Building a Better Resume for Developers

Just ran accross this interesting blog entry, Building a Better Resume for Developers, that talks about a more lively version of a Resume.  I like the idea, but it makes me wonder, how do you "deliver" such a resume ?

• Do I snail mail some kind of e-book to prospective employer ?
  
• Do I simply e-mail a link to the Coder's CV ?
  
• Some people LIKE paper, how do I get a printout of these dynamic views ?
  
• What about those annoying sites some employers have that force you to put in text only information ?

I think we do need some kind of electronic resume these days in order to make ourselves easier to find and identify as a potential employee.  Just not sure what will work out in the long run.

In the meantime, I will keep on blogging, and figure out some way to put an executive summary/outline of who I am and what I've done that a prospective employer can quickly scan.

Blog continuity plan, what's that you say ?

I think that blogging is an excellent way for future employers to see what I've been up to in the past, and to get a more lively version of a resume.  Would you rather see a watered down 2 page resume that tells you nothing, or would you like to see what makes a person tick ?

It seems that a blog can give a pretty broad overview of what a person is like.  Provided of course that this person takes the time to write up opinions, status, pet-peeves and such.

Now, if you go with the premise that a blog is a valuable tool to communicate who you are and what you are about.  Then using your blog to tie all of your activities together seems to make a lot of sense.

One of those activities will be work, we all need to earn money and most of us are stuck doing it by working.  Some of us have made the decision to stay with one or two employers, some of us have been at multiple employers throughout our careers.  For some of us, our employers strongly suggest that we blog.  Of course this is done to help communicate information to your customers, but it also helps make the employer's site THE place to come to for information.

If having more than one blog is unavoidable, then should you not make sure that there is a thread that ties all of your blogs together?  This is what this blog is for to me.

Lets not forget also, that I can gain quite a bit from blogging on my employer's blog.  Take for example my current employer, Sun Microsystems.  Sun's web site is so high in rankings with Google, that anything coming off of it ends up being ranked pretty highly as well.  This means that Google searches will show my stuff pretty highly in the results list.  Try Googling for Eric Arseneau, almost all hits come to me.

The plan is to cross link between here and whatever blog I use with my current employer.  Therefore providing a path throughout my employment life :)

My first entry

I know, first entries are always boring.  But I just realized that I should have setup a personal blog a long time ago.  I have one with my current employer, Sun Microsystems @ Eric Arseneau's Blog.  But what happens if I leave Sun ?  I would like to have some continuity, and therefore here I am.

Note, the System Child reference is one that was given to me when I was in college, where I took over the good old Vax they had there.  I implemented an old style trojan horse, simulating the login process, in order to get user's passwords.  I did not have any malicious intent, I was simply told by the long term students there that there was no way I could ever get into their accounts.

One thing you dont do with me, is, say "it can't be done" :)  They learned their lesson and christened me System Child :)

Lets see how the experiment goes :)