Well, seeing that my success rate over 25 years (not counting my first job the i got via a return offer from a internship) is also 100% across looking for a job 9 times as far as send my email to a recruiter -> get an interview with only two pages at most, I think I’m doing pretty good.
Admittedly before 2020, those were local recruiters with local jobs.
> It could be any number smaller/larger as long as it gives all the details (at varying levels)
Let’s say I was looking for a job next year. I wouldn’t want to use my one hour I have with an interviewer to talk about anything I did before 2016. I’m looking for high level staff roles at small to medium companies. I want the entire conversation to be about signaling that I have competencies with leading a project from initial discovery with stakeholders to implementation and getting it done on time, on budget and meets requirements.
I also want to signal that while my breadth in my chosen ___domain is wide and I’m going to highlight projects that show that breadth, I’m not a paper tiger who can’t do hands on keyboard software development or “cloud engineering”. I can demonstrate that easily in 2 pages by leaving off anything before 2016.
Within those 10 years I can demonstrate a steady growth from being a barely competent lead developer, to being an architect at a startup, to consulting and working on projects with increasing “scope”, “impact”, and “ambiguity”.
> As i already mentioned, the current HR way of doing Recruiting is broken.
Even if recruiting is broken , it’s a “gravity problem. Just because you may not like gravity, if you jump out of 50 story building, you will die. While I’ve avoided the leetCode grind, I’ve played the “how to be successful at system design and behavioral interviews” game with aplomb. You adapt to the reality
>So being an outlier in this case is good.
Or you can just be an outlier by having a skill set and experience that sets you apart from the crowd in whatever niche you decided to pursue.
> Also in a paradoxical way, this breaks the ice and becomes a conversation starter.
The last thing I want to do is discuss how cool it was programming in Fortran in the 90s. I once had an interviewer ask me a “trick question” about C in 2014 for a C# development position. Even at the time I was six years removed from any C programming. I answered it and got the job. But that was a distraction from the narrative I was trying to convey. My single focus at an interview is to demonstrate that I have both the soft and hard skills that make me fit for the role.
> For example; compare "Expertise in C++ programming" vs. "Expertise in C++ in Multi-paradigm designs with focus on performant code". A few additional words but orders of magnitude information.
Not really, the latter sounds like the fluffy “I work well with people”. I communicate my expertise on my resume by telling how I used my knowledge to achieve an outcome.
Again, you are not saying anything new at all with this wall of text. You can claim any competency you want but that has to be evaluated and judged by the Interviewer's (and his team's) standards. This is the key; since your opinion of yourself does not count for that much, you provide all the info. you can to the Interviewer so they can pick up on it and dig deeper on all aspects (coding, designing, requirements specification, system architecture etc.) as needed.
Also a lot of words/phrases you have used above are general platitudes. By themselves they mean nothing unless you can tie them to a specific usecase/experience from your CV which should contain the details. Both the "Forest" i.e. big picture/business need/overall system/architecture/etc. details and "The Trees" i.e. languages/tools/libraries/frameworks/techniques/etc. matter.
You have to deal with Reality even if it is broken but you can do it differently than the norm (but stand out on the positive side) and get excellent results. To paraphrase a wellknown saying; "It is no measure of health to be adjusted to a profoundly sick [recruiting process]".
> The last thing I want to do is discuss how cool it was programming in Fortran in the 90s. ... But that was a distraction from the narrative I was trying to convey. My single focus at an interview is to demonstrate that I have both the soft and hard skills that make me fit for the role.
This depends on what i am interviewing you for. As pointed out above, my requirements/needs trump your view/opinions of the role.
As an example, my very first job was implementing a Personnel Information System using Cobol85 on a Cyberdata mainframe. Using Structured Analysis and Design methods (this was before OO became mainstream) I implemented a RDBMS inspired design using ISAM files and also a UI using ansi escape codes. So even though i do not remember much of the Cobol language itself i remember the design which is still useful today. Hence i can demonstrate knowledge of Relational Theory/RDBMSes as needed. This is only possible if it were listed in the CV in the first place.
> Not really, the latter sounds like the fluffy “I work well with people”.
You have failed the test. This only shows you have no business evaluating any resume for a C++ developer. It is actually an advanced expertise which most good interviewers understand and appreciate and design teams need.
Admittedly before 2020, those were local recruiters with local jobs.
> It could be any number smaller/larger as long as it gives all the details (at varying levels)
Let’s say I was looking for a job next year. I wouldn’t want to use my one hour I have with an interviewer to talk about anything I did before 2016. I’m looking for high level staff roles at small to medium companies. I want the entire conversation to be about signaling that I have competencies with leading a project from initial discovery with stakeholders to implementation and getting it done on time, on budget and meets requirements.
I also want to signal that while my breadth in my chosen ___domain is wide and I’m going to highlight projects that show that breadth, I’m not a paper tiger who can’t do hands on keyboard software development or “cloud engineering”. I can demonstrate that easily in 2 pages by leaving off anything before 2016.
Within those 10 years I can demonstrate a steady growth from being a barely competent lead developer, to being an architect at a startup, to consulting and working on projects with increasing “scope”, “impact”, and “ambiguity”.
https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html
> As i already mentioned, the current HR way of doing Recruiting is broken.
Even if recruiting is broken , it’s a “gravity problem. Just because you may not like gravity, if you jump out of 50 story building, you will die. While I’ve avoided the leetCode grind, I’ve played the “how to be successful at system design and behavioral interviews” game with aplomb. You adapt to the reality
>So being an outlier in this case is good.
Or you can just be an outlier by having a skill set and experience that sets you apart from the crowd in whatever niche you decided to pursue.
> Also in a paradoxical way, this breaks the ice and becomes a conversation starter.
The last thing I want to do is discuss how cool it was programming in Fortran in the 90s. I once had an interviewer ask me a “trick question” about C in 2014 for a C# development position. Even at the time I was six years removed from any C programming. I answered it and got the job. But that was a distraction from the narrative I was trying to convey. My single focus at an interview is to demonstrate that I have both the soft and hard skills that make me fit for the role.
> For example; compare "Expertise in C++ programming" vs. "Expertise in C++ in Multi-paradigm designs with focus on performant code". A few additional words but orders of magnitude information.
Not really, the latter sounds like the fluffy “I work well with people”. I communicate my expertise on my resume by telling how I used my knowledge to achieve an outcome.