Spec: Consolidate Skills

Overview

Consolidate skills across the resume website to align with LinkedIn vocabulary, reducing specific old technologies in favor of generic ones while maintaining consistency with the 100-skill LinkedIn limit.

Status: done

Context & Background

Skills are currently defined in the front matter of resume entries:

  • _resume/experience/*.md (13 files across 5 companies)
  • _resume/education/*.md (3 files)

The website contains specific/dated technologies not on LinkedIn (e.g., Zope, JBoss Seam, Smart GWT, Google Web Toolkit (GWT), Tape Backup). LinkedIn has a 100-skill hard limit and has been reviewed to remove obsolete specifics.

Reference file: _data/skills.yml contains the canonical skill vocabulary organized into:

  • industry_knowledge (41 skills)
  • tools_and_technologies (32 skills)
  • interpersonal_skills (4 skills)

User Story

As a job seeker maintaining my online presence I want consistent skills across my website and LinkedIn So that recruiters see a coherent professional profile and I stay within LinkedIn’s 100-skill limit

Scope

In Scope

  • Update all _resume/experience/*.md files to use LinkedIn vocabulary
  • Update all _resume/education/*.md files to use LinkedIn vocabulary
  • Produce a skill mapping report (skill-mapping.md) documenting old → new transformations
  • Use _data/skills.yml as canonical reference

Out of Scope

  • Updating LinkedIn profile directly (human task)
  • Adding new skills to LinkedIn
  • Modifying highlights or other front matter fields
  • Changes to resume.md rendering logic

Acceptance Criteria

  • GIVEN a resume experience entry WHEN I view its skills list THEN it contains 6-7 skills (4 technical, 2-3 soft/management) using LinkedIn vocabulary

  • GIVEN a resume education entry WHEN I view its skills list THEN it contains 6-7 skills (technical) using LinkedIn vocabulary

  • GIVEN a specific old technology (e.g., Zope, JBoss Seam) WHEN it was not the “star” of that project/experience THEN it is replaced with a generic equivalent from LinkedIn vocabulary

  • GIVEN a technology that was central to a project (e.g., thesis on SADAS Engine) WHEN reviewing that entry THEN the specific technology MAY be preserved if it adds unique value

  • GIVEN the skill-mapping.md file WHEN the human reviews it THEN they can use it to manually update LinkedIn skill assignments

Verification

Method: manual steps

Commands:

# Check all resume entries for skill count
grep -h "^skills:" _resume/**/*.md -A 10 | head -100

# Verify site builds correctly
make serve

Expected output:

  • Each entry has 6-7 skills in front matter
  • All skills match LinkedIn vocabulary (with documented exceptions)
  • Site builds and renders without errors

Technical Constraints

  • MUST use skills from _data/skills.yml vocabulary
  • MUST preserve 6-7 skills per entry (4 technical, 2-3 soft/management)
  • SHOULD prefer generic skills over specific old technologies
  • SHOULD preserve specific technologies only when they are the “star” of the project
  • MUST NOT modify highlights or other front matter fields
  • MUST NOT change the rendering logic in resume.md