scott parker | citizenparker.com

Spray and Pray Developer Resumes

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:58:31 -0600

I interview a fair amount of software developers (although not as often as I used to, sadly), and so I have people ask me about a variety of issues related to finding programming gigs. What certifications, what schools, what questions to ask, and even what attire to wear.

I really thought interview attire was something of a solved problem, but apparently not.

I digress. When I’m asked one of those questions, I usually try to stress that it’s hard to hurt yourself when answering any of the above questions. Yeah, some schools are better than others, but that doesn’t matter too much for programmers, especially once they have a year or so of experience. Certifications usually don’t hurt or help too much unless it helps you meet a job’s requirements (although an XML Master Certification is resume poison).

However, there is one particular brand of resume that, regardless of talent, really irks me and makes it difficult to get on my good side, let alone get a recommendation from me. I hate, hate, HATE finding a “spray and pray” resume. This is the kind of resume that is two pages long for every year of experience and is absolutely crammed with a wide range of unrelated technical terms. It’s the kind of resume where someone has liberally sprayed the document with verbiage and prayed that some of it tricked someone into interviewing them.

It doesn’t work.

Telltale signs you’ve written a Spray and Pray Resume

Under “Programming Languages,” you list every single programming language you have ever encountered.
You list every job, ever.
For each job, you list an insane number of different, unrelated responsibilities.
You have the world’s most vague Objective Statement.
You list at least one OS for which you don’t know how to navigate the file system from a command prompt.
You list any UI framework for which you cannot instantly tell me the base class/method/approach for displaying a “Hello world” window.

What’s so bad about that, huh?

Many people would say these resumes looks desperate, and you generally want to avoid looking desperate in an interview. I don’t really care too much about that however, as Lord knows I have been desperate for work before and lucked out to find a job despite it.

A more significant problem with this kind of resume is that is just looks lazy. If you can’t make the time to trim your resume down to only those things the interviewer has a chance of caring about, then why should the interviewer make the time to talk to you? Just 2-3 minutes spent making a specific objective statement, removing irrelevant items (or moving them to a Hobbies/Interest section if you really, really want them on your resume) and tightening the resume up in general can work wonders.

Worse than looking lazy is looking dishonest. If you are confident enough in some skill that you put it on a resume, then you’d damn well better be at least at an intermediate level in it. If you haven’t touched that programming language since high school, leave it off your resume. Otherwise, as soon as you have to tell an interviewer you don’t know much about something on your resume, you bring everything into question. It reflects poorly upon you, and the interviewer will subsequently devote a fair amount of time fact-checking your resume rather than really engaging with you.

Even if you don’t look lazy (which you might), and even if you don’t seem dishonest (which you will), you’re still doing yourself a disservice. Why? Because your strengths will be lost in the “noise” you create with unrelated terms and bullet-points. I promise you, even if you are just graduating from school, you already have strengths that are worth showcasing on a resume. It’s many times more effective to have three bullet points that prominently highlight things you excel at than to hide those amongst umpteen other areas where you aren’t so hot. By paring down your resume and saying less, you can let your strengths shine that much more and seem stronger.

Almost all of those problems listed earlier can be solved by simply going over your resume, and asking yourself “Could I answer a simple question about this?” If the answer is no, leave it off your resume. Otherwise, you might just be sitting across from someone like me who ALWAYS picks one of the programming languages you put at the end of your list and asks you to compare and contrast it against a language from the front of your list.

Oh, and never list XML as a programming language. (Although if anyone ever says that they really meant XSLT and that XSLT is Turing complete, I’ll be suitably impressed to overlook the mistake. Throw in a “Duh” for good measure though)

-Scott

The Two Things You Cannot Do in Champions Online That You Could in Marvel Ultimate Alliance

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:01:33 -0600

Apparently it’s “MMO Fortnight” here on citizenparker.com – sorry to everyone that normally tunes in for the deafening silence I usually feature prominently. I will do my best to resume to your regularly scheduled nothing whatsoever.

Tonight the open beta for Champions Online wrapped up. I would like to point out something very important – there are two things you cannot do in Champions that you CAN do in Marvel Ultimate Alliance:

Throw another player.
Jump into a bottomless pit. (Also, combining 1 with 2)

Despite this, there is still a marvelous amount of jumping, smashing, and questing.

I may write up a bit more about it in the next few days, but until then this photoessay must suffice (as always here on the citizen, random comments when you hover on the images too)

Flying and preparing to throw a Humvee. It hurts. A lot.

Flying and preparing to throw a flower cart at a GIANT robot. You may think “Hmm... Scott character’s special power must have been flying and throwing things.” That’s not true though – he was also pretty good at throwing things while standing, it just didn’t make for such great photo opportunities.

This picture is a bit ugly, but it gives you some idea of just how gigantic that robot from the previous pic is. Those bright yellow things are his feet.

Downtown Millennium City looks a lot like the Agency HQ from Crackdown. So naturally, I had to find the tallest building and jump off of it.

The highlight of the evening was a battle against a GM-controlled villain “Cryptonaut” who was particularly mouthy, and particularly hard-to-kill. So of course, once we brought him face down into the pavement I organized an impromptu dance party.

A Cataclysm Long Overdue

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:32:44 -0600

Over the past few days I decided it was time to get acquainted with a few big name MMOs that I had never really tried out: Age of Conan, and Champions Online. Oh, well, and this third MMO I had never played, but we’ll get to that one. You may have heard of it.

The introductory bits of Age of Conan are as good as people say. You start as a slave who is recently “freed” by a shipwreck, and within minutes of washing ashore you are dashing through the jungle on your first quest, to murder the only man that knows your true identity.

It’s engrossing. My character immediately has a purpose, and a quest that is directly important to him. You are doing interesting things right away. I immediately transitioned from the beach to the forest as I tracked my prey.

Champions Online follows a similar bent, although the execution leaves a bit to be desired. You start off in a sealed zone of Millenium City that is under attack by alien invaders. Within minutes of starting in this tutorial area, you are repelling the alien invasion, saving civilians, and meeting with the mayor. And you feel GODLIKE, even if you don’t necessarily understand the intricacies of what you’re doing. (Many people find some of the particular concepts and character attributes poorly explained, and I have to agree entirely despite being once familiar with the pen & paper RPG it’s based on)

Both games reminded me strongly of my experience with Warhammer Online. As a Warrior Priest for the Empire, by the time I had hit level 5, I had:

Relocated to a visually different area
Run a few quests, both of the “Kill X” variety as well as a few “Rescue the blah” type
Participated in a Public Quest (a raid-style encounter open to everyone)
Fought in a Player-versus-Player scenario
Learned the overall purpose of my character’s existence

The game designers behind these three very different titles all understood one thing: the introductory moments of your game are what sells them to a player. They should provide a sense of the character’s place in the world, give them interesting things to do, and in short answer the question “Why should I continue to play this game?”

About that third game. I decided it was time I finally try out the “gold standard” of MMOs that I would constantly hear all others compared against. It was time to play World of Warcraft.

I’m sure when it came out in 2004, it was enough for players to be dumped in a village and receive a dozen “Kill X Wolves” quests without any kind of overarching justification behind what made your character wake up one day, grab a club, and start grinding out XP. Certainly compared to the likes of EverQuest, that’s a wealth of background and detail. But even by 2005 you had City of Heroes and Guild Wars, each of which provided me more compelling reasons to begin questing.

But WoW has a reputation for being amazing, for paying back dividends many times for what you put into it. I took it on faith that my experience would improve, and Boozleboo the Shaman wandered out to the hills where creatures lazily stood around waiting to be killed. Keep in mind in other games I was already killing for some good reason, killing something that posed some threat against me or my kind. But here I’m collecting feathers and talons from mostly harmless creatures. Heroic.

Eventually I grind out enough of these quests that its time for me to move beyond the modest Tauren village and up the road. I made it to the next larger-but-otherwise-visually-identical village to start talking to people and gathering quests.

Aside from feeding a dog, they were all “Kill X creatures” quests with threadbare narrative behind or connecting them. Again.

Once the dog was fed, I plonked away at my other quests halfheartedly. Once I reached that second village, the tale of Boozleboo the Shaman ended before it began. While this kind of experience was probably good enough five years ago, in 2009 it’s a far different story. I need some variety in quest, setting, and/or narrative. I need some explanation as to why I am in the world and what goals I’m supposed to be working towards.

So this is where the story ends. Or at least, it would have ended had I wrote this yesterday as intended. Instead, Blizzard announced a new expansion on Friday, Cataclysm. It contains many tweaks to the five year old game, but let me quote this choice bit from Eurogamer’s writeup on the expansion:

Every single zone on the levelling path from 1 to 60 will be revamped with updated quests, art, and items.

I applaud Blizzard for finally taking this step. As it currently stands, the introductory areas are in poor shape. If they are intended to answer the question of “Why should I continue to play?”, the current answer seems to be a confused shrug before wandering off to high-level content.

If nothing else, add some more dog feeding quests.
-Scott

Please welcome my new sponsor

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:17:24 -0600

A fortnight ago, I promised an ad for an exciting new product.

WELL, SIR, A PARKER NEVER FORGETS HIS DEBTS!

Now that your appetite has been roused by this tasty hors d’heurve, it’s time you find out more about yarr_sync.

If you would like your product to be featured on this website, please refer to the Terms of Sale.

-Scott

Terms of Sale

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:48:40 -0600

Here’s three things this blog isn’t:

Frequently updated
Visited
Captivating

I’m at peace with this. Minimalist design for a frankly minimalist blog. But those three attributes should pretty much spell “Advertising Poison.” Advertisers should avoid this site just as much as I avoid them. But a key exception is if you’re trying to game Google.

Enter Linkstar UK. I get an email from “Joseph” that makes it pretty clear that someone actually looked at this site for a few minutes, and wants my blog not despite the aforementioned conditions but because of them.

Some brief Googling turns up some interesting tidbits about Linkstar UK. My email lacks the concrete offer given to Ed, but contains the same bizarre “STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL” footer despite the fact that it’s unwarranted solicitation.

There’s also another, more investigative approach to Linkstar UK.

So no, I won’t do SEO. Sorry.

As I expect this to be the first of a veritable torrent of advertiser pleas to me, allow me to set forth my terms here to Linkstar as well as all future requests. I am beyond serious on these terms. As long as I do not find your product not morally reprehensible (e.g. eugenics or something), I will gladly agree to this.

Any ad must be done by me in MS Paint, no exceptions. I may use Paint.NET at my sole discretion, but it implies no increase in ad quality. If you would like a sample, please see below an ad for a fictional product “EGGZ” (I also reserve the right to introduce the motto “Give it unto my mouth!” and/or the character “Mister Barnsworth” into the ad as appropriate. These will remain my intellectual property licensed to the advertiser for the sole purpose of the advertisement if so)
No amount of page views is promised or should be expected. In fact, if it is possible for your ad to somehow be viewed negative times (perhaps I travel back in time and kill my past self before making your ad, I dunno) then you should expect that.
Fee is payable upon posting.

So Joseph, if you’re reading this, consider this my offer. I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
-Scott Parker

This blog post was written by Scott Parker and is considered EXTREMELY UNCONFIDENTIAL. So not-confidential, in fact, that it is solely licensed for public broadcast and performance. Any private readings of this by individuals or groups constitutes a violation of the citizenparker.com Terms of Service.

What I’ve Been Up To Lately

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:18:19 -0600

Ye Olde Blog has been Ye Olde Quiet As Hell lately. What have I been up to recently, besides redesigning this blasted website yet again?

That, pretty much. Very rough cut at the moment, don’t read too much into it. A few thoughts:

In no manner does it connect to Twitter, or will it, ever. I did flagrantly rip off the classic Twitter “What are you doing?” question, however.
I’m writing this in WPF, which is a marvelously fun technology. Prior to this I had written Windows apps in QT, FLTK, WinForms, and even good ol’ MFC/COM. I had pretty much resigned myself to unending pain each time I had to write a desktop app. (Maybe that’s what drove me to the web? Hmm)
(More like a 2b) WPF is really fast to develop in. I’m pretty shocked. Once I know more about what I’m doing, I could be pretty dangerous.

I’m signing off for now, however. I managed to sneak into the Cities XL beta, and I can’t wait to give it a spin. I grabbed mine via Massively (who juuust now ran out), but you can still grab some via CVG I believe.

-Scott

Some Quick Thoughts on the Iranian Elections

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:35:00 -0600

The recent Iranian election has kept me preoccupied the past few days. I can’t recall being so interested in the outcome of a foreign election, and that was even before the many forms of popular outrage against the results. Many videos and images have come from such protests, but this seems by far the best.

(via Huffington Post)

I know that I’m a hopeful, naive young thing, but I still find this immensely moving. Yes, the size of the movement is impressive, but take a closer look at the face of those involved. Far as I can tell, I see young and old, male and female, all coming together in a moment of unity.

Their situation is still incredibly dangerous and fragile, so I don’t mean to paint this as entirely roses and wine. I can’t fathom the courage required for such a thing from the reform candidates themselves all the way down to the protestors in the streets. But this certainly gives me hope, especially when creeps like Nick Griffin are elected to office in more open, less oppressive countries.

If you too are interested in following the coverage on this, I can’t recommend niacINsight enough.

-Scott

Launchy – Clever software, cleverer soliciting

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:42:49 -0600

Recently I was caught up in a frenzy of mouseless-computing hysteria. While the dream of going mouse-free has yet to be (Microsoft CRM, could you be any keyboard-unfriendlier?), one of the pure joys of this journey has been stumbling upon Launchy. It’s a delightfully free tool for Linux and Windows that acts as an intelligent, configurable application & document launcher. It’s hot stuff.

I won’t go into the specifics of why it rules here – there’s plenty of other, better writeups of that on the net. I’ll simply offer as proof that within a week after I installed it upon my work computer, the Start Menu was deprecated on every machine I owned.

Instead, I want to talk about where Launchy is particularly clever – the marketing pitch. Launchy is open-source software, so it’s free to use without ever paying a dime. I had installed it, and merrily tottered along launching programs willy-nilly. After a few weeks of near-continuous usage, I hit Win-Space to bring it up, and there was a pause.

My heart skipped a beat. However, after a brief delay, the Launchy Donations page opened in a new IE window with the following, simple text:

Please help this poor grad student to put ramen on the table. I greatly enjoy developing Launchy, and I hope that you enjoy using it. It's free to use, but if you think Launchy is a worthwhile application, I would sure appreciate your support. This webpage will only appear once per installation of Launchy.
Thanks!
Josh Karlin

It took me a moment to register what was happening. If you think about it though, this strikes me as a great and relevant software model in the “everything is free” software age we live in. Disagree? Compare to the problems Launchy would have had with the traditional approaches:

Registration-ware: This could have required a registration, either up-front or after some period. The downside of this approach is that knowing I’m using a time-limited version, or that I have to register in advance, is a massive barrier to entry. This is doubly-true for an application like Launchy - an “An Open Source Keystroke Launcher” is one of those products that fulfills a need you didn’t know you had, so the barrier to entry has to be as low as possible.
Nag-ware: Launchy could have very easily entered a “Please donate” or “You are using an unregistered copy” reminder to every launchy window. The problem with applying something like that to Launchy is that, as I said, it’s solving a problem I didn’t know I had until it showed me. As a result, I need a little time to get familiar and comfortable with it, like a pair of new underwear. All that time, I’m being reminded to donate via an on-screen message. It goes from something I actively ignore (hey, I don’t even really know what this does, leave me alone kthxbye) to something I don’t even see by the time I actually appreciate the product.
Disable-ware: This probably goes without saying, but when software I know and love shuts itself off, that generates anger – not the desire to spend money. Yet Launchy could have easily taken this path. Since Launchy’s usage (launches programs) becomes such an integral part of one’s computer habits, in a way this would feel like my computer had been taken hostage by Mr. Karlin in exchange for some PayPal donation. Again, I don’t think this model is appropriate for any kind of software, but I think that’s doubly true for something like Launchy, since it acts as a gateway to every other piece of software on my machine.

Now I’m probably not the first one to recognize this and I’m probably over-analyzing this just a bit. It comes down to this, really: the three approaches above almost never, ever work on me. But the gentle & innovative Launchy one-time reminder? Worked like a charm, even as the American economy is feeling a bit wobbly and throwing up over the rails of the SS Global Economy.

Clearly, Mr. Karlin has given his “business model” some thought here – perhaps more software developers professional and open-source alike should as well.

-Scott

Even Dr. Quinn Can’t Save the Rocky Mountain News

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:18:00 -0600

It’s a telling time for the newspaper industry when even the grand ole’ New York Times is relying upon a “last man standing” strategy. Sadly, another newspaper had no such luck and so today the Rocky Mountain News called it quits, writing their own obituary. Sad stuff, and I wish those impacted all the best.

However, when you dig through the comments on that page (why do I always read comments?), one particular user “DrQuinnFan2009” took it particularly hard:

I am a huge Dr. Quinn fan and with the news finding out that the Rocky Mountain News is closing up shop makes me very very sad. Dr. Quinn was set in Colorado Springs right after the civil war and I can't remember if the Rocky Mountain news was mentioned during the show being that I've only seen the show all the way through only once but still it hurts and kind of hits me pretty hard. I am planning to move to Colorado in the future and knowing that a newspaper that was around before the civil war set in Colorado like in Dr. Quinn just makes me very very sad. I realize that I'm repeating myself but I just can't believe someone couldn't bail you guys out..Where is Dorothy Jennings when you need her the most ;)

I’ll get around to writing a real post one of these days. Perhaps. Until then, ta ta.
-Scott

Hello, old friend. We meet again.

scott.p.parker.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (sparker) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:48:00 -0600

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, and thought as a child.

When I became a man, I started a blog.

citizenparker.com lives again.

-Scott