Career and job-search experts often caution job seekers to proof their resumes and make sure there aren't any typos. But recently, Marco Arment (pictured, right, at a laptop), who was Tumblr founder David Karp's first hire, posted to his blog
the resume that he used back in 2006 to get a job at the microblogging
social network. His resume was ordinary -- and contained errors. "I'm
embarrassed that I didn't know to use en dashes for the year ranges," he
wrote. (He used hyphens and em dashes instead. The full resume is posted below.)
The minor flub was, of course, no reflection of Arment's programming
abilities. The rest of his just- revealed 7-year-old resume is
chock-full of programming
credentials basically unintelligible to anyone outside the field. And
the website he helped create, and spent four years working at, Tumblr,
was bought last month by Yahoo for $1.1 billion. For his part, he
claimed that he isn't making "yacht-and-helicopter money from the
acquisition." But according to PrivCo,
a New York-based research firm that tracks the venture capital
industry, the average payout for Tumblr's first employees is around $6.2
million each, though he likely will earn more as Karp's first employee.
(In total, Tumblr has 178 employees.)
In addition to his en dash problem, Arment challenges other resume conventions with his 2006 CV. The resume that he submitted to Karp was two pages long, which as career coach Robyn Feldberg
told AOL Jobs, is only appropriate if you have "more than 15 years of
experience." Arment, however, used his two-pager just two years after
graduating from Allegheny College with a degree in computer science.
Interestingly, Arment's 2006 resume is also noteworthy because it's so
ordinary. The digital star employed no flashy gimmicks in his attempt to
woo Karp. That strategy stands in contrast with other memorable resumes that have been reported on by AOL Jobs.
Marco Arment, the Incredible
Of course, Arment's rise may be proof-positive that tech startups aren't
as strict about resume and other job-application conventions. And
recently, Arment's star has risen thanks to his success in the digital
marketplace. In just the past five weeks alone, Arment has seen three
startups that he helped create be bought out for millions, Business Insider reports. The two other startups that he helped create after leaving Tumblr in 2010, and which sold in April, are:
- Instapaper -- bought by Betaworks, which also owns Digg. Arment was the majority stakeholder the online "read later" tool he created in 2010 to help readers index webpages they want to save for later reading. The terms of the acquisition have not been released, but Business Insider speculates Arment made millions.
- The Magazine -- bought by its executive editor Glenn Fleishman. Arment created the The Magazine last October as a subscription-backed biweekly web magazine covering electronics. The terms of that deal have also not been disclosed, but soon after its launch, the "popular" publication was already delivering a "healthy return" for Arment, according to PR Newswire.
Arment's Rise
For his part, Arment says that he was able to succeed at Tumblr because he hit it off early with his boss. "David and I were like-minded in prioritizing user-, geek-, and designer-friendly needs," he wrote on his blog.
Writing elsewhere on his blog,
the mild-mannered and yacht-less Arment couldn't help but recognize the
reality of his recent successes. Reacting to the recent buyout of "The
Magazine," he wrote, "I know: this is getting ridiculous."