor and teaching assistants also be native speakers of English? Certainly having a lecturer with a heavy foreign accent and limited fluency in English has a major impact on the ability of students to understand the lecture but for some reason that is considered acceptable among major engineering universities in the USA.
Here is the proviso for Dave, if he has two candidates who are otherwise equally qualified, how much extra would he be willing to pay for the one who is the perfect speller?
The free market works, when there is sufficient financial incentive people respond accordingly. In fact if you offer enough money you can get people to do almost anything.
The problem with most firms is that start out deciding how much they want to pay and then complain that they can't find qualified candidates. Do you suppose if salaries for Electrical Engineers in the USA were made higher than the salaries for lawyers and MBAs there would be more engineering majors?
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It is strange that job applicants are judged on things that have almost nothing to do with their job. Writing skills, clothes, ..., while the most important aspects of their job are ignored.
Writing is important though, but are you looking for someone who can write well or someone who can do electronics well?
Even journalists and professional writers are being proofread before their texts are published, and they make mistakes too.
Furthermore, I hate first impressions.
I have some degree of autism. I do not make good first impressions. This ruins a lot of opportunities for me.
It is a pitty that "smooth talkers" can get their way into good jobs while maybe not having enough skills, while people who do have the skills get shown the door because they can't impress with words or appearance.
Hire the person with the right skills, not the person who seems to have the right skills. A portfolio should be infinitely more important than writing skills.
I think the mistake is in thinking that writing skills, appearance, presentation and such don't have anything to do with one's job. Engineers aren't locked in a cage and tossed assignments through the bars - they are expected to interact with coworkers and often with customers. One of the big mistakes a lot of people don't realize is that all of us are always selling, all of the time. Whether it's to a potential girlfriend/wife, to our boss/employer, to friends, or whatever - we are always being measured and judged in some way. Someone who is good at all the 'soft skills' in addition to technical skills is way more valuable than someone who isn't.
It's most certainly unfortunate for anyone who isn't adept at those soft skills, and especially so if it's because of something beyond their control. But all of us suffer from some setbacks due to things outside our control, whether it's due to our appearance, our accent, our baldness, our weight, our vocal pitch, our nervousness, our inability to match clothes, our stutter, or whatever else may be the problem. One of our responsibilities as humans is to acknowledge that we get one shot at life, and we need to recognize our shortcomings and take action to minimize them or overcome them instead of becoming victims to them.
It may be unfair, but society is never ever going to have some sort of 'awakening' where we realize that looks don't matter and bad first impressions are OK - it's just not gonna happen. And we are each the ones who have to live with the consequences of our lives and have the greatest interest in improving ourselves.
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If we don't maintain proper standards of grammar and spelling, the language will devolve back into caveman grunts.
Don't underestimate the communicative power of the grunt. Grunting got me through my teens!
One problem is the disconnect between writing and speech. I believe English is better than some other languages in this regard, but it's far from perfect. How many of you would put a smiley in an email to a friend? I certainly wouldn't, but here on the internet, where you aren't know as well, it's a simple way to convey tone: Written communication evolves to suit it's purpose.
That aside though, I agree strongly. We write for our anticipated audience and anticipated style. If you're sending an SMS to a friend, then gr8 m8, but there is an appropriate style for professional communication. Consider TV news, newspaper journalism, contemporary prose, technical documentation, internet forum posts...
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And FWIW, I am 100% complete with Dave on this one.
I got lambasted shortly after joining EEVBlog for saying that dress was important in the workplace. A lot of engineers went nuts, saying they don't want to work in a company where wearing jeans and a t-shirt is unacceptable, because it means management is short sighted or whatever.
Well, fact is that these soft skills DO matter. Appearances and impressions DO matter. It's a rare individual who is highly regarded enough in their field as to be able to suffer quirks and still be given equal credibility as someone who doesn't have those quirks. And I'm going to guess nobody here's last name is Zuckerberg, Gates, Jobs or Brin :)
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Agreed. I tend to reject CVs with more than a couple of spelling mistakes, although I may allow a few more for non native English speakers. Anyone can run a spell checker (and should), but it doesn't catch everything.
Communication skills are important almost no matter what they do. They need to document it, they need to produce specifications and documents for their colleagues.
I also value the ability to be concise - nothing worse than people who waffle on and on and don't say very much. (Accordingly, I shall shut up now :-X)
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I tend to disagree with grammar in every ocassion i can, but i agree with Dave at this one, checking your grammar for your job application takes few minutes but it gives the impression of competence, responsibility and some reliability to let you do the talking with costumers or maybe get better deal on ebay... from my own experience when working in pair it's the most important to work with someone sane who gives his most to learn new stuff, even if he doesn't know a thing (that is dedication and dedicated person would check his grammar mistakes).
I love choice of t-shirt for this video :-DD
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I agree with Dave because of the simple fact that you can use spell check to find errors. I take a more neutral stance when it comes to grammar because some English grammar mistakes are hard to spot.
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A good one that seems to flummox even the best spelling bees is "Bureaucracy". It used to get me every time and I consider myself pretty good with spelling and grammar, even though concepts such as nouns, vowels, adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, interjections, adverbs, etc. just flew over my head in English lessons. I somehow flew through the exams I had despite not understanding all the theory. I guess I am just good at noticing patterns.
Way back when not everyone had a PC and a printer in the 1990's, I was often called upon by my graduate friends to knock up a CV (Resume), and print out a few copies. I developed a template and essentially replaced bits of corporate bullshit bingo words of the day with others, then printed them off for them. Sure enough, they ended up with work.
Now my Aunty asked me if I could help a distant cousin of mine with a job application that required a CV. Of course, no problem. Now this girl is the opposite of a Uni Grad. She was kicked out of home at 14 years of age and essentially lived day to day on her own wits. Not beating around the bush she is a bit thick. Lovely girl, nice but dim. Of course no qualifications, but she was enrolled in the community college to learn "dance", and had so far had jobs as glass collector for a bar, dancer for a nightclub, and an extra on a movie that Samuel L Jackson was in.
There was a new bar opening in town which wanted barmaids and she applied for the job. I got the most recent CV I had used for my grad mate and replaced all the qualifications, etc, and all the bullshit bingo words to something that would apply to this girl and her new job. After printing it out, I had to explain what all "the big words" meant.
She was employed by the new bar instantly. In fact, on the strength of the CV with "the big words" they gave her the bar manager position! :palm: Needless to say, she didn't last 2 weeks, bless her! :-DD
No worries, she is a trooper and has always found work, travelled the world too. I should call her up sometime as she recently moved a street away from me I hear from the grapevine.
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This is my answer to Dave's YouTube comment to me.
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This is my answer to Dave's YouTube comment to me.
idear :o
You'd have done better to remain anonymous
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>remain anonymous
? I have newer been anonymous
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There are 2 interpretations of the video.
1. Dave is slagging off people / Engineers who cannot spell.
2. Dave is saying that if you cannot spell then you are up against stiff competition for the job as that is part of the requirements whilst making a point about presentation of the CV.
I expect the people thumbing down are interpreting as #1.
Yes, I suspect so.
Of course it was never my intention to slag off people who can't spell, I even said it myself, I can't spell.
It's about care and attention to details, and how it does count on you resume to most employers.
I won't reject someone because they spelled a word incorrectly, but spelling and grammar does count toward my overall appraisal.
I can't interview everyone.
And yes, I do take English as a 2nd language into account.
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It's about care and attention to details, and how it does count on you resume to most employers.
Tut tut. Dave, I'm pretty sure you meant your, and I really hope not you're |O Ok, just pulling your leg! ;)
ETA: I also totaly agre wid you video to. No excus 4 crap CV.
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It's about care and attention to details, and how it does count on you resume to most employers.
Tut tut. Dave, I'm pretty sure you meant your, and I really hope not you're |O Ok, just pulling your leg! ;)
ETA: I also totaly agre wid you video to. No excus 4 crap CV.
Hahaha, no spellcheck will pick that up.
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Wow, that thumbs down ratio, one of my biggest ever.
The amount of people who don't seem to understand the point in this video is quite staggering :-//
You'd be more popular with a video of you kicking a dog than criticizing poor spelling!
Of course everyone makes mistakes, but a resume for a job application is the only thing most employers ever see or know about an applicant. Employers expect that applicants will put more effort into their resume than a text message, informal email, or blog post. Poor spelling, grammar, or formatting in a resume show inattention to detail. Yes, writing a resume may be boring and tedious, but much of the work of an engineer can be boring and tedious, but it still requires great attention to detail to get right.
No, you don't need to be able to flawlessly spell every word without assistance, but you should be able to use a spell checker and proofread your resume, which is the sole artifact that you will be judged on initially!
Employers have limited time and tens to hundreds of applications to evaluate. When looking through resumes, employers are looking for reasons to eliminate applicants. They don't have time to spend on 1-2 hour interviews with every applicant, and they don't have time to hire every applicant for several months to see if they can do the job, even if they can't write a resume or have no experience.
Applicants should not expect employers to find reasons to hire them. Applicants must demonstrate that they are better suited to the job than all the other applicants out there.
An applicant going in with the attitude that "I'm so obviously good, I don't need to worry about irrelevant details" shouldn't expect much success.
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For me it is a new side you have showed Dave. I may have misunderstand you but i think that you told us many stories on TheAmpHouer that it is not the resume but the project that count. And now you are weeding out for for a single spelling mistake and for not sending in a format that i can not see you did write that you did prefer. It is you company, but it is for me very surprising to me that all!
Quote from: EEVblog on Today at 10:29:56 AM (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=40765.msg576382#msg576382)>
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For me it is a new side you have showed Dave. I may have misunderstand you but i think that you told us many stories on TheAmpHouer that it is not the resume but the project that count. And now you are weeding out for for a single spelling mistake and for not sending in a format that i can not see you did write that you did prefer. It is you company, but it is for me very surprising to me that all!
I think Dave already said he had whittled the CVs down to 29 from the local community in Sydney. Your rather bad English grammar and spelling would be quite excusable seeing as you are the other side of the world being from Denmark and be taken into account. However, who on earth would fly around the globe, get the visas, etc, for what is a minimum wage ad-hoc apprentice job? Is there nothing closer to home? Who would support you in Sydney - I believe only second to London, UK as in the most crazy expensive place to live on this planet?
PS. Your English is infinitely better than my Danish! The only thing I know is you make good bacon, and "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark" (Hamlet)
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Some (hopefully) constructive criticism.
The reason you're getting thumbs down is that you really have no understanding of the current Australian job market and why you're seeing the resume's you are.
It's always DOC not PDF. A PDF resume is an instant fail because its contents won't get picked up in a keyword search used by recruiters. PDF = no job.
Because of keyword searching in resume's people now have to re-write their resume for each job they apply to. In some cases they have to remove qualifications and experience from the resume in order to get jobs. So resume's are constantly changing and job seekers now will have quite a few separate current resume's.
When you understand this you can understand that typo's and grammatical errors will creep in (although with spell checkers everywhere spelling mistakes are not excusable).
You're the exception and not the rule in your hiring practices and for some strange reason you don't seem to be able to comprehend that reality. The "point in this video" is based on you thinking that the way you're doing it is normal in the current job market which is why you're getting the thumbs down.
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Macbeth I am not searching for a new job. But thank you for thinking on me ;D
I have just commented on eevBLAB #3
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There are 2 interpretations of the video.
1. Dave is slagging off people / Engineers who cannot spell.
2. Dave is saying that if you cannot spell then you are up against stiff competition for the job as that is part of the requirements whilst making a point about presentation of the CV.
I expect the people thumbing down are interpreting as #1.
Yes, I suspect so.
Of course it was never my intention to slag off people who can't spell, I even said it myself, I can't spell.
It's about care and attention to details, and how it does count on you resume to most employers.
I won't reject someone because they spelled a word incorrectly, but spelling and grammar does count toward my overall appraisal.
I can't interview everyone.
And yes, I do take English as a 2nd language into account.
FWIW Dave, I believe people are wrong to think you meant #1, and I believe you are correct in wanting someone to take pride in their CV as, as you have said, it is the first impressions that count.
You would expect that people applying for their "dream job" would take more care in getting their CV proof read before submission if they really were that passionate about wanting the job, as it is not your average 9-5 supermarket job.
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Some (hopefully) constructive criticism.
The reason you're getting thumbs down is that you really have no understanding of the current Australian job market and why you're seeing the resume's you are.
It's always DOC not PDF. A PDF resume is an instant fail because its contents won't get picked up in a keyword search used by recruiters. PDF = no job.
Because of keyword searching in resume's people now have to re-write their resume for each job they apply to. In some cases they have to remove qualifications and experience from the resume in order to get jobs. So resume's are constantly changing and job seekers now will have quite a few separate current resume's.
When you understand this you can understand that typo's and grammatical errors will creep in (although with spell checkers everywhere spelling mistakes are not excusable).
You're the exception and not the rule in your hiring practices and for some strange reason you don't seem to be able to comprehend that reality. The "point in this video" is based on you thinking that the way you're doing it is normal in the current job market which is why you're getting the thumbs down.
The fucking scumbag pimps that "add value" in the recruitment consultancy market just fuck it all up for everyone. They don't have a fucking clue about what they are fishing for, and when presented with a perfect CV by an Engineer, they go and do a search/replace on terms and even the name to get rid of it and make it seem like a third person. The results are utter cringeworthy and I have never understood why "employers" would pay these vile pimps 30% margin on my fucking contract income, despite me doing all the work trying to get the fucking contract. It's just so they can save themselves from employment legislation - paying a vile pimp who hates the "nerdy engineers" despite them making him his latest ferrari is just fine, and the corporate HR depts get used to perfect CVs being utterly fucking wrecked by these imbeciles as they know that's the best they can get. The "recruitment consultant" is a product of insane tax and employment legislation. I digress...
This will not apply to Dave, as the only CVs he should be interested in are all direct. I really doubt he will take on someone from an agency :palm:
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^^ Do I detect some distaste towards recruitment agencies? :-DD ^^
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Some (hopefully) constructive criticism.
The reason you're getting thumbs down is that you really have no understanding of the current Australian job market and why you're seeing the resume's you are.
It's always DOC not PDF. A PDF resume is an instant fail because its contents won't get picked up in a keyword search used by recruiters. PDF = no job.
Because of keyword searching in resume's people now have to re-write their resume for each job they apply to. In some cases they have to remove qualifications and experience from the resume in order to get jobs. So resume's are constantly changing and job seekers now will have quite a few separate current resume's.
When you understand this you can understand that typo's and grammatical errors will creep in (although with spell checkers everywhere spelling mistakes are not excusable).
You're the exception and not the rule in your hiring practices and for some strange reason you don't seem to be able to comprehend that reality. The "point in this video" is based on you thinking that the way you're doing it is normal in the current job market which is why you're getting the thumbs down.
The fucking scumbag pimps that "add value" in the recruitment consultancy market just fuck it all up for everyone. They don't have a fucking clue about what they are fishing for, and when presented with a perfect CV by an Engineer, they go and do a search/replace on terms and even the name to get rid of it and make it seem like a third person. The results are utter cringeworthy and I have never understood why "employers" would pay these vile pimps 30% margin on my fucking contract income, despite me doing all the work trying to get the fucking contract. It's just so they can save themselves from employment legislation - paying a vile pimp who hates the "nerdy engineers" despite them making him his latest ferrari is just fine, and the corporate HR depts get used to perfect CVs being utterly fucking wrecked by these imbeciles as they know that's the best they can get. The "recruitment consultant" is a product of insane tax and employment legislation. I digress...
:rant: Very nicely put. ;)
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^^ Do I detect some distaste towards recruitment agencies? :-DD ^^
Recruitment agencies are lower than snakes bellies and should be outlawed by any civilised society.
Unfortunately though if you want a job you have to play their game or you get nowhere and playing their game is how job seekers in Aus are conditioned.
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^^ Do I detect some distaste towards recruitment agencies? :-DD ^^
Oh, when you are working Christmas Eve late at night on an emergency, and your "pimp" who is partying all evening phones you up and tells you "to keep it up, keep it up - work all night long old chap!" because he gets 30% of my hourly, oh yes, I do wonder...
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^^ Do I detect some distaste towards recruitment agencies? :-DD ^^
Recruitment agencies are lower than snakes bellies and should be outlawed by any civilised society.
Unfortunately though if you want a job you have to play their game or you get nowhere and playing their game is how job seekers in Aus are conditioned.
Yeah, the best I have done is get the heads up from my boss that they would up my hourly, but at no cost to them, after a 3 month contract they wanted extended for another few months. The pimp bitch who didn't have to suffer working away from home, etc, refused to lower the 30%. I told her I'm on the next train home. Stupid whore-pimp bitch realised she had no bargaining power at all. Quickly phoned me back and dropped to 10%. I really didn't want her to get even 5%. But the legislation requires fucking leeches in the job market.
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30%!
I hate recruitment agencies, they have not got a clue when it comes to anything remotely technical.
I had one phone me once asking if I could do "SMPS design" I said what is "SMPS" (Switch Mode Power Supply of course), he said "I don't know, can you do it", I said "Yes" and I got offered an interview.....mind baffles.
I quite often get the agencies asking if I can "refer" people, and that I can earn up to £300 for referring someone that leads to a work placement. So, let me get this straight, I don't want the job, so you want me to do your job for you and find someone, mind you if they are willing to pay £300 for that they must be earning a pretty good screw out of it!
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Reminds me of Van Halen's famous no brown M&Ms clause (it wasn't about the M&Ms): http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp (http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp).
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The trouble is companies use these agencies thinking they are getting a good deal, when in reality, they are useless, I have on 2 occasions managed to get enough information from the agency staff for me to find out who the actual companies recruiting are and put my CV and a small covering letter letting them know how useless their recruiters are, both interviewed, both offered me jobs, sometimes if you can approach the companies direct then they will take a chance on you direct, plus they save their fees.
The trick is to get really chatty with the agency staff, let them think you are really interested but want to know just a bit more detail, more often than not they will tell you most of what you want to know without actually giving you the name of the company, for example, there was only 1 company near me (within the distance on the job spec) that designed for aerospace, no brainer on that one! The other was taken from a specified town who designed industrial automation systems for factories, another no brainer.
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The trouble is companies use these agencies thinking they are getting a good deal, when in reality, they are useless,...
Sadly in Australia the leeches have become essential to filter out the noise from the government social security system which makes people apply for 10 jobs a fortnight in order to qualify for social security payments. That's a lot of non-genuine applications for jobs that need to be filtered out to find the real candidates.
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The trouble is companies use these agencies thinking they are getting a good deal, when in reality, they are useless, I have on 2 occasions managed to get enough information from the agency staff for me to find out who the actual companies recruiting are and put my CV and a small covering letter letting them know how useless their recruiters are, both interviewed, both offered me jobs, sometimes if you can approach the companies direct then they will take a chance on you direct, plus they save their fees.
The trick is to get really chatty with the agency staff, let them think you are really interested but want to know just a bit more detail, more often than not they will tell you most of what you want to know without actually giving you the name of the company, for example, there was only 1 company near me (within the distance on the job spec) that designed for aerospace, no brainer on that one! The other was taken from a specified town who designed industrial automation systems for factories, another no brainer.
I did just this - but then had to go through the "preferred supplier" that HR had a contract with.
There is no out. It is nothing to do with being an excellent self employed contractor, etc, the shitheads in charge of tax legislation insist that you are a mere "servant" like a Scullery Maid and require the supposed protection of the state and the vast tax grab to go with it.
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The "recruitment consultant" is a product of insane tax and employment legislation. I digress...
Isn't it more a question of laziness on the side of employers/job-seekers? There's plenty of agents over here, but companies can string you along for years without giving you a permanent contract either way.
Sadly in Australia the leeches have become essential to filter out the noise from the government social security system which makes people apply for 10 jobs a fortnight in order to qualify for social security payments. That's a lot of non-genuine applications for jobs that need to be filtered out to find the real candidates.
HR must have a really good salary if paying new hires 30% more to save on weeding through resumes makes economic sense :)
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Isn't it more a question of laziness on the side of employers/job-seekers? There's plenty of agents over here, but companies can string you along for years without giving you a permanent contract either way.
Yes & No. There is plenty of tax legislation that will make the "employer" liable for all kinds of taxes if the "employee" is anything other than self-employed. Also, employment legislation kicks in too, all those benefits earned by unions over the decades.
As a self-employed engineer, you don't give a fuck about unions, maternity/paternity pay, you don't give a fuck about holiday pay, you just want an agreed hourly or goal based compensation - you are old enough to understand how to keep a buffer between jobs or holidays. You do not need to be nannied by the taxman or the employment rights activists.
Unfortunately the scumbags in charge refuse to realise that people can work as "freelancers" despite most of the economy of the UK being made by small business. Oh, sorry, they have exemptions for popular people like Actors, Artists and Musicians.... But IT Nerds and Electronic Engineers? :-DD "Let them eat cake"
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HR must have a really good salary if paying new hires 30% more to save on weeding through resumes makes economic sense :)
England/UK vs Australia :)
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Sadly in Australia the leeches have become essential to filter out the noise from the government social security system which makes people apply for 10 jobs a fortnight in order to qualify for social security payments. That's a lot of non-genuine applications for jobs that need to be filtered out to find the real candidates.
Fuck - that takes me back to the late 1980's/early '90s in the UK when we all had to do the same. I would have to pop in to every fucking TV/White goods shop begging for work - the owners clearly annoyed when I then begged for a fucking letterhead or business card, much less a fucking detailed letter of why they cannot employ me. Why should a small business have to deal with this shit?
So fucking humiliating. I had to go to the dole and show them my pathetic attempts of knocking door to door for jobs. They wanted proof (letterheads, etc.). 90% of the other dolies didn't present anything, they were clearly more streetwise than me. Lots of them had the latest fashions and even had cars. They would be called chavs now. They knew the system inside-out, while I had to perform the government pantomime.
The Chavs were perfectly happy while I really really wanted a job. I was the only one punished for wanting a job. I fucking hate politicians.
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You're the exception and not the rule in your hiring practices and for some strange reason you don't seem to be able to comprehend that reality. The "point in this video" is based on you thinking that the way you're doing it is normal in the current job market which is why you're getting the thumbs down.
Having been in the industry for more than 20 years, and having interviewed countless people and read countless resumes as an employer as such, I can say IME I am most certainly not the exception.
This is backed up by the number of people (emplyers & employees) saying exactly the same thing in the comments, and it fully reflects my experience in every company I've worked for and the overwhelming majority of people I've talked to over the years about it. They get what I'm saying and why it matters. Thumbs down is "only" 23%. That means the vast majority agree with me even when I didn't explains what I was talking about correctly, they understood what I was getting at.
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Having been in the industry for more than 20 years, and having interviews countless people and read countless resumes as an employer as such, I can say IME I am most certainly not the exception.
A hell of a lot has changed in the last 5 years. I discovered that the hard way 12 months ago.
This is backed up by the number of people (emplyers & employees) saying exactly the same thing in the comments. They get what I'm saying and why it matters.
I guess you're not reading the same thread I am.
Certainly I haven't seen anyone supporting your PDF resume's requirement :palm:
With people paying for resume's nowadays you cant trust a perfect resume. The one with a few mistakes is probably a lot more honest.
At the end of the day though, it's up for you to decide how you want to select your candidate.
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I guess you're not reading the same thread I am.
Certainly I haven't seen anyone supporting your PDF resume's requirement :palm:
There are 563 comments on Youtube, go read them.
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I guess you're not reading the same thread I am.
Certainly I haven't seen anyone supporting your PDF resume's requirement :palm:
There are 563 comments on Youtube, go read them.
:-DD
Youtube comments are hardly the bastion of intellect.
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Youtube comments are hardly the bastion of intellect.
So you complain about me judging people on their resume, a product they have produced, but you'll happily judge an entire sub-set of people based on where they chose to comment?
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Certainly I haven't seen anyone supporting your PDF resume's requirement
Supported.
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@m12lrpv
I think Dave prefers PDF as it is a final document, as presented by the candidate, and not interfered with by slimy recruitment consultants. I can totally go along with that. I will only ever give my resume in the same way - I also stick a copyright notice in the small print, not that they ever take notice of it. The scumbags rape CVs using the vast Excel skills a neanderthal knows. The pimps even sell the fucked up data to each other, they are utter scum. Never, ever, give a "recruitment consultant" the name, email, and phone of your previous project manager or anything like that (they will usually ask for "references" when they are just after more leads to hit on the phone).
If you ever want a decent job in a fairly small industry again, protect your CV and your references. Protect your network of work colleagues too.
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I've always sent both DOC and PDF versions of my CV, It just seemed simpler.
Never used a recruitment agency at my end, but i have applied to quite a few jobs where the business was "listing" the job using an agency. Just listing it though, never any ongoing income from it.
I do quite firmly believe all job ads should be legally required to include the company name.
Sadly that isn't the case.
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Never used a recruitment agency at my end
I had the displeasure of using one once when I was younger. Absolutely hopeless, never again. Every job I've ever applied for myself, I've got. Had far less success through a recruiter who didn't understand the industry (IT at the time). It was the first time I heard that I was "over qualified" for a particular job. An 'excuse' like that is the biggest load of crock in my opinion.
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With people paying for resume's nowadays you cant trust a perfect resume. The one with a few mistakes is probably a lot more honest.
As a long time small business owner and employer, I fully agree.
You don't have 100's of applicants. I would at least do a telephone or preliminary short face to face interviews with all applicants that have "reasonable substance" in their resume. With right questions, you can generally get a good first impression within few minutes of the interview.
As the old saying goes "don't judge a book by its cover".
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As the old saying goes "don't judge a book by its cover".
I don't.
People are reading way to much into this than I intended. I'm not going to can a perfectly good candidate because they made few spelling mistakes.
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My experience is to pick the best 20, if that fails the next best 20 out of the pile.
A good resume will or can get you into the first group. Once in the door it up to the person. The trick is to get there, in the first group.
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How was "bachelor" spelled wrong? Are there legitimate alternate spellings?
And, for those listening who may not know: many English words have multiple spellings. For an easy example see: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colour#Alternative_forms (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colour#Alternative_forms) .
This is a problem for someone writing a resume. When I write a resume, do I spell check it using my dictionary, the dictionary of the recipient, or some other dictionary? How do I choose from LibreOffice Writer's 17 (!) English dictionaries? Ouch!
Oh, and the issue of grammar is just as bad, if not worse. English grammar is based on the "manual of style" used, and there are many of them. For example, my use of commas here could be correct, or incorrect, depending on which one is used.
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How was "bachelor" spelled wrong? Are there legitimate alternate spellings?
Likely one of the following.
bacheler
bachalor
bachaler
batcheler
batchelor
batchalor
batchaler
diploma :-DD
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Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.
When engineers who are incompetent at spelling get a job doing embedded programming, they create a soul destroying mess for someone else to clean up. Their incompetency tends to infest their code in different ways such as inefficient algorithms, poor software design, and poor resource management. If they cannot spell, they should not be allowed to develop any code.
A common example of grammatical ineptitude is the inability for many engineers to know when to use upper case or lower case when writing a sentence. Upper case for common nouns and lack of consistency are common problems. Poor grammar is not tolerated where I work. I will never recommend anyone for a job doing embedded programming or even electronics design if they cannot spell.
I have lived and worked in the USA (Texas and New York), and my observation is that American engineers seem noticeably superior to Australian engineers in spelling. So, what's wrong with our education system? :-//
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Oh, and the issue of grammar is just as bad, if not worse. English grammar is based on the "manual of style" used, and there are many of them. For example, my use of commas here could be correct, or incorrect, depending on which one is used.
Yes, grammar is much harder, and I personally often don't know know strictly correct grammar, and the wife catches me out occasionally.
By bad grammar I'm usually talking about really horrible stuff that is common of kids these days.
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About recruitment consultants:
EEVblog #47 - Recruitment Consultants Suck, and Engineering Evil (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrjTxxm8mAo#ws)
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Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.
Are you for real ? For mankind I hope that you CENSORED very soon !
When engineers who are incompetent at spelling get a job doing embedded programming
>cut<
Their incompetency tends to infest their code in different ways such as inefficient algorithms, poor software design, and poor resource management.
If they cannot spell, they should not be allowed to develop any code.
WOW David Byrne or do you prefer I call you MASTER ?
I wish that all programmers could spell perfect like you. And make perfekt sofware like you !!.
Do you think that most software bugs /errors are made by programmers that are incompetent at spelling ?
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I remember that EEVBLOG #47. It's a ripper.
Recruiters don't annoy me so much. But once when I was on leave, I saw an engineering job advertised in which I would be the only person in Australia with 100% of the experience and qualifications for that job. In fact it described my exact job in a highly specialised industry. I called the head hunters up and they asked what experience and qualifications do I have. I answered "100% of everything you want". They asked what salary would I been looking at. I replied by telling them the amount which was 150% of what I was already on. When I told them who I worked for, there was silence. They were caught out. When I returned to work, I went to HR demanding them to tell me why they had advertised by job without telling me. They replied the head hunters put out a fake advertisement to gauge what my salary should be. So head hunters sometimes lie by posting fake job advertisements.
Component salesmen are a pain for wasting time. One vendor has called in occasionally unannounced. I fend him off by having nothing to say, except that I am busy. He eventually got the message. A new pain is calls with a very strong Indian accent asking "Can I speak to the decision maker?" We get at least one a day.
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I fend him off by having nothing to say, except that I am busy. He eventually got the message. A new pain is calls with very strong Indian accent asking "Can I speak to the decision maker?" We get at least one a day.
You could pretend that you are not speaking any English.
Reminds me of this:
Do you speak English (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieepe25WOJw#)
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Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.
Are you for real ? For mankind I hope that you CENSORED very soon !
When engineers who are incompetent at spelling get a job doing embedded programming
>cut<
Their incompetency tends to infest their code in different ways such as inefficient algorithms, poor software design, and poor resource management.
If they cannot spell, they should not be allowed to develop any code.
WOW David Byrne or do you prefer I call you MASTER ?
I wish that all programmers could spell perfect like you. And make perfekt sofware like you !!.
Do you think that most software bugs /errors are made by programmers that are incompetent at spelling?
No one is perfect in spelling. I never said that, nor do I expect it. And people make typos, including mi. But unlike me, you have obviously never had to endure re-factoring an inherited 50,000 lines of convoluted C, where the spelling is so bad you have to do a forensic job to work out what they are trying to say. Many function calls that had no relevance to what the calls were actually doing. One small example: "DAIG". It was a constant name used in about a hundred places. It meant "DIAGNOSTIC_MODE". Another example: "getG2sce_recievepM()". About 98% of the code needed rewriting. You do that sort of work for 15 months and then you tell me how you feel - if you survive it with your sanity still intact.
No, most software bugs / errors are not made by programmers that are incompetent at spelling. Actually those with one or more of the 3A's missing write crap code (Attitude, Aptitude, Ability). Being able to spell to at least a level of what is expected from a high school student is part of Ability. It is not a big ask, surely. Lars Gravengaard, you might see my point.
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Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.
When engineers who are incompetent at spelling get a job doing embedded programming, they create a soul destroying mess for someone else to clean up. Their incompetency tends to infest their code in different ways such as inefficient algorithms, poor software design, and poor resource management. If they cannot spell, they should not be allowed to develop any code.
A common example of grammatical ineptitude is the inability for many engineers to know when to use upper case or lower case when writing a sentence. Upper case for common nouns and lack of consistency are common problems. Poor grammar is not tolerated where I work. I will never recommend anyone for a job doing embedded programming or even electronics design if they cannot spell.
I have lived and worked in the USA (Texas and New York), and my observation is that American engineers seem noticeably superior to Australian engineers in spelling. So, what's wrong with our education system? :-//
A lecturer at our university had a rule for his examination papers - he would knock off 1% for every spelling or grammar error in the paper. For coursework that needed to be typed up he'd knock 5% off for each spelling error given that these could have been spell checked.
We also had around ten lectures throughout the 4 year electronics course about English and writing reports.
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Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.
So if a person have dyslexia you dont want that person to go to the university ?
I do not like the way that sounds! We dont agree here at all.
But if the person was just lazy then we can talk.
About you fixing some code with spelling mistakes. It sounds more like too little documentation. And that it is the boss there is to blame. That the documenting of the code was not better. Did he just write 50000 lines without another person did a check on it? I don't think you problem was, that the programmer cant spell.
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I did just this - but then had to go through the "preferred supplier" that HR had a contract with.
It's often worse than that, one experience I had was that the preferred supplier agency had been instructed by the <mega_corp> to supply what the agency considered to be the best two CVs. The contract spec was right up my street. The agency decided that I wasn't the right candidate, but didn't give any reason other than they were only allowed to put forward two CVs.
Coincidentally, I knew someone who worked in the <mega_corp> in the same area (one of my proteges in fact) and asked her what the score was. She recommended me, I was interviewed the next day, and was offered the contract there and then. Plus she made a few hundred quid for recommending me.
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Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.
So if a person have dyslexia you dont that person to go to the university ?
I do not like that way that sounds sorry ! We dont agree here at all.
But I am agreeing if the person was just lazy.
About you fixing some code with spelling mistakes. It sounds more like too little documentation. And that is the boss there is to blame. That it the standard the code has now! Not only the programmer that cant spell.
A lot of these recent posts seem to be conflating having difficulties with spelling with carelessness. I have difficulties with spelling certain words often because I didn't hear them correctly as a child, for example for years I spelt librarian as liberian because that is how I heard it. I am aware of this and I would say that I am much less careless than others who naturally know how to spell. Spell checkers are very useful, and often I'm aware anyway that I don't know the correct spelling of a particular word and look it up.
My spelling issues, such as they are, didn't prevent me getting the top First in my Engineering Degree. A lot of bright people have dyslexia or dyspraxia (including members of my family) and in the past teachers would have written them off, fortunately now there is more understanding.
On the other hand, writing code full of errors is a sign of carelessness and lack of attention to detail, I don't see that it has much to do with spelling except perhaps in variable names and in the comments. Most variable names are either simple abbreviations or not English words at all.
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On the other hand, writing code full of errors is a sign of carelessness and lack of attention to detail, I don't see that it has much to do with spelling except perhaps in variable names and in the comments. Most variable names are either simple abbreviations or not English words at all.
+1
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Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.
So if a person have dyslexia you dont that person to go to the university ?
I do not like that way that sounds sorry ! We dont agree here at all.
But I am agreeing if the person was just lazy.
About you fixing some code with spelling mistakes. It sounds more like too little documentation. And that is the boss there is to blame. That it the standard the code has now! Not only the programmer that cant spell.
A lot of these recent posts seem to be conflating having difficulties with spelling with carelessness. I have difficulties with spelling certain words often because I didn't hear them correctly as a child, for example for years I spelt librarian as liberian because that is how I heard it. I am aware of this and I would say that I am much less careless than others who naturally know how to spell.
It's not the carelessness in spelling, it's that, knowing your spelling isn't good, you can't be bothered to ask someone else to check what could potentially be the most important thing you ever write.
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Just my two cents, from a semi-academic.........
We teach our engineering students some specific taboos (NEVER do) for resumes:
1) Spell check
2) Only send as PDF.
3) Unique filename: (fname-lname-date-company.PDF), never never "resume.doc" or any "??.doc".
4) Do not write about improving yourself or getting experience.
Write about you and your growing experience, to improve the company.
5) Spell check
6) Spell check
7) Spell check
You really need to see actual resumes in a full job-search to see how bad the
competition performs. Reading resumes is painful. Reading bad resumes is comical.
However, they shorten the pile quickly.
regards,
- JQuinn11733
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It's not the carelessness in spelling, it's that, knowing your spelling isn't good, you can't be bothered to ask someone else to check what could potentially be the most important thing you ever write.
:-+ :-+ :-+ :-+ :-+ :-+ :-+
You really need to see actual resumes in a full job-search to see how bad the competition performs. Reading resumes is painful. Reading bad resumes is comical. However, they shorten the pile quickly.
:-+ :-+ :-+ :-+ :-+ :-+ :-+
If you aren't at least smart enough to know that people will judge you by your resume/CV, then you aren't smart enough to work for me. Go apply at my competitor and good luck to you.
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Not at all. In fact what I find even more disturbing is the amount of whingers that try to justify why it doesn't matter or how employers are being too hard and how it should be about their skills, blah, blah, blah. Quite simply writing is a skill and one of the most important in your career. I have hired many people both as a company director and manager in other businesses and I have some simple points learnt through experience and also common sense:
1. Your resume or CV is the first impression you make on a potential employer so spend the time to get it right.
2. Amongst a number of things it demonstrates quality of work, work ethic and effort to employers. In my experience potential employees who get this right at the beginning tend to bring these attributes to their day job once successful.
3. Those who don't do the first two, not only do not bring professionalism, quality and pride in their job, but are usually also problem employees, are usually the ones always making excuses why they didn't get things done or had to be redone multiple times, and are the ones you end up having to initiate employee action plans for, and they either get managed out as under performers or leave before they get their black mark.
4. I am not so strict as to say a missing apostrophe here or a misplaced comma there is enough to get your resume sailing to the bin (you can always tell good resumes from bad ones), but where the first few sentences or opening paragraphs are so poorly written then don't be surprised that your resume is likely to just get tossed within 30 seconds if I am evaluating.
Another thing that amazes me is the amount of employment agencies that submit candidate CV's loaded full of grammar and spelling mistakes and then want to take a percentage of the candidates remuneration for the supposed great service they have provided the person. I have actually cancelled agency contracts with my businesses because of such poor service to their candidates and I don't have time to read through masses of poor resumes.
5. Do not trust employment agencies to do your resume/CV's. There is a reason we call them Pimps. If you are lucky enough to find a good one, stick with them and follow the individual from agency to agency, but otherwise, submit your resume to them, have them put their supposed corporate formatting to it, then re-read it after they have finished with it and make sure it is ok. You are also likely to get a sense of how little they are doing for you (don't be surprised). Proof reading what they have done with your resume also gives you a chance to correct any remaining errors.
Sorry about the rant Dave, but whingers and excuse makers need putting in their place. No doubt there will be hordes of them in response to my comments which will only prove the points. Apologies for missing accents I guess I won't get the job.
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Dave, you hit a raw nerve here. It makes me wonder how people who cannot spell are even promoted beyond primary school, let alone enter university.
So if a person have dyslexia you dont want that person to go to the university ?
I do not like the way that sounds! We dont agree here at all.
But if the person was just lazy then we can talk.
About you fixing some code with spelling mistakes. It sounds more like too little documentation. And that it is the boss there is to blame. That the documenting of the code was not better. Did he just write 50000 lines without another person did a check on it? I don't think you problem was, that the programmer cant spell.
Regarding the 50,000 lines of code, there was documentation but it was irrelevant to the code. Part of documentation is revisions to ensure the documentation matches reality. But no-one could actually understand the code to check.
That company had no C coding standards and no code reviews. Any decent company will have documented C coding standards if it writes embedded C code for a product. Company PCB design standards is also necessary if the company design product PCB's, especially when it comes to library management. Not having standards is a recipe for a mess. Code reviews and PCB design reviews should be mandatory for every engineer, irrespective of seniority, experience, ego and education. Reviews often help the newer engineers, even if they are just spectators.
Fortunately the company I work with has two documents called Coding Standards (which covers C, C#, Labview and C++) and PCB Design Standards. Every new electronic engineer or programmer gets to read these. The standards are followed and we have design and coding reviews as part of the process. The result is almost no PCB revisions due to mistakes, and C code which does not need rewriting. It saves a lot of time and money in the long run.
There are some people with dylexia, agreed, but that is not as many as the percentage of engineers I have found whose grammar is substandard. In the past when reviewing some documentation, I have found myself feeling like a school teacher correcting an essay. I have better things to do. The cause of the upper and lower case could be just laziness because there is evidence of inconsistency. For example, "The Motor shall be Driven with a pulse width Modulated signal. The motor driver shall Be Short circuit protected."
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The bottom line...
In engineers could spell, what would the rest of the world do?
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The bottom line...
In engineers could spell, what would the rest of the world do?
:-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD was that intentional?
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Sorry to arrive so late to the party...
Summary (for the TL;DR folks): The only purpose of a Resume and Cover Letter is to get you an interview. That's it. Read on for how to make that happen.
Almost 50% of my career has been spent as a contractor (self-employed, selling my time by the hour), and while my primary expertise is real-time embedded systems design and programming, much of my time has been spent helping clients build teams to create such systems. Over the years I've spent a bunch of time with recruiters, HR departments and managers going through literally thousands of resumes, leading to hundreds of interviews. And I've been the interviewee for nearly 50 interviews myself, both as a contractor and a job-seeker.
I keep a list of the application (and applicant) attributes that lead to hires, and I always ask new-hires what they did to prepare. So, here are the top items from my list, first from the perspective of the applicant:
1. RESEARCH! Research the position. Research the company/division offering the position. Research the parent company and any subsidiary companies. Research their products and customers (and partners and vendors, if possible). Check social media (e.g., Linked-In) for every relevant name you can find. In other words, go beyond the job description and understand its context.
2. TARGETING! Tailor your resume for that specific job. Minimize or delete the irrelevant, expand the relevant. Write a cover letter that clearly highlights how your history addresses the key aspects of the job description. Think of the Job Description, Resume and Cover Letter as a combined entity that must support clear mappings between all its parts. And for beginners or those entering a new career track, use the cover letter to address gaps between your experience and the job requirements (don't hide them or make us waste time digging for them - be honest).
What I do is keep a long (5-page) "Master" resume that contains long, medium and short descriptions for everything I have ever done, then I cut and paste from it to quickly create the first draft of the submission resume. The resume must be no longer than TWO (2) pages, and the cover-letter no longer than about half a page. And DO NOT shrink the font to fit more on the page: A dense resume automatically goes into the "TL;DR" pile. All documents must be submitted as PDF. However, some companies still use HR software from the prior millennium, so be prepared to provide whatever format they desire, but only when requested. Always submit in PDF.
3. Whenever possible, work with a recruiter. Think of recruiters as "outsourced HR", rather than as head-hunters. They are the shortest path between you and the hiring manager. It is silly to take a longer path when a shortcut is available. Some recruiters may request exclusive rights to place you: Generally say no, so you can work with as many recruiters as possible. Buy them coffee (though they tend to buy coffee, and more, for the really good candidates).
4. PREPARE FOR THE INTERVIEW! Drive there the day before, so you know what to expect for traffic and travel time. Do NOT trust the Google Maps time estimate. Arrive 15-30 minutes early. Go to the bathroom. Review the notes from your research. Bring multiple hard copies of everything (including the job description) as well as copies on a thumb drive. Bring a pad of paper and a pen for notes (do NOT take notes on a phone or tablet or laptop). Wear good looking, comfortable clothes. When in doubt, it is always better to overdress than to be too casual. Avoid too much caffeine or too large a meal before the interview (but don't be dehydrated or starving).
There are many factors that go into a good interview, but none of them matter if you walk in the door unprepared or uncomfortable.
5. FOLLOW-UP! Always get the email address of the senior person you interview with, and ALWAYS send a "Thank-You" email immediately after the interview. If you have something additional to mention, do so, but keep the email short and sweet.
So, how does this look from the employer's perspective? Remember: Any technical job opening typically receives 30-300 applications. There is NO WAY the employer can spend much time looking at each and every one. So the process is decomposed into multiple passes, to arrive at an interview list of the top 3-5 applicants.
1. Take 10-60 seconds to skim the application to see if it is worth considering. In reality, this means reading only the cover letter and/or the summary section of the resume.
HINT: Make it as easy as possible to get through the first stage. Visual appearance matters: A nice font and good page layout make reading easier, and may encourage reading more! A well-written and well-presented cover letter and resume are a joy to read. The cover letter sets up the highlights, meaning the resume only needs to be skimmed (not read in depth).
2. Rank the remaining candidates by how well their application corresponds to the specific job requirements. This is a checklist that is completed for each applicant, and typically takes about 5 minutes. Discard all that don't meet the absolute minimum requirements.
HINT: This is easiest when the cover letter and resume both use words and phrases from the job description. And uses them CORRECTLY! Don't expect us translate between what you wrote into what we want: We don't have the time, and won't bother.
3. Pass the successful packages on to the group the applicant will work with, to get input from prospective peers and supervisors/managers. These folks will provide a pro/con list for each candidate, where the list contains whatever factors they care about, where anything and everything is allowed, short of discrimination or bigotry. In some companies, the applicant name, age and sex are removed from the package for this phase. The final item on the list must be an up/down vote to proceed to an interview. Eliminate all candidates that get no up votes.
HINT: This is where the tone and voice of the cover letter and resume really matter. Even engineers who have trouble writing well still love to read good writing. Don't sound hyped-up like an infomercial, nor as stale as a datasheet: Be factual with a positive attitude.
4. Build the on-site interview list from the most favored candidates. If the list of good candidates is too long (a blessing in disguise), phone or email pre-interviews may be performed, especially for promising junior folks with gaps in their qualifications. On-site interviews are expensive in terms of company man-hours, so they are typically scheduled in rounds. If no hire comes from the first round of interviews, then the interview list is refilled from the remaining favored candidates and another round is scheduled.
HINT: Prepared, relaxed candidates are an absolute joy to interview. Sometimes, nobody wants the interview to stop! For this reason, try to schedule your interviews for the morning, so they have the option to take you to lunch, just in case the interview goes splendidly.
HINT: At the end of the interview, you will ALWAYS be asked if you have any questions. This is why you have a notepad and have been taking occasional notes during the interview. Good questions automatically raise the status of a candidate: Try to have a few ready in advance. Avoid questions unrelated to the interview or the job description, such as about benefits or working hours (which should be asked only after receiving an offer).
5. Schedule follow-up interviews (generally by phone or email) for the successful candidates. This is the "money shot": Few folks get hired from the first interview alone, and these days there is seldom a need for a second on-site interview (though it does happen when two candidates are extremely close).
HINT: This is another reason for the thank-you email: It makes it easier to contact you again, as you're already in their inbox.
I use the above process even when I'm building a group from scratch (I'm the only reviewer and interviewer). My goal is to find the best candidates ASAP, get them interviewed ASAP, and make the hiring decisions ASAP. Typically, the hire was needed months ago but the process was postponed due to overload, the schedule is already slipping, and I'm doing the applicant processing during evenings and weekends. So don't waste my time: Make it as easy as possible for me to hire you!
Bottom line, the ONLY purpose of your Cover Letter and Resume is TO GET YOU AN INTERVIEW! Anything that gets in the way of that goal must be ruthlessly eliminated, and everything the job description asks for MUST be present (or its absence explained in the cover letter - be honest).
-BobC
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Sorry to arrive so late to the party...
Summary (for the TL;DR folks): The only purpose of a Resume and Cover Letter is to get you an interview. That's it. Read on for how to make that happen.
What I do is keep a long (5-page) "Master" resume that contains long, medium and short descriptions for everything I have ever done, then I cut and paste from it to quickly create the first draft of the submission resume. The resume must be no longer than TWO (2) pages, and the cover-letter no longer than about half a page.
-BobC
Thanks BobC for a very comprehensive (and useful) post. As someone who is currently job hunting and has done so many times in the past, I agree with almost all of it. I'd just like to add some comments based on my experience.
Your comment on recruiters I am, much to my own surprise, coming around to agreeing with. In the past I've always viewed recruiters as useless parasites and avoided them as much as possible. But recently I have found that they have got me interviews for jobs which I wouldn't have applied for as my experience wasn't an exact match with the requirements. (This is more in the area of software than hardware.) For example, the job description may ask for 2 or 3 years C# experience and a good knowledge of networks - neither of which I have, but I do have decades of C programming experience, experience of C++ and an undergraduate level of knowledge of networks and the ability (I hope) to learn new technology. From the job description I wouldn't even apply but then the recruiter rings me up and liaises with the company and I end up getting interviewed.
Your advice on CV (resume) and covering letter length are good targets, and are probably correct in the context of embedded systems engineering jobs but not for all technical jobs. For example many jobs produce detailed and numbered "person descriptions" and the covering letter needs to provide something in response to every point and doing this can often run to a couple of pages.
Also, for older people like me, I think your CV needs to cover all jobs you've done since university and even just putting a couple of sentences to say what each was together with a list of qualifications and say a paragraph on the most recent job in my case overflows the two page limit.
Where I have tried to cut out historic information because of lack of space this leads to apparent gaps in my history which looks even worse.
Additionally, such things as details of two or three referees are often required, and the most logical place to put these (in my view) is on the CV otherwise the employer needs to ask for them separately. The referees then will also probably take up most of a page.
Academic/teaching jobs also require much longer CVs as they want publications to be listed - but that is not of direct relevance to most engineers.
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...and I'm doing the applicant processing during evenings and weekends. So don't waste my time:
I can understand that you have a lot to do. And I only have respect for people who work long hours each day.
My sister runs her own graphics design business, and it is very hard to make a living out of it.
But shouldn't you hire someone do to the applicant processing for you?
Managers who do not have time don't know how to delegate or do not have enough people to make their workload lighter. That usually also translates further down the chain (you can often see this in governments).
I personally hate making resumes or going to interviews. You're almost never the only candidate, and most of the times, the person who prostitutes himself or herself the best gets seen the first.
A resume or a first impression can say something about the person, but it doesn't give you insight in the personallity of that person. You hire someone for the long run, not for an interview.
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@jpb:
I've also been in industry for a few decades, and have seen lots of changes on both sides of the interview table. I've written job descriptions for, and help fill, positions in all of engineering, including technicians, EEs, MEs, systems engineers, software engineers, buyers, sales/marketing, and also for managers. I've even been offered a partnership in a technical recruiting firm, which I declined because I'm an engineer first, last and always.
Old jobs kept as separate entries on the resume can indicate over-attachment to the past (que Springsteen's "Glory Days"). They can also invite age discrimination (ask me how I know), even when the employer attempts to prevent it. Instead, I recommend summarizing early employers as a group, with a single time span, listed as "multiple employers, details available upon request", possibly with a synopsis of the responsibilities and accomplishments. This would apply for any set of jobs doing basically the same thing. In general, only the past decade needs to be covered in detail and the rest summarized, with exceptions only when experience exists that is directly relevant to the job description, and is not present in any more recent position. For example, I don't list anything close to the full record of my consulting clients (dozens of them): I give a date range and a list of the work performed. The same approach works for multiple jobs.
To be clear: Don't "cut out" anything - compactly summarize it instead.
About references: I always say "References Available Upon Request After Interview", even if the employer or recruiter requests otherwise. My reasons are: 1) My references are busy and important folks, 2) their contact information is very private, 3) they should be contacted only when it really matters, and 4) I want to give them a heads-up that they should expect a call. I have never had this become an issue, not even once.
I do a similar thing for salary history: As a contractor I have, on occasion, briefly made obscene amounts of money, something I choose not to reveal when applying for conventional employment. I merely ask for their target salary range, and let them know if my history is compatible with it.
Of course, the above may not be possible when applying to the government or a defense contractor, which is one reason I generally avoid them and stick with smaller, more independent companies (though I'll put up with anything for a job I really want: I have worked for both the government and defense contractors on some amazing projects).
I'd recommend using a professional (and reputable) resume service, and have them review your resume. I expect they will repeat my advice to the letter. A good resume service is a great investment. The better professional recruiters provide the service for free to their candidates.
Never exceed two pages: That goal should provide the incentive needed to eliminate the irrelevant, summarize the ancient, and emphasize the relevant. That is to say, no JOB requires more than a 2-page resume. Remember, the resume is not who you are: It is your highly targeted request for an interview for a specific job. Don't ask anyone to read anything that slows that process, not even the slightest bit, for they will simply move on to the clearer resumes.
If more detail is desired they will ask: there is no need to force-feed it to them. I always have my "Master" resume with me at every interview, just in case. While cramming all that information into the initial resume would be a huge mistake, pulling it out during an interview has caused some very positive reactions! After all, once I'm in the room there's no hiding my age: Backing it up with a book of experience can add "gravitas" at just the right moment.
And, yeah, compressing a resume to expand upon only the relevant can be a bit painful: I'm having a fantastic career that's been tons of fun and that I'm immensely proud of, and I love sharing everything about it. But a friend once put it into perspective: "If it were really that special, you'd tattoo it onto your ass."
Needless to say, I have no resume tattoos.
@tbscope:
That's what recruiters are for! But you still must process the candidates they forward to you, and check that they are not dropping good candidates because they don't fully understand the job description (or the job description is poorly written). Any given hire can make or break a group, so the process deserves the direct involvement of those affected by it. So, again, it is best that applicants don't waste our time: Respect our time instead, and make it as easy as possible for us to select YOU instead of someone else who has no clue how things get done.
Also, the fees recruiters charge (often equal to 50% of the first year's salary) comes out of the engineering budget: I'd much rather spend that money on debuggers, o'scopes, faster workstations, and attending technical conferences. Or even giving a bit more salary to the new hire.
Finally, butt-kissers never get the job, except when the entire team consists of butt-kissers. They're easy to weed out during the interview.
The most difficult interviews are new graduates. They have no experience, have no idea how the system works, and have little idea what a good interview is. We bend over backwards to help them, put them at ease, explain what's going on, and to get to who they are and what they have to offer.
There is an art to being a good interviewee, with lots of tips and tricks that can be applied to avoid pitfalls and problems. But being a good interviewer is a higher art, since we must also be able to achieve our goals even when presented with a weak interviewee. Those interviews we call "interrogation" or "wringing out the sponge". Some folks just don't do well in interviews, yet may be good team members: A good interviewer can tell, will take it into account, and will work around it.
The worst thing for an interviewee is to be faced with an incompetent or incapable interviewer. The interviewee must tactfully take over the interview and subtly direct it as needed, a very tough path to create and follow. Something I've had to do several times, especially with prospective consulting clients. The only way I've found to gain that skill is to do lots of interviews (each with a ton of preparation), even when you are content with your present job. Interviewing is a skill that requires experience to build and improve, the more the better.
-BobC
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@BobC
Thanks for the response.
You're right, ageism is an issue I think - but even lumping jobs together, unless the dates are left off or expressed as pre - 2005 say are not going to hide the fact that I'm an older candidate.
I've been pleasantly surprised though recently that I've managed to have quite a few interviews so perhaps my CV is ok.
The ageism thing can be quite subtle, such as in the type of tests employers set - e.g. one job I went for (programming) the tests were of the speed type, older brains are slower simply because they have more information to retrieve from so such tests will always be biased towards new graduates rather than those with experience. Also much of an interview is about how people feel the candidate will fit in, and if the others in the team are all in their twenties they will subconsciously feel an older candidate doesn't quite fit right regardless of skill set.
I think the idea of lumping jobs of a similar type together is a good one. Though where, as in my case, there has been a career change it is sometimes the case that my older experience is more relevant to a post than my more recent experience the lumping becomes more problematical.
The issue of tailoring CVs to jobs is one area where recruiters can get in the way. They tend to just send off the same fixed CV and you don't get the same opportunity that you have in a direct application.
You're right though, it is hard to leave stuff out of a CV.
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When I look at resumes I also look at hobbies and interests. For electronics engineering, if they have a hobby related to electronics such as hacking or ham radio, that is a big plus and unless something else is missing they generally get an interview. I have never been burnt yet with hiring someone who lives and breaths the craft because they want to, not because they have to. In any case, during the second interview always test the applicant's knowledge, irrespective of their qualifications and reported experience. No, I don't give them a spelling bee ;D, but if they have written code I like to see evidence of the quality of their work.
One volunteer is worth ten conscripts.
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I also look at hobbies and interests, but I'm really looking for something totally unrelated to the job. It doesn't matter what it is. Just something to hint at a rounded personality. If all you ever do is EE, your hobby is EE and you read about EE, then you might be technically great but you'll be dull as anything to work with. Maybe that's not fair, but I do. I once employed sunstone whose hobby was *watching* football (soccer). He turned out to be very lazy. Playing football, however badly, would have been a much better sign.
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I also look at hobbies and interests, but I'm really looking for something totally unrelated to the job. It doesn't matter what it is. Just something to hint at a rounded personality. If all you ever do is EE, your hobby is EE and you read about EE, then you might be technically great but you'll be dull as anything to work with. Maybe that's not fair, but I do. I once employed sunstone whose hobby was *watching* football (soccer). He turned out to be very lazy. Playing football, however badly, would have been a much better sign.
A CV with a section on Hobbies and Interests is a sure fire way of finding itself filed in the waste paper basket. I don't know of any professional that would reduce themselves to that shit. It is the hallmark of someone writing a CV from the advice of people working for the public sector Job Centre as professional CV mentors and tells a lot.
Quite simply, tailor the CV to the job. Then pray no shitty recruitment consultant gets to play with it to "add value".
You can talk about football after the formal interview. But anyone who talks about football other than "did you see that ludicrous display last night?" with a put on manly man cockney accent will not be employed by me. Sorry. I fucking hate football and hate the types that constantly talk about it at work instead of doing the job.
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A CV with a section on Hobbies and Interests is a sure fire way of finding itself filed in the waste paper basket. I don't know of any professional that would reduce themselves to that shit. It is the hallmark of someone writing a CV from the advice of people working for the public sector Job Centre as professional CV mentors and tells a lot.
Quite simply, tailor the CV to the job. Then pray no shitty recruitment consultant gets to play with it to "add value".
You can talk about football after the formal interview. But anyone who talks about football other than "did you see that ludicrous display last night?" with a put on manly man cockney accent will not be employed by me. Sorry. I fucking hate football and hate the types that constantly talk about it at work instead of doing the job.
There is only one football where I live... Aussie Rules. It has evolved to become more a business than a sport. But I see your point.
Listening to boring endless diatribe about cricket or football in an office when people are trying to concentrate is not on. Fortunately, from my experience few electronics engineers are into sports or celebrity worship. We also have a relatively large Asian and ethnic European population working in electronics in Australia, so that helps keep the sports religious fanatics to an irrelevant minority in the workplace.
Another good thing is in Australia, we have no Neighbours fans :o. That crap was exported to the UK :-DD, along with Kylie Minogue :palm:. You know what they say, guv'ner, one man's trash is another man's treasure :-+ .
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There is only one football where I live... Aussie Rules. It has evolved to become more a business than a sport. But I see your point.
I've seen some of it. It looks like a cross between rugby and footy, but with some ultra-violence thrown in for good measure.
Another good thing is in Australia, we have no Neighbours fans :o. That crap was exported to the UK :-DD, along with Kylie Minogue :palm:. You know what they say, guv'ner, one man's trash is another man's treasure :-+ .
Neighbours. OMG. When I was a virgin, spotty, shy 18 year old Electronics Service Apprentice in '89, our decrepit pit of a bench lab area was entirely female free. They had their own office (with windows, sunlight and stuff like that!). Now being TV & VCR engineers we all had our own portable CRT TV's on the benches, for soak testing VCR's, etc. They would be on all day.
A girl from the office who I would sit next to on the bus into work and was quite friendly with asked if she could watch this programme "Neighbours" that was on the BBC at the time at my bench area for lunchtime, while I went out and got a kebab or chips for lunch. Yeah - no problem... a few days later her office mate would join in too. Then another of her office mates... Soon, my bench became the official designated Neighbours watching area for all the office girls, me totally surrounded by these cooing moos, while I am trying to eat my lunch and getting red faced, the only bloke surrounded by 10 females in that pit. :-DD.
As for Kylie, she was awful when she was managed by that Pete Waterman bloke, but when she broke out alone, I think she's done quite well for herself. She seems to have got much better with age ;)
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Among others, I had the pleasure of Kylie's company in the Atlantic Bar off Regent St in London back in my drinking days about twenty years ago. No entourage, she just happened to walk in with a couple of mates. She was offered a beverage, as was de rigeur back in the day. Very pleasant girl she is too. Ah, those were the days. She didn't speak very highly of VK3DRB though.
I quite like the hobbies and interests on a CV, but only if they are interesting to the general populous.
Being able to play a musical instrument to a reasonable level, for example, tells me something about the individual, and it was likely I'd ask them a question about it. Their response in itself will tell quite a bit. I had a concert pianist work for me once, his attention to detail was like no other. I didn't actually know he was a concert pianist until after he'd been assigned to my team and we were chatting in the pub one day after work.
But no, I don't get passive things like following football or watching neighbours.
The point is, I wouldn't want a sanitised office or team, I'd want characters, just a bit of eccentricity in these days of mediocrity. But proven technical and communication skills come first.
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what do you think about someone who send me a cv and a letter zipped together in an email with just the word "good evening" in it .. and written wrong :palm: it's a one word mail and still wrong :palm:
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Relevant hobbies are important to list, especially if they describe job-required experience/skills not present in your work history. An aware employer knows that serious hobbies are also serious work: Any hobby that keys into the job requirements indicates, to me, somebody who will have a much greater chance of enjoying their new job.
In other words, my dream job is to get paid to do one of my hobbies! And I've been lucky enough to have that happen a few times. Sometimes, the flow goes the other way: I've had jobs that introduced me to new areas that soon became hobbies.
As a definition:
Job = Something you get paid to do, and hopefully have fun doing.
Hobby = Something you pay to do because you always have fun doing it.
"Irrelevant but interesting" hobbies can (and probably should) be listed as a one-liner at the end of the resume. It can lead to interesting conversations on a subject you know about, and can give the employer a window into your personality. But don't use the word "Hobbies": I prefer the title "Other Interests". Here's the line from my resume:
"Other Interests: Triathlon, paragliding, cooking, ukulele, singing."
If they ask, I can talk at length about each of them, complete with amusing (and self-deprecating) anecdotes.
I have other hobbies I don't list, mainly because they don't ever become conversation topics (such as my volunteer activities). I also don't list any of my technical hobbies (blogs, a website, home automation, IoT, member of several open-source projects) because the associated skills are all covered by my employment history, and would thus be redundant.
Now, if I ever do a successful crowdfunded project, I would absolutely list that! Employers love to see engineers who can do the "soup to nuts" aspects of product design, development, documentation, delivery, marketing, communications and all the rest.
I do list all the technical online courses I've taken under "Education", even if motivated by hobby interests.
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Relevant hobbies are important to list, especially if they describe job-required experience/skills not present in your work history. An aware employer knows that serious hobbies are also serious work: Any hobby that keys into the job requirements indicates, to me, somebody who will have a much greater chance of enjoying their new job.
...
As a definition:
Job = Something you get paid to do, and hopefully have fun doing.
Hobby = Something you pay to do because you always have fun doing it.
...
I do list all the technical online courses I've taken under "Education", even if motivated by hobby interests.
Too true! One volunteer is worth ten conscripts as I have said before. I have found those who have a hobby in electronics on average far better value than someone who became an electronics engineer because of cultural reasons. I knew one bloke from another who hated electronics and wanted out. In Australia, he had the courage to train part time to be a social worker specialising in grief counselling. He loved his new career and did well in it after leaving the electronics industry, but his class oriented parent were upset that they could no longer boast their son is an engineer.
As for hobbies, I add a one liner in there: Morse code.
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The person that got my old job got it just because he has a degree in something totally unrelated to the workplace yet his CV was an absolute disaster there was an error in the first three words where he had duplicated "the" and the overall CV was an utter mess as it was very difficult to see what his chronological history was has everything was out of order. But he got the job on the back of his degree.
The young lady who submitted a CV but did not have any qualifications submitted a very well written CV which showed very clearly her progress in working life and that she had bettered herself in each job she moved into.
Unfortunately yet another case of somebody getting a job just because they have a degree regardless of whether or not they are competent over degree is relevant.
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Unfortunately yet another case of somebody getting a job just because they have a degree regardless of whether or not they are competent over degree is relevant.
I don't think this syndrome is confined to qualifications, it applies equally to specific experience. Employers don't want to take a risk or at least want to avoid putting themselves in an awkward position if a new employee doesn't turn out well. If they turn down someone with a degree and employ someone without and they turn out not to be up to the job then higher management will consider them incompetent even if the other candidate was clearly not up to the job either.
Similarly they are reluctant to employ people who don't have proven experience in the particular bit of electronics that the job entails.
I'm in the position of possibly returning to electronics (I went from electronics to computer science and am looking in both areas), but almost all jobs are looking for experience of embedded systems which generally rules me out even though I have decades of experience in C have good (high frequency analogue) electronics experience and have done a course in verilog and also have 6502/ARM assembler experience. This doesn't have anything to do with degrees, as I have three of them (if you count a post graduate diploma as a degree, two if you don't). It might have something to do with age though.
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This case was rather different from what you suggest. Firstly I had been taken on in the same role and apparently been successful despite no qualifications. Qualifications this person had nothing to do with the field of industry I work in which is not electronics by the way. The 2nd person actually had much more relevant experience while not qualified and was clearly quite good as she had written out her CV in a very clear and orderly fashion which is also a skill required of the job of quality inspector as if you can't communicate the problem or solutions to your colleagues or suppliers or customers you have a problem. The person they took on instead showed very little ability to clearly communicate facts very well known to him and he had not even been able to reread his own CV and make basic corrections. His last job had been at the local job centre again totally alien to the line of industry we work in whereas the other candidate had worked in the industry all her life and had made steady progress to the point where she was a skilled engine fitter on performance engines in fact she was probably more skilled than we needed but the guy who had never worked in the field with a degree got the job despite his inability to write a basic coherent CV about himself.
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This case was rather different from what you suggest. Firstly I had been taken on in the same role and apparently been successful despite no qualifications. Qualifications this person had nothing to do with the field of industry I work in which is not electronics by the way. The 2nd person actually had much more relevant experience while not qualified and was clearly quite good as she had written out her CV in a very clear and orderly fashion which is also a skill required of the job of quality inspector as if you can't communicate the problem or solutions to your colleagues or suppliers or customers you have a problem. The person they took on instead showed very little ability to clearly communicate facts very well known to him and he had not even been able to reread his own CV and make basic corrections. His last job had been at the local job centre again totally alien to the line of industry we work in whereas the other candidate had worked in the industry all her life and had made steady progress to the point where she was a skilled engine fitter on performance engines in fact she was probably more skilled than we needed but the guy who had never worked in the field with a degree got the job despite his inability to write a basic coherent CV about himself.
If they took on the person with the degree without interviewing the person without, then that is clearly wrong. If they interviewed both candidates then it is difficult to tell if the decision was based on the possession of a degree or on how well they did at interview. I've done a lot of interviewing (for university entrance mainly, and some for jobs) and how people appear on paper and how they come across when you meet them and ask them questions can be quite different.
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The CV of the person without a degree was ignored. The person with a degree was brought in for an interview. The person making the decision was the company works manager who has no qualifications himself that I'm aware of other than being one of the welders off the shop floor, the laziest one I'm told. He usually fights for the shop floor having as little work as possible, sometimes you'd wonder how we can stay business with his attitude.
The person with the degree was shown round by my senior colleague and after he had gone he told me he didn't think much to him he was not really interested in the workplace and just walked around listening to what he was told no interaction at all. My colleague said he was a little uncomfortable about him. But the works manager insisted that he was the man for the job because he was a very clever bloke having a degree. He is a nice chap I get on fine with him although we had a little bit of a clash at one point when I was training him because he felt I was not being fair. Fact is I was becoming quite concerned about his ability to deal with situations to have the initiative to work out what to do and get on with it. After all I was having this person dumped on me and he was clearly not up to it and his degree was totally pointless to us. I was quite concerned about the amount of extra work my senior colleague would be shouldered with once I left the department because being only 2 of us if one can't cope the other one ends up helping out. I worked in a mechanical engineering company quality department, when I came to the job I knew how to use all of the mechanical measuring equipment at least the basic mechanical stuff like calipers and micrometres my colleagues were in fact surprised that I knew how to use them despite no experience, but I had been shown how to use them in school where I did some mechanical staff alongside electronics and because I understood exactly how the instruments worked and was intrigued by them because I have a genuine interest in how things work I remembered how to use them over 10 years later. The first time I gave him a micrometre he looked at it and try to use it as though he had never seen one before. And I had to politely show him how to use it whilst making it look like the most natural thing in the world that he should not have a clue how to use a micrometre despite claiming on his CV he had used said instrument and many more complicated ones in a previous job role, I mean heaven forbid I upset him.
I don't know the nitty-gritty of how he copes these days I get the impression he does not get as much work under his belt as I used to but then I actually cared.
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The main reason for sending stuff out on Doc format is to ensure the recruitment agents can index your CV properly (don't think their systems are good enough to handle PDFs, they are tight as and wouldn't upgrade unless they had to). I only send my CV out as a PDF when specifically requested.
I've certainly put resumes in the fail pile due to poor presentation, grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Sending documents in word format also bugs the hell out of me and loses points. PDFs are pretty universal.