Revamping Your Resume

Trojan

Don't agree with the hobbies bit, but all else sounds good advice.

Al.

IT CAREER ADVISOR --- January 28, 2002
Published by ITworld.com -- changing the way you view IT
http://www.itworld.com/newsletters
__________________________________________________

Revamping Your Resume
By Leslie Jaye Goff

Whether you've been laid off, fear cutbacks in your IT organization may
be around the corner or just believe in the motto "Be prepared," this
is the ideal time to revamp your resume.

No one enjoys this task. It tends to raise all kinds of self-doubt and
fears that you may be giving yourself too much credit or not enough
where credit is due. It challenges your writing skills and the way you
see yourself. But by following a few concrete principles, you can
create a flexible, customizable resume that tells a story about who you
are and what you've achieved in your career.

With the ease of copying-and-pasting, there's no reason not to
customize your resume for each job or type of position that you apply
to. You should mix-and-match your skills and experience to appeal to
each individual hiring manager based on the posted job description.

To avoid staring from scratch each time, create a master resume --
don't worry about the length -- that includes your entire job history
and all of your major projects. Then, working from this master file,
copy-and-paste the relevant information to create tailored resumes for
each submission.

Divide your resume into three basic sections: skills, experience (your
job history and accomplishments) and education. Contrary to popular
thought, your resume can be longer than one page. Don't turn it into a
novel, but include all the pertinent information about your career.

Skills
This is your chance to highlight the key technologies in your skills
portfolio. This is not the section for a lot of details -- just make it
a laundry list of the relevant software, tools, operating systems and
hardware you've worked with.

Since many hiring managers and recruiters will sort resumes according
to their needs for specific skills, it's a good idea to put this at the
top. Keep it to three lines maximum, and be truthful. Don't list
technologies you've studied but haven't used in the workplace.

List the technologies in descending order starting with those that you
have the most experience with and are most relevant to the job for
which you're applying. For example, if you're an applications developer
going for a Java-related project, list Java first followed by other
object-oriented or Web-related development tools. If you don't have
Java experience, start with your strongest OOPs languages.

Experience
Without a doubt, this is the toughest -- and most important -- part of
your resume. The biggest mistake IT professionals make in this section
of their resumes is focusing too much on their tasks, responsibilities,
and not enough on their accomplishments. As you construct this section,
think about the projects you've worked on and what value they provided
to your company or IT organization.

While this section should highlight your accomplishments, it has the
dual task of conveying your job history. The best way to integrate the
two is to list your dates of employment, job title, company and
location. Start with your current or most recent job first and continue
in reverse-chronological order. For each job, include a brief
description of your role and responsibilities. Follow that up with
bulleted points that describe your key accomplishments.

This is your chance to show how you've used those skills listed at the
top of your resume, and how your actions benefited your company. Focus
on the results, be specific and succinct, and use active language;
start each phrase or sentence describing your accomplishments with a
verb.

For example, a mid-level networking manager looking for the next step
up the ladder might shape the experience section like this:

July 2000-present
Network Manager, Acme Rocket Co., Phoenix, Ariz.
Directed a 10-person networking staff responsible for a 500-user
corporate network in a $100 million aerospace firm.

* Planned and supervised the migration from Windows NT 4.0 to
Windows 2000; completed the project two weeks under the deadline
at a cost of 20% less than the projected budget.
* Developed and implemented a comprehensive corporate security plan
encompassing the selection and installation of a new firewall,
development of key new user procedures and an end-user training
program, and the hiring and training of a dedicated security
administrator; reduced security incidents by 80%, saving the
company upward of $500,000 in security-related costs.
* Reorganized the corporate networking staff resulting in a 10%
productivity gain concurrent with a 10% drop in costs, as
measured by internal benchmarks; reduced annual staff turnover
from 15% to 8%.

May 1997-June 2000
Senior Systems Administrator, XYZ Manufacturing Inc., Phoenix, Ariz.
Supervised a staff of five systems administrators in an integrated Unix-
Windows NT 4.0 environment for a $50 million, 300-employee manufacturer.

* Progressed from network administrator to systems administrator to
senior systems administrator within two years.
* Developed team procedures for daily, weekly and monthly systems
administration tasks resulting in a 20% productivity improvement
as measured by internal benchmarks.

And so forth?

Education
This is where you want to show your college degree, any advanced
degrees, and your continuing IT education and certification. If you've
had extensive IT training and have a number of certifications, you
might consider creating a special Training and Certification section,
following the Experience section, to highlight those specifically. End
with your academic credentials in the Education section. As with the
experience section, use reverse-chronological order here.

For example, a certified project manager seeking a departmental
management position would want to highlight his certification, any
relevant management or leadership training and his academic degrees as
follows:

PMP (Project Management Professional) Certification
Project Management Institute
1999-present

"Motivating for Results: Bring Out the Best in People"
American Management Association
July 2001

Business Process Analysis, Innovation, and Redesign
ESI International
September 2000

B.S. in Computer Science
University of Texas, Austin, Texas
May 1996

What Not To Put On Your Resume
Under no circumstances should you list hobbies, regular activities that
are not related to your professional life, your marital status, your
religion or other personal information aside from your name, address,
phone number and your personal Email address (not your office email!).

The Next Step: Getting It Out There
Once you've done all the work, the next step is getting your resume in
front of the right people. But the biggest mistake IT job seekers tend
to make is trying to get it in front of too many people, which can
actually do more harm than good. Next week's column will look at how to
distribute your resume in the most effective, targeted way.

The Sweeper

Yup - I agree with the not agreeing on the hobbies bit. It should come down the end and be no more than two lines, but I've gone for a job interview before and being criticised because I hadn't got hobbies on my CV - the interviewer initially asked me if I had a life outside work, then said to me that leaving off hobbies was a bad idea because they help to give an indication of the sort of person you are.


...for instance, "I am an avid member of two gun clubs and my hobbies include fencing, archery and martial arts. At the weekends, I like to build complex architectural structures from matchsticks. My pride and joy is my collection of high powered binoculars" might not be the best idea...

WhiteWashMan

Originally posted by Minesajackdaniels


...for instance, "I am an avid member of two gun clubs and my hobbies include fencing, archery and martial arts. At the weekends, I like to build complex architectural structures from matchsticks. My pride and joy is my collection of high powered binoculars" might not be the best idea...

.....but my favourite is my collection of high pwered sniper sights which allows me to sight targets up to 2k away. i can even shoot pedestrians on the high street from my home......


good if youre going for the military, bad if youre going for a post office position i think

deRanged

I used have shooting as one of the hobbies on my cv.
Never got asked about it in an interview though ......

Bear in mind that a resume is not the same thing as a cv.
A resume is focused than a cv, hence cutting all the personal stuff out of it, and why it's supposed to be short. I would agree with not having hobbies or other personal info in a resume, whereas
I put hobbies onto my cv.

Victor

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
good if youre going for the military, bad if youre going for a post office position i think

Have you not heard of 'going postal'? Then again maybe you are right ....

Trojan

Originally posted by deRanged

Bear in mind that a resume is not the same thing as a cv.
A resume is focused than a cv, hence cutting all the personal stuff out of it, and why it's supposed to be short. I would agree with not having hobbies or other personal info in a resume, whereas I put hobbies onto my cv.

I never thought about it like that before... interesting. According to your terminology my cv is very similar to a resume, but with the addition of hobbies.

Guys, have you got your cv/resumes online? Wouldn't mind having a look @ some examples. Mines @ amdsoft.com/cv

Al.