Re: How to mention distant-past experience on a resume?

[Keith Hood <bus -dot- write -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I understand your point about the time warp. When Net computers were a new
thing I saw it. A relatively simple user machine that does almost nothing
but handle presenting the data on screen, and all the heavy lifting is done
by a server at the other end of the network. So, after 10 years of
development we came back to the mainframe/dumb terminal?

Happens in all kinds of fields. When I first saw the Space Shuttle I yelled
that was where the X15 had already been 20 years before.

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 5:30 PM, Helen OBoyle <hoboyle -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

> Keith,
>
> This year's magic silver bullet process often looks laughably like 15
> years ago's.  Cloud computing = today's timesharing.  Web services =
> today's remote procedure calls.  And so on.  A lot of the same thought
> processes and perspectives relevant to the earlier implementation of a
> paradigm also apply to the current implementation of it.
>
> Plus, there's the idea that certain types of experience are uncommon and
> that if you're looking for someone with it, you might be very glad to see
> that someone did a lot of work with a particular technology 20 years ago.
> Although IBM 370 Assembler is last "officially" on my resume in the mid
> 1980's, it's come in handy a few times since then.  Unless you're dealing
> with a startup just launched by a couple recent grads, there's no telling
> what legacy technology lurks behind the curtains in a company.  Plus,
> there's the "curiosity" factor.  I've had good conversations with hiring
> managers about programming Vectrex games and now-ancient UNIX internals.
>
> My resume is 3 pages long, and the first half of the first page is the
> "TL;DR" summary for those who don't want to flip pages.
>
> On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Keith Hood <bus -dot- write -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
>> Geology is not a good comparison. They don't change the way rock hammers
>> work every 2 years. When working with computers, software tool knowledge
>> is
>> very important, and is also very mutable. So are procedures. Seems like
>> someone comes out with a new magic silver bullet process that cures all
>> development cycle ills (except for the ones it creates) every 9 months or
>> so. Rocks are stable. High tech isn't.
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 4:16 AM, Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > I just don't agree that  20-year-old experience is automatically
>> > irrelevant. If someone worked for a few years as a geologist or
>> > industrial chemist or in the military that could be highly useful and
>> > applicable to certain TW roles.
>> >
>> > If anything some employers are swayed too much by past job titles. Bob
>> > used to work as an X, and everyone can write, so Bob can write our X
>> > manual.
>> >
>> > --- Stuart
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> > From: "Gene Kim-Eng"
>> > To:"Stuart Burnfield" , "Techwr-l" ,
>> > Sent:Sun, 30 Nov 2014 18:20:14 -0800
>> > Subject:Re: How to mention distant-past experience on a resume?
>> >
>> >  Look at that long past "relevant" experience and tear it down to its
>> >  component functions, then look for the more recent jobs you've had in
>> >
>> >  which you used those. The only person who's likely to be pulled in by
>> >
>> >  the fact that you "used to be" a programmer, lab tech or telecom
>> >  developer 20 years ago is the recruiter or HR drone who's skimming
>> > your
>> >  resume for key words (not that you don't have to attract that person,
>> >
>> >  but don't make the pandering too obvious). The real hiring manager is
>> >
>> >  going to be looking for something that shows you have skills that are
>> >
>> >  relevant to what's going to be in the contract now.
>> >
>> >  Gene Kim-Eng
>> >
>> >  On 11/30/2014 5:32 PM, Stuart Burnfield wrote:
>> >  >
>> >  > Instead, I'd mention the relevant-but-old experience in the cover
>> >  > letter or intro paragraph ("... experienced technical writer and
>> >  > former XXX") and list only the recent and relevant gigs in the body
>> > of
>> >  > the rÃsumÃ. If they're curious about when you got the XXX
>> > experience
>> >  > they can ask at the interview.
>> >
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