New year 2007!

Note: This is an old post in a blog with a lot of posts. The world has changed, technologies have changed, and I've changed. It's likely this is out of date and not representative. Let me know if you think this is something that needs updating.

Today is the start of the new year. I went through my web-site and updated a bunch of stuff to reflect changes in status, direction, and what's coming up. I also spent some time updating my resume.

Writing resumes is a pain in the ass. I've done a lot of stuff and it's hard to prove that I did it and that I did it well since most of it is locked behind NDAs and Confidentiality agreements and all that. Even if it wasn't, it's a lot of stuff and I only remember bits and pieces of it and I don't remember all the gory details. The whole thing feels like marketing: "Hire me because it'll be AWESOME!"

I threw in a section of technology smorgasbord--acronyms, "technologies", applications, ... blah blah blah. Most people have all that stuff on their resume regardless of whether they have much experience with it. It's hard to know how to get across my experience/knowledge level in those things--am I an expert or just an advanced user? If I under-rate myself to err on the side of accuracy, will a company skip over me because their HR department is looking for people with 25 years of Java experience?

It's hard to get across in a resume that I work pretty hard, I work pretty smart, and I get along with other people pretty well. It's hard to get across that I'm somewhat quiet but I work hard at communicating comprehensively and accurately without overloading someone with lots of stuff. It's hard to get across that the people I've worked with over the years really liked working with me and that together we've done a lot of really great stuff, but for some reason it doesn't seem as great when I look at the things other people my age have accomplished. It's hard to get across that over the last 10 years, I've grown a lot and so far I keep growing--I am not a stick in the mud. It's easy to get across that I really love this stuff and that I practically dream about it because I can say that in a single sentence.

The only evidence I have that's publicly available is the work I've done on Lyntin and PyBlosxom. I cut a lot of teeth on Lyntin, but I'm really happy with where I left it. I'm not as happy with PyBlosxom, but I think that's mostly just a function of how much work I wanted to do versus how much time I actually spent on it.

My resume is here. I'm Will Guaraldi and I'm looking for a job in May 2007.

Want to comment? Send an email to willkg at bluesock dot org. Include the url for the blog entry in your comment so I have some context as to what you're talking about.