[SWLUG] Re: 'windows lusers' or 'marketing droids

[Gareth Bowker]

On Sat, 2003-05-31 at 13:56, Rhys Sage wrote:

> I see the point about putting buzz words into a CV. I thought I'd got plenty
> of them in. What buzz words should I add to
> http://www.geocities.com/rhys_sage?

I don't think buzzwords are a problem with that CV. However, when I read
it, nothing in particular stands out - it seems to have a fair few
buzzwords in there, but nothing that suggests the experience that you
have. Saying you're "Used to" X can also be read as you used to do thing
X i.e. you no longer do it. Perhaps "Familiar with" would be a better
choice? Frankly, it seems so full of streams of different things
("Windows API, Windows Sockets, RTL, STL, VCL, Shell, TCP/IP, ABF and
Windows Networks") yet you don't actually say what you've done with
them. A lot of jobs say things like "At least 2 years C++ experience" -
if I look at your CV I don't know how much experience you have, nor any
specifics of what you've done. You mention the shareware stuff in
passing, however, from what I can tell this seems to be the main bulk of
your programming experience, yet you gloss over this. Remember, you're
trying to sell yourself!

> I see that ISO 9000 looks useful. Personally I thought that was just called
> "documentation".

ISO 9000 is a method of documentation, however, documentation is NOT
necessarily ISO 9000. It's a set of standards and "best practises".
Don't put down ISO 9000 unless you understand exactly what it is and are
confident that you meet all the criteria needed to be able to put it in
your CV.

> What other buzz words have crept in that I don't know anything about? Have
> "flowcharting", "program spec" or even "rough notes" been given strange
> new names?

Don't add buzzwords for buzzwords' sake. If you've got the skills you've
mentioned, then why aren't they in your CV as it stands?

Gareth

PS people tend to refer to networks by the cable types, not the
connector types: 

BNC	->	"10base2" or "Thin Ethernet"

RJ45	->	"10baseT/100baseT/1000baseT" or "Twisted Pair" or just
 		"Cat5"

or indeed just ignore the network type completely as very few companies
still use 10base2.
-- 
| Gareth Bowker           | <bowkerg at teccon.co.uk> |
| Software Engineer       | http://www.thetcl.com/ |
| Technology Concepts Ltd | +44 870 870 5088       |