I think the only really uncommon thing here is that they're spending a full 15 seconds per resume. :)
When I put together a resume, I figure I have about 3 seconds to get them to decide to continue reading the resume. So I do my best to put in whatever it takes to accomplish that (within the bounds of truth).
No one reads a resume straight through; they skim for the highlights they want to see.
The more skimming passes you get them to make over your resume because you've kept their interest up, the more likely the interview.
And if you're thinking that a resume is a poor format for getting this job done, you're right. :)
Why don't you have a recruiter paring down the number of resumes dramatically so that you can actually give each one that passes that review adequate reading?
1. Recruiters are expensive.
2. It's hard to find a recruiter who doesn't increase your incoming resume volume without a corresponding increase on quality or fit. As far as I can tell recruitment has settled into a stable equilibrium of being a volume game.
The Fortune 500 one is a bit disconcerting. I know there are a lot of Fortune 500 developers that would not fit well in a startup, but there are plenty of interesting projects within many Fortune 500s where you would find great developers who would be great startup employees. You do say that you look for something else that catches your eye... but its hard to know what that may be and is probably a lot of chance.
You also state that you want to see "passion" for the technology they have used. I don't really know how to put that in a resume. I have a lot of passion for most of the tech I use- I think that would show within minutes during a conversation or interview. But I'm not confidant my resume really communicates it. Putting "I Love Python!!!" in my resume seems a bit over the top...
The fortune 500 one I qualified (as I mentioned to a couple other people who objected to this.) I understand why it's disconcerting, but in my position (small startup, small team, need to not waste 3-6 months on a bad hire) I need to increase my chances for a successful hire. Lots of bigcorp devs are used to having everything laid out for them. Early stage startups are unlikely to give the same structure.
Passion for tech - you are right that this is hard to boil down to a formula. I'm looking for people who exhibit signals like (for example) they read HN, have interests in learning languages beyond the ones they're comfortable in, have maybe messed around a little with hardware, were in technology clubs in high school or college, learned programming as a kid, have a hobby project, etc. It's not so much about the hours that people will put in, but rather their engagement / pride-in-work / creativity / ability to propose alternate-solutions, all of which are good things to have, and are easy to qualify for with "enjoys technology."
At least at my current job at a "boring" Fortune 500, we don't work that way at all. I'm sure there are plenty that do though. I guess if you are getting enough hires using your current system, there is certainly no reason to change it.
I suppose I should consider a way to indicate the I read Hacker News on my resume :) Thanks for responding, I may be able to improve my resume some by considering how to show more of those things. Right now, I focus a lot on Python in my resume, because that is my primary language of expertise and what I use every day. But I am very interested in Rust and various functional languages in general too.
I generally want to find people who have done more than just CRUD UIs, and show some passion about the technology they've built and worked with.
CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, Delete. Isn't every UI, at some level, a CRUD UI? A wiki is a CRUD UI. A recipe tracker is a CRUD UI. A custom CMS for a community organization is a CRUD UI. A custom web forum is a CRUD UI. Facebook is a CRUD UI.
Someone could reimplement Mediawiki, and you'd reject them because "it's just a CRUD UI?"
Everyone is biased, they just happen to be a little bit more upfront about it.
Frankly, I like that not everyone is conforming to the exact same hiring metrics. As somebody who's built dozens of personal projects (a few of which I've been able to monetize), this would have been precisely the kind of hiring manager that a younger version of me would have liked to see.
What is so horrifying? He's hiring startup developers who need self-direction.
Look like his rationale is if you can't speak high level and you can't resist over-engineering solutions; it isn't going to work out. That saves everyone time and sounds reasonable to me.
I qualified that by "over and over again" and "first half of first page". If you're switching from nothing but bigcorps to startups, you need to give me something on the resume to make me think that you can adapt to the cultural change.
it also depends on the companies. where i am now, big corporations work their engineers to exhaustion and teach them a very competitive attitude. that's not something i want in my small company. i need cooperation and mutual support, where developers back each other up and not try to gain favors with their manager at the expense of their teammates.
