What criteria do you use when deciding to add a language (Java, C ... ) to your resume?

Question

How do you decide when a new language you're picking up is ready to go on your resume?

Answer 1

Can you think in it?

If you can't do a whiteboard problem in this language without wondering about how to compose a particular construct, it doesn't belong on your resume.

Answer 2

To me, it is when i feel confident enough in a language that I would be able to work with the language in an interview, without having to consult any documentation for simple functions, and also be able to use the documentation provided with the language to do more complex functionality (GUI, etc.)

Answer 3

I think that you have to balance having a sufficient amount of knowledge in the programming language to be able to easily type trivial / basic code from memory, understand all basic functions / primitive types / etc, but also knowing how to reference the more tedious / specific stuff via docs / a published API

Answer 4

As a rule of thumb, I wouldn't add anything that I haven't worked with (i.e. used to solve non trivial problems) for a minium of 240 hours - which is about 2 working months.

Anything less than that I wouldn't put on a CV.
Things I haven't used in a long time, that would take considerable ramp up time for me I take off my CV before I go job hunting.

e.g. I used to know VxRexx like the back of my hand, but that was 15 years ago. It's no longer on my list of technologies.

Answer 5

Be honest about the time you've spent working in the new language (in months; if it's more than a year, you don't have to worry about it) and emphasize your interest in using the language moving forward.

Just having the keyword on your resume will help you get interviews. Be clear, though, about how much experience you actually have. For new languages, no one has lots of experience anyways.

Answer 6

I think there's a difference between "knowing" a language and being able to show you've "used" it. A resume should be more for telling your potential employer what you've worked on, what you accomplished, rather than just listing a bunch of skills.

When I look at resumes from potential candidates, I skip right over the section called "Technical Skills". Anyone can copy and paste or add a skill there liberally. I don't care what they've read about or studied -- I want to see what they've done with it.

If you don't have much real world experience with a language, create yourself a project, and list it under "Experiements" or "Personal Projects". Or get involved with an open source project using your skills and list that under "Community Development". Show me your accomplishments, not just a min numbing list of acronyms.

Answer 7

Where are you putting it on the resume? As far as "languages known", sure, list it once you're comfortable building projects in it without referencing the basic documentation continually. As far as "work experience", it only goes there if you used it at the job.

Maybe answering a parallel question: never put a language on your resume that you don't want to use, no matter how well you know it. If you learned Visual Basic in college but detest it - same goes for Lotus Notes - don't ever let that ink hit the page. Otherwise, it will return to haunt you.