CV vs. README
Rejecting single page corporate distillation of the human experience.
Summary vs. Index
I’ve become indifferent on the importance of Curriculum Vitae. My CV tells you where I claim to have worked, for how long, corporate titles I have amassed, where I went to school, and skills I claim to have some proficiency in. My CV does not tell you who I am and how I think about things and how I approach problem solving and how I collaborate with and build teams.
My CV is summarized data about me. It is not information. It is a shiny brochure that maybe helps a future employer decide if they want to spend 15–30 minutes of their valuable time talking to me. I dread 15–30 minute interviews. But I digress. Which I often do. I think about a lot of stuff. Right. CVs? Yuck.
I am much more than a single page of my summarized accomplishments. I keep an index of links to interesting content I have produced and initiatives I am currently, or have been previously involved in. I share things I think may be helpful for others to learn. This may be links to blogs, articles, slide decks, videos, open source projects I contribute to. I keep these links updated in a README on GitHub.
I’d rather spend an hour or two talking to a potential future employer or client based on the actual content I have produced that they found interesting. Nothing really interesting about a person’s life experience can be discussed in 15–30 minutes. I can tell you where I worked, and for how long, and how I contributed the key recipe for success to every single project and team I ever worked on in about 5–10 minutes. I could summarize this for you in my CV, but if that is all you are interested in, then I probably wouldn’t find you interesting enough to work with anyway. I can save both of us 15–30 minutes and wait to connect with someone who is looking to collaborate on making a positive impact on the world.
My index is out there, waiting for folks to discover. I shouldn’t need to send a CV to get someones attention and interest. I appreciate a CV still may be required for HR records and background checks. This is CV used as a footnote, not a filter.
I haven’t updated my CV since 2016, which is the last time I changed employers. I updated my README this week. I update my README every time I do something new and interesting.
I believe every software developer, just like every software project we work on, should have a README that we keep up to date.
My two cents.
I am the creator of and committer for the Eclipse Collections OSS project, which is managed at the Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse Collections is open for contributions.
