[thelist] Resume / Portfolio Review

[Burhan Khalid]

Christian Heilmann wrote:
[ snipped ]
> Also ensure that you have a good Word CV/Resume. You will hardly find
> an HR department that even bothers looking at online ones, no matter
> how good an idea they are. Bureaucracy is older than the web.

I cannot stress this enough.  A flash site with your portfolio is nice, 
but most companies have systems in place that scan Word (some even do 
PDF) files to filter out possible candidates for a position.  So make 
sure your resume is available in these formats.

We once had a person interview for an art director position that had a 
resume on a small, business card CD.  We tried to load it on our office 
system, but the CD was riddled with virii -- and wouldn't play.  So 
please make keep in mind that the ease of use of your dynamic resume 
goes a long way.

Some other tips that I have learned along the way:

Don't assume that there is someone that will have the latest plugins 
installed to go and visit your site to check out your presentations.  If 
you really must provide such supporting material, make it downlodable.

Make sure you get releases for any client work done that is part of your 
public resume.

Avoid using fancy, non-standard fonts in your Word resume.  These will 
most likely not be available at the company for which you are applying 
-- they might also hinder any automated systems that the company might 
have for scanning files.  You might also want to have a plain text (or 
RTF) version available.

If you will be using email for correspondence, make sure you have a 
separate account (and give it a decent address) for your 'official' 
emails -- and avoid free email servers.  Nothing is worse than having to 
recieve an email from 'hot_boy89 at hotmail.com'.

I believe someone else mentioned this, but avoid saying negative things 
about previous employers/client even if your experience with them was 
such.  Words like 'boring, stupid, annoying' should not be used.  We had 
an interviewee for a junior development position that actually said, 'My 
previous job sucked because the manager was stupid' -- sad, but true.

Regards,
Burhan Khalid