Ask HN: Advice – WhoIsHiring – According to my profile, would you hire me?

13 points by theviajerock 10 years ago | 14 comments

I've been sending cv's for multiple job offers, mostly remote offers because in my country (Colombia) the payment is very low in general. Until now I've not been successful on it. I will put my simple website in here with some data about me, but first i will summarize some things.

Actual Work : I work at a bank in an area of databases management with multiple tools. This is a recent - well payed job in my country but is still very low for so many things that i want to do.

Previous Experience: I worked in a software development company in the team of infrastructure and later they allow me to start in web development. I strengthened my knowledge in things like:

- Linux - Windows administration - Databases like RethinkDb, Aerospike, OrientDb, Elasticsearch, DB2 - Python ( My favorite), Javascript ( I have more experience in Js than in Python) - JSON - IBM Domino Administration - IBM Websphere Portal Administration - Git (I learned by Myself)

My personal tastes: At the moment i am learning and improving my knowledge with FreeCodeCamp, learning AngularJs, NodeJs and other stuff. Some of the things that i most like are:

-Python -Javascript -Databases -Learn learn learn and if i can, teach. -Help with exciting things, projects that really make me want to work.

Personal projects that i want to do or that i am doing: - App (including mobile with Kivy, just for experience) - A crime map for my city. - A website to download videos, music, playlists from youtube with youtube-dl - A vacuum with Arduino

My Website:

Theviajerock.tk

I just want some advice... Or if you have some job, well.... Here i am!. (I am improving my English, sorry for the mistakes, i try to write perfectly but i know that i have mistakes on it)

My email is victorliferock (With Gmail)

darrelld 10 years ago |

Here are my 2c from looking at your website:

- It feels like you followed a series of tutorials and put these together. Anyone can do this and it doesn't make you stand out.

- The website doesn't feel very polished. You still have placeholder text for project 5 and 6.

- The instructions on the header telling me to click on the project images feels amateurish.

- I think your portfolio needs some work to make it stand out. I'm no resume expert but I have employed others and your resume makes me really have to stop and think if you'll be useful to my team. When I have pile of resumes on my desk and a series of other projects with deadlines I would pass on that resume and look at stronger ones. Yes I know it sucks but that is the reality. Focus more on selling your experience and previous work. What have you achieved that stands out? Don't just tell me the tools you used. Anyone reading a tutorial can use the tools.

- You mention English isn't your first language. Have an native English speaker review your writing with you if you can. While I couldn't pick out any glaring errors, everything felt a little off when reading it. Even if you didn't say English wasn't your first language here on HN I think I might have picked up on it and it would make me wonder how you could communicate clearly if you joined my team.

Hope these help. Best of luck!

theviajerock 10 years ago | |

That is great, i will think more deeply about the things that can stand me out, and i will build more interesting things... I definitely have to improve my website.

I followed a couple of tutorials, you are right... It is a bit difficult for me to be "creative" and build something original and striking... I have to improve this.

Thank you very much for your advice!

at-fates-hands 10 years ago |

In order for someone to see your site and think they want to hire you, you have to change the wording of your actual work experience.

Instead of saying, "I worked on a team who did A and B", you should highlight what you did, "I was the architect for the database and monitoring the network" or "I built a relational database using python which allowed our customer to store their data on our servers."

Your CV should be focused on what YOU did and what some of your tasks were and what technologies and tools you used. IF I'm going to hire you, I need a lot more detail about your capabilities. Did you work in an agile or waterfall environment? Did you work mostly independently with little supervision, or did you work and collaborate with other teams (designers, project managers, business leaders) and did you have to work out issue and be able to communicate effectively? Are you capable of working on tight timelines and meet your deadlines effectively?

You probably have the skills, you just have to communicate your capabilities and achievements a little better is all.

You should also get rid of the Inconsolata font, it makes your site look amateurish as others have pointed out. Here's a good article on other fonts you can pair that will look much more professional. Just switching your fonts out will help polish your site.

http://www.labnol.org/internet/best-google-font-combinations...

theviajerock 10 years ago | |

What a good advice man, I have to change the message I am trying to convey. I will put on practice all of this... I think that, like you said, I have the skills to do the work.

I changed the font and i am reading the article. Thanks a lot !

theviajerock 10 years ago |

I should clarify... My principal goal is not the money, but right now i need it for help my family to solve some things. The only thing that give me peace in this moment is to help my mom to be quiet, without stress and enjoying the life that she deserves, and i think that i can meet that by searching a job outside.

ldd 10 years ago | |

I hope others can help too, but I noticed that your sentences sound a little bit off. They seem directly translated from Spanish.

Here are some examples:

My principal goal (Mi principal objetivo)[My main goal]

not the money (no es el dinero)[not money]

need it for help my family to solve some things (lo necesito para ayudar mi familia a solucionar algunas cosas) [need it to help my family solve some things]

to help my mom be quiet(ayudar a mi mama a estar tranquila) [helping my mom have no worries]

and so on and so forth. As another comment suggests, you should have a native English speaker look over your CV, and overall grammar.

theviajerock 10 years ago | | |

I have to improve this, learn languages is something that i like to do too and i have to do it well. I try to practice every day reading things like news.ycombinator, Quora, Reddit etc. I appreciate your comment, very helpful.

zhte415 10 years ago | | |

Does this matter?

I don't think what your pointed out would be a hindrance in any way.

Having worked in a non native speaking environment for 10+ years, I've learnt that simple, plain expressions get the job done. This doesn't take a lot to learn, in fact, but does take a lot to impress on others, especially when they're used to wordy sentences and long complex presentations.

Worrying about sounding native gets in the way, and often confuses things. Based on the writing above, the OP has no reason to focus on English vs. other things. Sure it's great to add nuance, but this comes slowly with environment, it isn't a #1 priority.

aprdm 10 years ago |

https://twitter.com/Veeecktor you twitter links are broken

your site needs more personalisation, indeed it looks like the result of a tutorial.

you obviously know a lot of cool stuff :)

cheers

theviajerock 10 years ago | |

I fixed it!, i will improve the site soon... Sometimes i want to do so many things, that i don't know where to begin jeje.

Thank you for the help Man.

brwr 10 years ago |

This stuff doesn't make me want to hire you. I can find tons of people who have used Python and JavaScript.

Past performance is a good indicator of future performance. What have you accomplished?

theviajerock 10 years ago | |

That's a good point, i will work on this. Thanks a lot.

gesman 10 years ago |

How well do you know Linux system administration / scripting?

theviajerock 10 years ago | |

Well, I have learned about:

- Network configuration

- backups(rsync)

- Server monitoring, crontab for schedule tasks

- Troubleshooting (I used to hate so much trouble that I found, but I learn to love this and I like to solve problems)

- ssh

- Web (Apache, nginx),Dns,DHCP server's installation and configuration.

- Basic use of iptables

- Installation and configuration of software.

- User management.

- Containers like chroot or systemd-nspawn.

- Possibly other things, but I don't remember right now.

I was in a project at my previous work where I could put on practice all of this knowledge, we began installing Debian from zero (Without gui), partitioning the system with lvm, using chroot to build containers, installing other software inside that containers (Like RethinkDb, GlusterFs) and configuring Clusters. After that all the process was ready and tested, we automate it with bash scripts.

In my personal computer i use Debian and i do all the configurations and labs in the terminal, the true is that i like so much to work in this environment. I am improving my knowledge in Linux, so right now i am doing this http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/.

That is, i am not a senior Linux Administrator, but I've done well in my previous work. If you would like to know more or have another question, just tell me!