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Interviewing with the Technical Staff

Developers and other technical staff are a hard sell (more so than Hiring Managers and Recruiters) with a resume. This might be because a lot of them (not all of them, but a decent amount) don’t have much experience with reviewing resumes or interviewing. They know what position needs to be filled, but they might not understand how that position translates into a written resume (lots of developers get into computer science because they don’t like reading and writing, right?). There might be a lack of understanding as to the responsibilities of the job, or what’s really required. Developers and other technical staff tend to have more bias as well – preference for certain educational backgrounds, technologies, or skillsets over others.

Reviewing resumes and hiring probably aren’t their primary job responsibilities, either. They may look at this as an annoyance or something that keeps them from doing their real job. Knowing this, you’re going to have to work harder to appeal to the technical staff. Whereas the hiring manager might be on your side, the technical staff may not be.

For this audience, geeked-out terms can be effective, probably even more than for recruiters and hiring managers, because the developers and technical staff are right there in the thick of it. A manager may not have actually done any of the items you listed in the recent past; a developer likely does it on a daily basis (in the office or in their spare time). So, again, don’t be afraid to use technical terms in your resume. However, be prepared to talk about anything you have on your resume with the developers. The ones reviewing the resume are probably the same ones that will interview you, and they will be quick to question you on anything that is odd or ostentatious.

To impress the developer, you need to do a few things:

  1. Get your point across convincingly. If you make a claim, be prepared to back it up if you’re called for a phone screen or they bring you in for an interview. If you say you worked intensely with a programming language, application, or technology, you should be able to answer lots of questions about it – especially if the person asking the questions has lots of experience in it (and chances are, they do).
  2. Lots of people of the technical persuasion feel that the less time they have to spend on your resume, the better. Be informative, but be succinct.
  3. The more technical your descriptions are, the better you’ll fare with the technical staff. Remember, this is the stuff they do every day. They’ll appreciate the technical nuances more than the other people reviewing your resume.
  4. Don't be afraid to say, "I don't know" if you don't know.

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