What not to put on your resume

[yesthattom]

Dude, I'm so smart, I know how to use chmod!
http://linux.ucla.edu/~leiz/pictures/wtf/i_know_chmod.jpg

(It's a unix thing, you wouldn't understand.)

Comments

[nulldevice.livejournal.com]

Hey, I once saw a guy list "finger" on his resume.

[cos]

What's this? He knows how to upload and download, but he only knows how to chmod and not how to chown? I think you should send him a letter saying you're not considering him because of his lack of experience with chown.

That resume deserves a "special" interview form...

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

#!/bin/sh
# Generate Interview form 0.1
cd /bin
for file in `ls`; do
echo "Do you know $file?\tY | N"
done

[beowabbit]

I also find it entertaining that HTML and CSS (and SVG) are “Programming Language Skills” (and that XML is listed in a separate section, under “Language Skills”. If I were evil, I would enjoy interviewing this person. Oh, wait – I am! OK, I would enjoy interviewing this person.

[geekchick]

Oooh, both FTP *and* "Upload/Download"?

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Frighteningly enough, that really does seperate him from some of the people who apply for SysAdmin jobs.

I once interviewed a SysAdmin who couldn't tell me what TCP/IP stood for. I had to resist the temptation to ask if he could spell it. Mind you, this guy was not coming in at the ground level, but looking to make 60K in a position calling for "solid Unix SysAdmin skills."

Re:

[stormsweeper.livejournal.com]

One of the "network" guys where I work at didn't know what ftp stood for. And he was a comp sci major, allegedly.

Things people should know

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

aliza250 used to tell some good tales of ignorant IT professionals she had to educate -- mostly programmers. Maybe she still tells them, if we're lucky.

I remember my first programming job (I'm not sure I was even officially even a programmer yet -- I may have still been a GS4 Computer Tech), when I got dragged along to visit the contractors hired to design the app that would run on our network (UUCP) of Intel 310 machines running Xenix. I leaned over a Trained And Experienced Professional Programmer's shoulder, glanced at his COBOL code, and said, "You can't do that."

"I can't do what?"

"You can't put IBM PC 'extended ASCII' line and box drawing characters into that string literal."

"Sure I can!"

"Not on a system that'll be using at least two different types of dumb terminal, neither of which have the same upper-128 characters, to display your application, you can't."

"What do you mean, 'dumb terminal'? What's that?"

Ooooooh shit. "Do you know what multitasking is?"

Blank look.

"Are you using record locking?"

Blank look.

"Have you ever used a multi-user computer?"

"Uh ... no?"

And it got rapidly worse from there.

Apparently their training taught them that all computers ran MS-DOS. My boss was a little freaked out, but he was glad that he'd included me on the visit.


(Later, one of their programmers got a desk in our building and a terminal attached to our Xenix system. He had so much trouble understanding the concept of subdirectories that I wound up making the "Adventure shell" his login shell. "You are in your home. There are files here named mbox, notes, and letter1. There are passageways labelled tmp and src, and a passageway leading up." "Go up" "You are in /usr. There are passageways labelled..." How did an MS-DOS 2.2 programmer not understand directories?)

Oops

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

Uh oh. I just let on that I'm old enough to have used MS-DOS 2.2 and that I know COBOL. There goes my image as an unsullied youngster.

Re:

[stormsweeper.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

So I forwarded this pic to a few of my coworkers. A mini-thread started with various jokes. At some point, our CTO sent this along:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [CTO man]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 10:36 AM
> To: [various coworkers]
> Subject: RE: Other skills:chmod
>
>
> # mv this_email_chain /dev/null

to which I replied "I hope [CTO man] doesn't have root to any of our key machines..."

Lo and behold, in showing someone such a thing was possible, he actually made a file and did a mv to /dev/null...

[lothie.livejournal.com]

BWAHAHAHAHA*thunk*

[krikket.livejournal.com]

Ouch....

[airshipjones.livejournal.com]

I was so so disappointed he didn't mention vi. But then I would expect he would know it. I prefer pico myself, but I don't list things like that on my resume....

[cpj.livejournal.com]

I wonder how the whole "upload/download" thing played in the interview...

Q: Do you know xmodem?
A: Yes.
Q: How about ymodem?
A: Yes, that too.
Q: Zmodem.
A: Yes, I have training on that one.
Q: Sorry, I think you're over-qualified.

[maryheather.livejournal.com]

Did he also list proficence in obscure acronyms under "Programming Language Skills"... like PEBKAC and 1337 h4x0r?

[sweh.livejournal.com]

I would guess he's a Photoshop user who knows "web design" on his Mac and was forced to ftp his files to a Unix machine and chmod the results so the web server could read the files. His "Unix/Linux" knowledge would be "cd, ls, rm, more" (although more likely he browses the Unix filesystem via his GUI FTP client) and doesn't understand why he does what he does.

For some "web developers" that's heavy scarey stuff!

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

"My background of successful skills across multi-functional areas, can benefit you."

But not my command of grammar, or my ability to avoid contentless buzzwords. :)