An Idealistic Résumé

I made my previous resume over half a year ago.

Time surely flies!

I hadn’t been looking for a job at the time, and now I do. I started preparing my resume in advance, upon updating my website and closing my microgreens city-farm business, Rostymo.

Careers

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Frankly, I’m not too fond of the most companies on the market.

I’m open to (almost) any work and project, solely because I’ve learned how to make any project intersting and educational. Yet, exploring all these career options drains so much energy!

Personally, I cannot stand that long list of bullshit every company under the sun feels needed to publish as their job proposition.

Our requirements, expectations, bonuses, blah-blah-blah.

Most of these propositions are soulless in a way that by reading what they wrote, most times I understand nothing about the job, the candidate they seek. It’s all obscure, so most times it’s safe to apply without even reading the list.

Some companies insert quests in their texts, like ‘write banana in your cover letter, so we knew you read the whole thing.’ Probably fair, if they tried to write something worth reading. Oftentimes it’s not, though.

Dream Job

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I’ve been just three days into my renewed search, when I realised there’s at least one company I like. They poisoned me with their ideas very early in my career, so maybe they should reap what they sow!

The company name is Basecamp, or 37signals.

• They juggled their names before, so I’m confusing them now.

They are pretty popular among some internet folks like me. I had been reading them since my early internet years, and so they influenced my world-view and how I approach work.

• I won’t say they actually changed anything, it’s just they reassured me that I’m not alone in how I see the world.
• There are lots of nonsense around us, and if you have nobody who would loudly call that out, you risk starting to believe in that nonsense yourself.

In the past, I never considered them as my possible team. I’m not even aware why. They were just some internet dudes for me. I did not use their products, but I like the approach. I’m not their fan. I just treat them as equals.

Secretly, I despise most of the companies on the market. Don’t tell anyone!

I’m not following their updates. As much as I’m not following anyone’s updates these days. Except the kids.

I thought maybe I should just write them. Introduce myself, and tell something like ‘hey, if you’ll ever seek someone with my skills, ping me back, please.’

I visited their website to find the email address I should write to, and was surprised to find out they actually have one single job position, and it fits exactly my skills! Product designer. Probably, that’s what I should advertise myself as.

Basil Skrnk, a product designer.

As I see it combines all the skills I have. In management, design, software development.

‘What a coincidence,’ I thought! Why won’t I apply?

Poison

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Their job description is pretty short. And — in a way — poisonous.

We’re looking for a designer, not a decorator. A product builder, not a picture maker. A shipper, not a prototyper. There’s plenty of the latter, but we’re after the former.

At many companies, product design is split into different roles: UX, UI, front-end development, copywriter, etc. At 37signals, it’s all one role. This means our designers are exceptional generalists. Along with having great visual taste and sensibilities, you must be able to write your own production-quality front-end HTML, CSS, and English. You’ll pair up with a back-end programmer to bring designs, features, and products to life.

We’re accepting applications until Monday, March 24. The salary for this position is $193,858 if hired as a Senior Designer or $229,064 if hired as a Lead Designer.

It fits me perfectly, but the salary thing is what makes me rather sad, and not too happy. Not that I see it as small amount of money, it is not. It’s a pretty good salary for the industry. And unless you live in one of the most expensive cities on this planet — like San Francisco, New York, London, Oslo, Tokyo, Singapore, etc — it’s a very good salary.

They’re not the only non-nonsense company, but all others that I know personally, they manipulate on that status. ‘Look, we’re non-nonsense here, so you either work for some idiot and earn more, or work with us [for obviously lesser paycheck].’ I’ve seen that countless of times. It’s everywhere.

By being open about their paycheck, 37signals’ team actually communicates that ‘we’re not only non-nonsense, but we’re ready to pay you what you would have in nonsense companies.’ It’s smart. I can see why people don’t want to leave there. People leave mostly because of their boss [being an idiot] or the paycheck being too small for their needs.

My career spans almost two decades now, it’s a long time, and it’s been a very long time since I’m motivited only by the money.

It doesn’t mean I’m a communist that aims to work for bananas.

If a company offers you small payment for your work, well, they do not respect you and your work. Those mostly see you as a workforce that does the job, like a machine.

The paycheck is not the first thing I’m motivated by. Still, I prefer it to be generous to stay motivated and respect my work, colleagues, and the company.

Why I called this position poisonous?

• First, I think they’ll have a huge crowd attracted by the money they offer;
  • I just hope they’re skilled at focusing on the right candidates.
  • And I’m hoping against hope I’m the one.
• Second, now all other job positions are simply irrelevant. I’m not going to seek any other job opportunities till I’ll get my feedback here.

Non-nonsense

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It’s only upon writing these words, I realised I was so excited they have this position opened, that I did not notice they have some other text — I used to ignore all these nonsense text from other companies — after the email sign up field.

I hope their wonderful text would stay there, as an example of what a proper job proposition should look like. So I can recommend just visit their jobs page and read it entirely. But I’d like to highlight these two pieces:

• We’re a fully-remote company with no physical headquarters. We’re collectively spread out across dozens of cities on multiple continents. Everyone is free to live and work wherever they choose.
• We don’t place independent value on where you come from, where you live, where you worked before, where you went to school, if you graduated or dropped out, or how well you did or didn’t do. We care about who you are today, how you’ll be tomorrow, and what you’re able to do now.

There’s nothing new in here, I just surprised how well I know they approach work.

Because I designed the whole thing, my cover letter and my CV, before I actually read that text below the email field.

Idealistic

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Why did I named this story as idealistic resume? For me, this company is an idealistic case. I would call them a Basecamp (as in contrast to the Basecamp), meaning that for me they’re a kind of a common name now.

What do I mean? They have a set of parameters I see in an ideal company:

• Non-nonsense, meaning they not bullshitting you, themselves, and the next guy. Truthful and honest approach to work, to life, it’s a valuable asset.
• They work remotely. To me, that simply means the same thing, non-nonsense. Really, why force a person to visit office, if you have your laptop and internet in it? Ideally, I’d love to have a hybrid approach, when you can visit office sometimes, and meet the people you work with in person. Because it’s less difficult than being all-in on remote work. Working remotely is difficult.
• They are open about how they work. So I know them very well from my early days (circa end of 00s), and since they honest, things mostly stay stable in what they say, it’s not like they were communicating one thing 10 years ago, and went 180º today.
• Not the least, obviously. They have a strong portfolio. I used some of their products, and I have mixed feelings about them.
  
  I think it’s worth elaborating on that in a separate story. In short, I afraid that you need to do a lot of work about yourself, your company, your surroundings to make their products work. I’m sad to use the word ‘afraid’ in here. It’s scarying, and one needs some courage to actually dare to live, and to be honest with yourself. They’re open about this, that their products are not for everyone.
  
  But, even when I don’t use their products, I like the approach. It’s very close to how I see things in life.

And one thing, I want it to stand out separately. I like their approach to interviewing. They give you an actual work to do! What a madness!

Oh, before I started this resume quest, how many companies did I try messaging with this short ‘I have no resume at the moment, there are no works I can publicly demonstrate, but I have my skills, I’m open to a non-paid test job.’ Companies shoved me off even without trying me. How on Earth did they made their decision? I do not look like an incompetent dude, I hope. Yet, they were simply declining, ignoring, ghosting me. Does it take a lot to actually try a person? Especially when they are able to volunteer for an unpaid gig.

They do pay for their test job too, the Basecamp company. That’s just a cherry on top that tells volumes.

Any other company that bears the same approach to their work, I’d call them idealists too. To me, ideal isn’t something you can achieve, actually. But it’s always worth pursuing. It’s the vector of movement, the destination, it shapes the work.

If I wasn’t that pre-occupied with kids these days, I’d try to game and hack this system of these mediocre companies. Just for the sake of proving this concept. On the other hand, I’d love to stay this naive guy who believes in miracles. That there are some companies like that, and they matter, and they worth my professional self.

That was the reason I had my own company in the past. I couldn’t find the team I would actually respect. There are so many non-sense companies out there, it’s difficult to find the one you’d love working with. It’s so easy to find the one you’ll earn money with, but what’s in just the money?

I’m not too naive about these idealistic companies, though. Say, 37signals. I don’t see them as some naive idealists either. It’s rational to do what they do. It makes sense. I see them as smart.

Say, I know very well what it takes to find talent. How expensive that is, and how much you lose when you actually hire the wrong person. It’s a first-hands experience. When you have a business that generates money, and it’s stable, why would you try to save a penny, to lose a dollar? Why not find someone talented, who would respect the company he works with? Treat them as equal, make them work with you, not for you. It’s smart.

I had a close friend, he has a small design business, he’s probably a millionare by now. Yet, he keeps looking for the cheapest possible talent. Instead of nurturing the strong team and let his company to become stronger with them, he tries to Trump them (it’s a verb based on the orange guy) and see them stronger as a treat to his company. It’s just stupid.

Big corporations? It’s a separate discussion. I actually understand why they’re like that. It’s still difficult to accept it. I don’t really want to work for any of them. I’d love to work with someone. And these idealistic companies in my head, they work with me. And they work with me too.

So, I wrote this piece solely for the demonstration case. There could be any other company, a similar one. I just don’t know many out there. That’s why 37signals came first, and since they have this position opened, why not taking my chance to both write them and work through this ideal company scenario.

That looks like a dream job to me, from many angles.

Previously, I’d say that my company is my ideal employment. But actually it isn’t necessarily the company — as in the legal entity — that matters. But the company, as in the team, the company of people. I had my own company, and that was a very exhausting endeavour.

So, as I’ve set the proper context for this, let’s go try to explore my attemp at pitching myself to 37signals.

Cover Letter

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I started with cover letter, as a motivation letter. To explain who I am, why them, and why me. Basically, that’s the foundation structure in one sentence.

First, I wrote them a huge email, a very long one. I’ve been writing for a couple of hours. It is a piece of shit, but without doing that, I won’t come up with the better version.

Throught my stories, I mention how I do design. I like to work with materials, and I like to first make a very complex abomination that I simplify. So, I place everything on the canvas and then I seek things to remove. I went the same way here.

I opened Figma and put that gargantuan text on A5 document.

From the very beginning I set this limitation:

• I decided I want my cover letter to be 4 pages of A5 paper. That’s half of the regular A4 page, used in most printers. (At least here in Europe.) That means one A4-sized piece of paper printed both sides.
• And I wanted to go no longer than that. It’s very difficult to be short. Eloquence takes more effort. Yet, I was able to make this design within just one computer session. I’m really proud of that fact, because if you’re able to deliver something within a short amount of time, and over time you think that’s a good work, probably it really is.

Naturally, the first page, the cover, is an introduction.

The hand-claw and the Hey pun came naturally. That signifies that I’m well aware of their portfolio. Hey is their email service. In case you have never heard of it, I invite you to read on their own website, hey.com. They are better with words than I am, so I’ll just skip the description of the service.

The hand-claw is their logotype. And it’s so good, that it invites you to draw your own. It’s my attemp at drawing it with a mouse. I have a number of Wacom graphic tablets, but why bother? I think that’s the sign of a really good logo. You can draw your own hand-claw and it would still be similar to their original logo.

Whoever designed it, bravo!

Finally I have my own space where I can express myself! I wanted to say that bravo long ago. It’s a solid work in-and-out.

Before I go to the next page, I want to mention my bits project. It’s my most recent blog project, and it’s just a coincidence that it resembles with how the 37signals website looks like. Last time I visited it, it was years ago, maybe 5 years ago. So it’s not like I parroted them, it’s just a coincidence, or… an accident. I mention that, because I like it much more than this blog, actually. And I expect someone at 37signals team would like that project too. There are not many companies you can impress with such a blog. I believe, most companies would react ‘wtf’ to that.

Here, I say few messages. First, I don’t feel like this is my career. You know, the word. That’s how I see my life, that’s who I am. I send them to my very first resume, because I believe if there’s someone who would be able to get it, it’s them. I still like it, and I see it as a solid work.

Except, these days, 8 years later, I’d formulate things better. I’m not going to re-do it though.

Then, I mention that I have resume. I have designed the speical one for them, and I send them to this resumeing series too. It’s poorely written, and not the best I can do, but maybe I’ll reread and improve it before they visit. There’s plenty of time for that.

There’s an easter egg hidden too. I’ll speak of it in the 4th page.

Lastly, I mention my projects. Unfortunately, I don’t have the prominent projects that I can show and just be done with it. Ain’t a super star. (Yet?) I believe, having great projects is a nicer way to pitch my professional skills.

I’m leaving some escape plan for myself here, as if they’ll read my cover letter in a month, I’d be able to actually publish something of those projects that exist already. It just takes too much energy, on which I’m limited these days.

Regardless, I’m going to use these two pages I have left.

Here, I explain why I like 37signals as a company. They influenced the way I treat work, and I think they helped me to have some great clients. Again, I don’t think they changed anything, rather reassured me, I’m on the right track. It’s a long way, after all.

The rest of the page should tell for itself. I elaborated on not-for-all thing, and I may link a separate story in here, when it’s ready.

Why me? It all happened just naturally. I wrote what I thought, and it filled the page. For me, that was really draw the rest of the fucking owl thing.

I like the ‘all my life’ thing, because that’s how I made that 2nd page. If it was a piece of paper, they could see me striking those three words. And while I could to the same digitally, it’s different, it’s still intended to be read. And I wanted these words to not be there.

There’s a lot of meaning hidden in that. And for me, it plays very well with their phrase:

We don’t place independent value on where you come from, where you live, where you worked before, where you went to school, if you graduated or dropped out, or how well you did or didn’t do. We care about who you are today, how you’ll be tomorrow, and what you’re able to do now.

The end of it: ‘We care about who you are today, how you’ll be tomorrow, and what you’re able to do now.’

I won’t be able to prove this, but I find so much comfort in knowing that I made the whole thing before I read the phrase just now, while writing this story. It might influence me and my text might be less natural.

They’re not the team I’ve been looking for, they’re the team I’m looking for now. There’s a difference!

As in this famous saying. ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.’

This phrase is often attributed to Buddhist or Eastern philosophy. It reflects the idea that wisdom and guidance come when a person is truly prepared to receive them.

Resume

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With resume I decided to go with just one A4 page. I tried to de-bullshit it.

Email

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First, I made one thing too complicated, email addresses. Which one to choose?

The thing is, I use my Gmail address as the primary address for this online persona of mine. But I also wanted to add HEY.com, just for the sake of it.

Should I leave just one of them? I couldn’t choose.

That’s the typical state of doing any design work: you need to choose something. For difficult projects, it’s not obvious which choice is better.

• Here, the simplest thing would be to just use Gmail.
• The easter-eggy way is to add HEY.com email too

  • so to say ‘hey guys, I know who you are, and your service too.’

  • It might also mean, I use it, but I don’t. And I don’t want to lie here.

    I registered there when they launched it, and after exploration, never visited since then. I made this account once again, upon making the resume. I know I won’t use it. Not because it’s bad, but because I don’t need it. I have plenty of emails, and most of them are of mostly no value for me.

That’s a separate discussion: whether one needs to pay for a email service provider.

The question remains. What email account should I use to be contacted?

I decided I’d drop gmail, even as I use it for this public communication, and use domain email instead.

Only because:

• it looks better with the website link being just above, they diffirenciate with one symbol only
• since I’m making a point that I don’t trust some email provider to be there for me, gmail might look ridiculous
  • actually, it’s not, because it’s active for two decades already, and I don’t have to pay for it to stay active (as of now). But, still, it looks ridiculous, and I’m aware of that.

So the result would look like this:

All this happens only because I’d like to mention their HEY service, as much as I’d like to mention my bits blog. Both could be just dropped. And I drop them for any other company, obviously.

• For any other job positions, I use a mozmail Firefox relay. I have unlimited number of email addresses there, but I use only one email address for all of my job-hunting adventures. I don’t need to divercify each company, I just might want to cut off all of them as soon as I’d find my company, so they won’t bother me.
• Over these two decades, I developed a pretty sophisticated way of filtering emails, probably I’d like to write a separate story on that, one day later, so to slim down this one, plus add extra thoughts and context in here.
• More likely, I won’t use this email, even despite I like it. My system is quite complicated, after all. I use many email addresses for various needs.

• The How I Use Email story is in the process of writing, I created it upon writing this very story.

It’s funny to say that, but Email part was the most difficult to me. Upon applying, I entered my gmail there. Only because I was curious which one would get the email, in case they’ll contact me. All of them are forwarded into one, anyway.

Career Path

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Then, I headed into the resume itself. Basically, the rest of the resume was ‘draw the rest of the fucking owl’ once again.

For career and education, I wrote it in a plain text form, highlighting some elements.

Latest Position

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For the latest job, I described some of my experience with Rosymo. It came just naturally. I believe that there I learned more than any other product design job with my computer.

It may sound counterintuitively to someone else, but to me that was pretty obvious from the start, I’d learn many things there.

• That’s how I see a non-nonsense resume. Some previous experience written with plain English. What else do you need?
• To me, it’s it’s the opposite of this iconic (as in icons) resume. Of which I’ll write another story later. Maybe.

Revisit

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I left this project to live for a while, a week. I have no idea when they published the vacancy, but I saw it two weeks prior to the deadline. Which was plenty of time for me to prepare the needed documents.

Usually it takes me a couple of hours to design a tiny brochure.

I spent the week being sick myself, and then sitting with my sick kids at home. I couldn’t reach my computer or laptop (being uninterrupted), so it feels like I had a lifetime between the sets. Only week passed.

Upon reviewing, I did the most important task, reformulated the words here and there. And also, I took a closer look at their website, 37signals.com.

They use Lab Grotesque font. Swedish!

It’s designed by the Swedish company named Letters from Sweden, founded in 2011.

I’ve been walking for a while, thinking: ‘Should I buy the font and use it in my presentation? Meaning my cover letter and CV.’

This question is of a separate meaning. Should I spend any more extra resources to attract the company?

• Buy the font to look familiar. Will they even notice?
• Buy their service HEY.com, so I would reliably get their email at any time, not being restricted by the free tier.

It arises a whole set of new questions, actually. Some of them could be simplified as:

• Should I try to jump ‘me-me-me, look at me!’ trying to attract a company?

Frankly, I think yes.

• In the ideal world, a company looks at you and recognises you as someone who fits their culture.
• In the ideal world, they can evaluate your skills regardless of the flashy things.

All my experience shows that actually it’s super easy to trick the company, espeically when hiring is done with mostly incompetent …

in what they’re hiring for, but in my experience not just that, but also their responsibilities too, unfortunately

… HR people.

I don’t like to be too flashy. And I don’t want to jump with my hands upwards, yelling ‘me-me-me, look at me!’ That’s why I decided to not bother with neither the font, nor their email service.

Hard-Copy

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You can get the hard-copies, if you will.

• Cover Letter to 37signals by Basil Skrnk as a person, March 2025
  • It’s designed to be printed on a A5 paper. Which is twice smaller than a A4 paper, the most popular format here in Europe. This whole cover letter is one A4 page printed both sides, two pages each side.
• Résumé to 37signals by Basil Skrnk as a Product Designer, March 2025

  • It’s designed to be printed on a regular A4 paper, one side.

    There’s not much to write, if you’re not bullshitting someone with a variation of skills, soft and hard, job experiences, irrelevant formal education, etc.

Signals

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There is a significant uncertainty with the job positions you like. There’s this expectation that they’ll develop into job offers, and hence they create this pause in the job search.

I stopped being active with other job positions, until I’ve got my responce here.

• And not just that. Since I had been sending my resumes to other companies before I found this position, I got one job offer already. Which I managed to decline, telling them I found the company I like, so I’ve paused my search for a while.

Most companies in this position won’t give any ETAs for their candidates, because — well, at least they need to work through all their applicants first.

Here, I set my expecations to their standard work cycle, 6 weeks. My assumption is that I’m right with this, as 6 weeks must be the full cycle for chosing the candidate, not just reviewing all the candidates.

The response was a decline.

I’d like to quote it here, because I believe it’s a good example of a decline. It feels like they carefully chose every word. I appreciate this.

• They’re not the only company that have sane decline templates, of course. Most companies have that.

Thank you for applying to the Product Designer position here at 37signals and for your patience as we reviewed applications.

We received an incredible response to this opening and were impressed by the talent we saw from many candidates.

Unfortunately, we’ve decided to move forward with other applicants at this time. While I understand this news may be disappointing, please know that our decision was made after careful consideration. As a reminder, due to the size of our hiring team, we are unable to offer detailed feedback during this stage of the process.

We sincerely appreciate the time and effort you invested in your application, and we hope you’ll consider applying again in the future.

I did not expect this job position to develop into a job offer, but — of course — since I put some energy into it, I’d love it to become a thing.

Due to my personal life experience, I have very little expectations from everyone. Hence, I wasn’t disappointed too much when exactly two weeks later I’ve got this classical template with decline.

Conclusion

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I believe, I’d fit the company. Yet there’s a significant challenge, to demonstrate this thing to the company. It’s difficult, and it takes a huge effort.

I’m not my best at the moment, so it is as it is.

However, I want to stress this ‘an’ article in the title. I deliberately chose it for the reasons that this resume is made just for demostration purpose. It’s what I believe would be an effective resume for a company of my type, no-nonsense one.

Hey, I’m B, here’s my past experience, works, website, let’s go try do something together. Nothing more is actually needed.

As my next steps, I try to polish my online presence better, so when the next opportunity arises, I’d be more ready to demonstrate that my skill set is sufficient for the company I like.

However, I believe this situation is common for most job seekers.

I see the challenge of all this job hunt quest as proving a company that I’m a worthy candidate. This task lies outside of this resume series, as there are other assets a candidate is expected to have. Namely, some projects or/and portfolio. They demonstrate my competence much better than a resume.

And a resume… is just a few words on my previous experience.