Bad Things
Jason Truesdell
The Laundry List
Somewhere toward the bottom of a typical high-tech resume is a list that
looks like this:
Other Skills: HTML,
JavaScript, DHTML, ASP, C++, Visual Basic, Adobe Photoshop, Quake 2.
Don't laugh; I actually saw Quake 2 listed as a skill on a resume.
I've used the laundry list in my own resume; it usually refers to
technologies I have used somewhere, usually as a hobbyist, or that I
didn't feel warranted a bullet point in one of my work experience
sections.
After having interviewed dozens of job candidates, I'm very skeptical
when I read a laundry list. In my experience, most people whose resumes
say they know HTML but who don't list it in any particular context,
can't even code a simple HTML table. Some can't even write <A
HREF="http://www.example.com/">Example site</A>.
You can imagine how cynical I would be if I were a more experienced
interviewer.
So I'm far more likely to bring in a candidate who says "Created
personal home page using HTML with tables, image maps, and cascading style
sheets" than one who simply lists "HTML" in a bulk
itemization of
skills. It provides me with a context. It prevents me from bringing in
inappropriate candidates (depending on the job, the qualification listed
above may be perfectly suitable; but someone who says they know HTML and
has only tweaked some editor-generated HTML is a waste of my time.)
It also makes it easier for the interviewer to ask focused, appropriate questions at the
interview; I won't have to spend 3 minutes asking about what you've done
with HTML before testing your skills.
It can also be dangerous to include things in your laundry list that you
aren't particularly proficient in, as the inclusion of such information
makes it fair game for probing at an interview.
Microsoft employees, and high-tech employees in general, tend to be
pretty well-rounded, and are capable of asking questions and
understanding the answers to a fairly wide range of technologies. I may
not be a C/C++ expert, but I can get an accurate feel for your abilities
by asking you to write a string-reversal function or a linked list
class.
You can expect to be tested on anything that appears in your laundry list, even
if it doesn't directly apply to the job at hand.
We will ask these questions because we like to see what kind of range
and flexibility you have, how you solve problems, and we assess abstract
things like your honesty and integrity.
Maybe you write HTML or C code daily in your current job; maybe you
wrote a little bit when you were in college 5 years ago. Maybe you
wrote a freeware clone of Asteroids. Provide me a context, preferably
with some associated dates, and I can better understand the relationship
between your skills and my needs.
I understand that resume writers increasingly expect their resumes to
be scanned into a database, but once the keywords are found, a real person
reads your resume and has to make a decision whether to give you a call or
not. If you include context, the keywords are still there and I have a
much better idea what your level of knowledge is.
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