CV (original) (raw)
footpad ruminative
January 19 2008, 10:41
Since it was mentioned over coffee that The Bank had a probable job for me, I've been in quiet negotiations with the relevant boss. He asked me for my CV (resumé) for the recruitment formalities, so I tweaked it to make it look like I have competence in the job, and I sent it on to him. (No deceit there—he knows what I can and can't do.)
It's still by no means certain that I'll go for this job—lots to discuss with Aki and Mischa—but, if I do, it'll be yet another job that was acquired by recommendation and word-of-mouth rather than by my CV. My CV hasn't actually gotten me a job since I left university in 2000 (and even then it's dubious, since I was hired by a goofy manager who'd take on anybody). The consequence is that I no longer really know how to write the damned thing.
For a start, what do I put in it? Though I was a late starter, I've been working and playing with UNIX systems for over ten years now. Being bright and curious, I've learned an awful lot about an awful lot of things. At the same time, I don't have clear expertise in anything: I'm a vast bucket of partial competencies. A jack-of-all-trades. A Swiss-army geek. What can I do? I don't even know any more. And if I did know, it wouldn't fit on a CV. I can't really do anything, but I can sort of do anything.
Recruiters are wearily familiar with the phrase, "I don't know but I can learn," and they've learned to dismiss it by reflex. Unfortunately for me, my great strength is that I don't know but I can learn—I have enough miscellaneous background knowledge to pick up more or less any UNIX-y job and run with it, and in most of my jobs I've done exactly that. My great strength; and it looks like a weasel excuse when you write it on a CV.
Just as well the CV never seems to be what gets me the job.