Slashdot Mirror
Resume Tips For Jobs
JerseyTom writes "SAGEWire reports that with the economy speeding
up, more and more people
are freshening up their
resumés. They've printed an article by Tom
Limoncelli, co-author of TPoSaNA, that offers specific advice for geeks writing resumes." 'Course, I'm not sure how much I believe the economy speeding up - but still good information.,
1: Try and sound interesting in your Hobbies / Interests section, you'll just come across as a twat. Be honest. And DON'T mention Stanley Kubrick. Everyone does that!
2: Go too far ahead in 'Career Objectives'. Think 2 or 3 years, not 10!
3: Forget to spell check the thing.
Last time I had to update my CV, it took about a week in order to get all my skills in an easy to read, yet eye-catching format.
:)
I never realised all I had to write was
404 Error; Page not found.
Right then, lets send this baby off
Don't write a 10 page essay about your previous jobs
There is a career fair in 2 days, and I need to update my resume. Seems kind of early to be applying for jobs in the Summer, in the Fall, but whatever those companies want to do, I guess...
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I'm not sure about the economy speeding up, but I freshened up MY resume because I got laid off. I would hazard a guess that many people are doing the same. They've either been laid off, or are still worried about losing their jobs in the near future.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
What economy are they referring to? Certainly not the American economy...
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Interview tips:
1) Have at least 2 summers internship experience at this company.
2) Own products made by this company, and bring them to work at your internship.
3) Use the word "absolutely" with reckless abandon.
4) Go Platinum, seven times.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
DO NOT put an "Objective" section at the top of your resume, they're all bullshit, never relevant and only limiting, and when you hand someone your resume, your objective is simple - TO GET A JOB FROM THEM.
You have 2-4 inches to catch someone's eye - if you've got a college degree put it there, and next, put your most relevant work experience.
customize your resume for the job you're applying for.
... hi bingo
you can always add "did volunteer work rating messages submitted to a public web site. Work involved reading posted comments, deciding quality and relevance of posting, and moderating accordingly. Also did oversight work rating moderators performance."
or
"managed a wide area information distribution network involving the exchange of compressed aural and adult entertainment products. Work involved maintenance of clandistine anti-detection systems and frequent network reconfigurations for various Internet service providers".
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I'm getting laid off today...
Don't forget, you must lie and the employer must believe, right before the end of the interview you tell that you've lied in your resume and all over the interview.
The job will be yours. For sure.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
What exactly is the difference between a Resume and a CV ?
--
b0rk!
I'm currently building my resume, and as a App Developer it is tempting to lists all the projects I worked on. In my case diversity was the thinking. To counter the overload of projects, I instead listed just the most complex projects, and also listed the other roles that I had played at the company. Uber g33k? Yeah but, I don't have to sound like one all the time.
There's been a nice kick in the number of linux jobs being posted on Mojolin (http://mojolin.com) I'm waiting for the right one to be posted for a sysadmin position in the carribean!
http://whatexit.org/tal/mywritings/resumetips.html
First of all, it is no longer sufficient to simply mention that you are a programmer. It isn't even sufficient to mention that you know C++. I've seen requirements that specifically want 2+ years of experience using Visual Studio. This is the most idiotic thing I've ever seen, but that doesn't stop companies from putting that in the job description. And we all know how HR departments are. If you don't have exactly what they're looking for, you don't get called back.
Another thing is the certification hang-up. I've known people with certifications that don't know sh*t, but that won't stop them from getting a job before me, because I don't have any certifications. Hiring managers (particularly those who are non-technical) are fooled into believing that certifications somehow equate to a higher quality employee. It doesn't matter that this isn't true; it can easily keep you from getting a job.
Thirdly, the "Jack of All Trades" background is getting harder to place. Employers want someone with large (sometimes unreasonably so) amounts of experience in particular (sometimes obscure) areas. It used to be that having a generic background was a good thing. It meant you could easily adapt to new technologies, and had a wide range of experience to draw on for coming up with novel solutions to problems. Nowadays, employers don't want you to solve anything. They want to purchase a solution-in-a-box and hire a technician (not really a programmer) to implement it. Finally, employers are looking for more on your resume than "I wrote some software". They want to see how you drastically reduced the running time, or saved a bunch of money, or lead a team on to beat a tight deadline, save money, and make the manager look like a champion. Remember: they aren't hiring you to just get a job done. They are hiring you so that they can pad their own resumes with accomplishments that you pulled off. So, make sure that the things on your resume support what your potential manager would want on his resume.
After all this, I would like to mention that I am starting to feel burned out, and am looking towards getting back into academia. I'd rather do research than spend the rest of my life feeling like a corporate flunky.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
I'm not asking for much. I just want a chance to live at least as well as I did with no income at college (meaning: don't starve, basic cable, internet, and shelter), not default on my loans, and most importantly to me gain experience toward building a better career. I'm looking for an opportunity, not compensation.
Screw the job market. I'm going back to the college life, late nights, late mornings, parties, beautiful women everywhere, lots of beer, and no drug tests. In a few years, I'll have at least a Master's, but that's only if I completely fail to achieve a PhD. Screw the job market. Screw the job market. Stay in school. A teaching assistantship + college lifestyle if far superior and better for your future than developing an ulcer at 23 trying to get an entry level job.
"Slashdot Reader" is probably a bad thing to put on your CV as a "hobby". I'd imagine (...whistle... makes sure boss aint around...) that alot of people spend alot of time on slashdot.
"Slashdot Poster" is probably a v.bad thing to put on your CV... unless you've got alot of karma.
Indicating your Slashdot Karma level on your CV (Character Recordsheet) is probably a good thing... but this also implies Slashdot poster... which is a good thing... but it implies that you're a slashdot reader... so you're buggered.
I'll probably get modded down as flamebait for this. Have at ye fowl moderator.
DO NOT put an "Objective" section at the top of your resume, they're all bullshit, never relevant and only limiting, and when you hand someone your resume, your objective is simple - TO GET A JOB FROM THEM.
Put an Objective on there--but make it relevant to your career search. Do you want a long-term job that will last you to retirement? Do your plans only focus on the short-term now? Do you want a part-time job to support you while you go to school?
I'd recommend a general objective, instead of customization per company. Use the cover letter for that--to display your interest in and knowledge of the company. Your resume should be static, so it feels honest and trustworthy, and they don't think that they're lying.
(So call Apple or MS or Be or whomever "the greatest" in the cover letter, not the resume...)
Oh, and keeping it consice sounds good to. One page is a good limit for a physical resume; if there's extraneous stuff (education breakdown, career breakdown, hobbies) that are relevant but not essential, pt them on the back or leave them out.
Up is reference to speed, not direction
If you don't believe me, have a peek at drudgereport?
http://www.drudgereport.com/
Want to look good to the idiots in HR? LIE. And I mean LIE. I've seen H1Bs and absolute total slackers (high-school dropouts, even) do it for years, and they get some pretty cushy jobs.
Do you have more years experience in a language/program than it existed? Yes, you do have 9 years of Java experience and 550,000 lines of code written, 15 years of HTML, 4 years of Windows 2000 Professional, etc.
Did you never graduate, or even go to college? No problem -- just put on your resume that you graduated with a BS in CS from RIT, Georgia Tech, or whereever.
Lie liberally -- the companies hardly check anything unless you're going to be CTO or something, and if they do find out you're lying, it's not like you're going to get arrested; simply move on until you find a company that buys it.
- I got laid
from my resume.Oops, you said "laid off". Never mind.
why does steve jobs need tips on resumes. I thought apple was doing well?
Make it one page. More than one page will be ignored (or worse, laughed at...I once saw a ten page resume)
Leave off the "Objective". It's meaningless. Tell the people what your objective is once you get the interview.
List projects you've done. This speaks VOLUMES more about what you can do than a list of classes, or positions you've held at companies.
And never, EVER lie. You will be caught.
Yes, and I imagine Commander Taco and all the staff of slashdot are keenly interested in how to poof up their resumes. Oh, I'm sure somehow they'll be able to spin the appalling dung heap of slashdot into something that sounds like the technological achievement of the century.
Anyway, I mean, since slashdot is about to go out of business and all, I bet our esteemed "editors" are sweating bullets. That's what I heard, anyway...ooops sorry hope I didn't say too much.
There's been a nice kick in the number of linux jobs being posted on Mojolin (http://mojolin.com) I'm waiting for the right one to be posted for a sysadmin position in the carribean!
...so that it sounds like an achievement.
e.g. Was a member of a team that selected a new problem management tool
becomes
Selected a new problem management tool
Do this on every line and use bullet points.
BYU
All things in moderation; including moderation
I can't tell you how many resume's we see that have *gross* spelling errors or serious grammar issues. Plus, we get a ton of resume's without cover letters. I know some companies don't require this, but when you read that a job description says "send resume and cover letter to..." then it's a good idea to include it.
People aren't handing jobs out anymore and there's alot of competition for them now, even for really qualified and experienced people, so that means you have to compete for the job, which also means you have to actually put effort in to getting it.
We just filled a sys admin job where we interviewed almost 30 candidates. We actually had guys showing up in shorts, torn jeans and t-shirts. I mean come on folks, even though many west coast jobs aren't "tie required" most employers like to see candidates who look presentable.
Just check your work. If you don't care about the job you're applying for, don't waste everyone's time.
-s
A couple of weeks ago, I reponded posting on monster. I called the same day it was posted. The recruiter said she already recieved over 300 resume for that one posting? What recovery? Maybe it's time for Goerge W. to stop playing GI Joe and focus on putting *Americans* back to work.
I don't mean that spitefully, but judging from your take on the work world, it seems obvious. You see, what you point out as reasons for critisism, many would point out as simple facts that exist in a professional environment. I personally (from my perspective specifically) do not find it the least bit odd that companies are placing more value on specific skill sets as they need them rather than a "jack of all trades". Of course the person that you will report to wants to hire someone who is going to make them look good. They are judged based on the quality of the staff that they hire. I also have a beef with certification whiners. My take on the topic is simple. I don't go out and get certifications for the sake of getting them. If someone that I am trying to get work from (as a consultant) is looking for a particular cert, then I spend the few hundred bucks, take the stupid tests and get the piece of paper. It's still nothing more than a piece of paper, but it is also a marketing edge. I have found that most of the people who whine about certs being "useless and trivial...no real indicator of skill" are usually afraid to go take the test becuase they are unsure they could pass it. I'm sorry, but if it's so trivial and meaningless and so easy that someone with know real knowledge can get the thing, then go get the cert if that's what the hiring managers want to see. It has nothing to do with being a corporate flunky, it has to do with marketing your self. Short of starting your own business, you will have to work for someone. That being the case, you submit your self to their rules. It's their field, their game, their ball, their money, their equipment, their risk. You may be a hell of a player, but like it or not, the company doesn't live or die at the hands of some whiney prima donna. So, all that being said, I again must agree with you that academia is a fabulous place for you.
The economy speeding up? This only confirms my suspicion, that there is a raving lunatic in the Executive branch.
This is a shameless advertisment of my bosses free tips on how to get a job in general. If you're looking for a job in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, these tips might be of help to you. Of course you'll have to be able to read german.
Tipps & Tricks zur erfolgreichen Stellenbewerbung
The rate at which the econmy is falling is decreasing, there for, the economy is speeding up.
This is a very interesting thread, several more points that i'd like to make.
Firstly, the URL provided above does not work.
Resumes are more about marketing than your actual ability, the sad truth. It's not what you did, but how you marketed it. Let's face it, most tech people have no clue over marketing including myself and this is why they fail interviews.
Lastly, it'd be interesting to have a Slashdot interview with a "top company" HR director. The educational value would be very rewarding.
Regards
I first wrote a real resume (i.e., not just a high school assignment) about 10 years ago. I spent a lot of time worrying about the format and language. Up until recently, every time I updated it, I assiduously read tips given by job-hunting and other professionals. I spoke with friends who were technical writers and document design specialists. Earlier this year I read a few books on it and asked all my professional friends and a few unprofessional friends and finally, and after much ado the conclusion I came to....
The advice is often useless.
Well, not totally useless. But very, very subjective. Some people will tell you to put in an objective. Others will tell you it's irrelevant. Some people will tell you hobbies are irrelevant; others will tell you it shows a holistic person who'll have more to give to a job. Some people will tell you being holistic is important; others will tell you that focus on skills relevant to the job is all that matters. Some people will tell you to use action buzzwords; others will tell you those will get you dismissed as a charlatan. You get the idea.
My guess is they're all correct. Resume design is an art, not a science. Every person looking at your resume is looking for different things from a slightly different perspective. I've come to the conclusion that there's no set of tips you can follow to get you a resume that will get you in the door. You just have to design and refine as professionally as possible, think a little bit about your audience, and hope the message you intended to send gets across.
And sometimes I think that your own judgement may be as important as someone else's. If you walk into an interview with a resume you are confident in, that's a good precursor to success.
This is the result of my thinking. Feel free to send/post critiques of the thing. Or job offers, for that matter.
Tweet, tweet.
At my company we run Exchange 5.5 and all resumes are sent to a public folder. We just went through a lay off. So just in case I needed some tips I copied the entire public folder into my personal folders in MS Outlook. You should be able to do the same thing in Lotus Notes or any other email system where resumes are sent to a central location.
My three advices
/. effect than make sure you put that down on your resume.
/. team: next time you may want to send a friendly reminder to the site that is about to be /. so that they can prepare.
Speaking of advices, here are mines:
1) Advice to IT people: if you can build me a website that can handle a
2) Advice to SAGEWire IT people: your website site needs some tune up.
3) Advice to Hemos and
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
You have 100 applicants for one position. You have limited time to sort through them all. So when you see a resume that has an error in it, or is three pages long, or doesn't speak specifically to the job you're hiring for, you can it immediately, with out even bothering to read it.
If a job applicant can't even take the time to tailor the resume to the job I'm offering them, then why should I bother reading it? If the applicant doesn't take the time to spellcheck something as critical as a job application, then they probably will miss other important details on the job. Sure, not everyone is a good speller. But everyone has the ability to correct their spelling.
If a resume has a generic objective statement, it's going in the circular file. Employers want to know that you've actually taken the time to show them in your resume how your goals and your skills match what the company is looking for. You don't have to lie or exaggerate, you just have to articulate your goals and skills in a way that they can understand, given their own organizational leanings.
One of the best things you can do is to have someone else read your resume. Have a friend who isn't afraid to be critical read it, checking for errors and overall flow. Writing is as much a skill as programming, and if you are a good writer, it's always helpful to have someone check your work.
Electronic methods are great for employers, because they allow for huge keyword-based searches. But the object here is to get your resume noticed, so that it gets read, so that you get called in for an interview. While the resume is a filtering tool for the hiring company, for you it's sole aim is to land you that critical first interview. From there, it's all about your opportunity to sell yourself, and the resume is practically meaningless.
So where possible, send a hard copy of your resume, along with a cover letter tailored exactly to the company you're attempting to get a job with. Research the company, show them that you're actually interested in what they're doing. This shows the hiring party that you don't just see this as another potential job out of 500 that you're applying for.
If you can't send hardcopy, try to use an electronic cover letter (depending on which online resume service you're using, you may or may not be able to do this). The cover letter is helpful because it is seen *before* the resume. In essence, it is your opportunity to intercede and present yourself as a valuable hire, before they even see your qualifications.
Finally, getting a job through want-ads, either online or off, is the worst way to get hired. It's all about connections - if you know someone at the company, even distantly, attempt to use that connection to obtain an informational interview first. Make a personal connection with someone in the department you'd like to be hired for, and your odds of bypassing the "needle in a haystack" hiring process are much higher.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Something a lot of people out there need to do is build up a solid network of friends and contacts, moreso than anything else. A solid recommendation from someone inside an organization will go farther than anything else; there is more than a grain of truth to the fact that the good jobs never make it to a forum like Monster. Especially so in today's economic climate.
/. crowd do not represent the demographic who sell themselves best :).
It's worthwhile to keep business cards. It's worthwhile to go out of your way to socialize with people in your industry. Go to trade meetings when you can. Hell, get involved in some open source projects where you can meet some people.
Learning to sell yourself is the biggest thing. A resume is part of that, but it's only a part. Unfortunately, the
..don't panic
Thirdly, the "Jack of All Trades" background is getting harder to place. Employers want someone with large (sometimes unreasonably so) amounts of experience in particular (sometimes obscure) areas. It used to be that having a generic background was a good thing.
I have heard the opposite from a training institute instructer and IT placement specialist (although they may be biased somehow).
They said that mostly small companies are hiring, not larger ones at this point in time. These small companies *do* want a jack-of-all-IT person because they don't have a big enough staff for specialists that we are used to (DBA, programmer, network specialist, help desk, etc.).
Thus, I am getting conflicting information.
I would also like to see a forum/story on making a *backup* career for oneself being that IT tends to be very recession-sensative.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm about to finish an Honours degree and I still haven't started looking for jobs. I think what I will do is look for contract work first, that also seems to be where most of the jobs are now in I.T, easy to lay off and for other cost cutting reasons. I still haven't read the article because it's /.'d but good to see this stuff around.
What I've always thought is that writing the best resume is relative to who is reading it, and usually you don't know what they are like and what other ppl's resumes look like comparatively. Basically, you can write a good enough resume to pass as a viable one, but the rest is luck. Usually nowadays they invite (depending on the number of ppl) 2/3rds to an interview. From the interviewer's point of view they get out of work and do something different, more so they want to find the best person they want to work with, and maybe the best person for the job.
What I don't get and hate is when the interviewer talks to you as if you have already got the job. I went for an interview at Sun once and they even showed me around and where I was going to sit. Almost _2 months later I got the call from a middle man saying they gave it to someone else. Talkin in the sense that you got the job and then ringing/writing and telling you that you don't is a recipe for infuriating the interviewee yet they all do it. Another time I went for a job interview where I even told them I am not so qualified for the job, and the offered and they still offered it to me, showed me around and said I start next week. As I was saying before, you don't know the real situation outside of the interview room, what they are really like or how they are going to take your resume. Does luck have anything to do with it? Yes.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Remember, your resume is not so much about what you've done, but is more about what you can do for someone else.
You fuckers slashdotted another site. Fuckers.
I get a lot of conflicting information about tuning IT resumes for this tech depression.
:-)
Is there any statistical analysis of what works and what doesn't? (Probably not because too few people are being hired to produce good data
Heresay is nearly useless if it is all over the map. How about advice from people who have recently gotten hired, at least. Posting successful resumes (minus address, etc.) would be nice.
Table-ized A.I.
for my site
CV Wrting tips and more
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
US market slumps sees Dow Jones hit four-year low.
Dow Industrials Plunge to Near Five-Year Low at Midmorning
Dow Falls 162 in Morning Trading
U.S. stocks tumble after weak economic news
U.S. Stock Markets [all down]
NASDAQ STOCK MKT
Piss off.
Better yet, write your resume in green and purple crayon...
Perfect Economic Storm?
.mil. What does this mean? I don't know how likely this is, but there is definitely a fair chance that all of the ports in the western U.S. may soon be placed under military control.
Are we about to get smacked by a Perfect Economic Storm? "About to get smacked!? What do you call the last two years?" you say. I know, things have been bad and continue to get worse. But the markets seem to have crossed the rubicon today, headed toward serious doom. Oil prices continue to rise and earnings are going nowhere but down. Many issues are crossing below six year lows. War with Iraq, and God knows where else, is imminent.
And there's another MAJOR story that is not getting much coverage in the establishment media: the longshoremen lockout. Each day the ports are closed takes backlogs a week to unwind until things return to normal. Each day the ports are closed the U.S. economy loses approximately $1 billion. This is not a labor issue, this is a national security issue. If this longshoremen situation is not resolved in very short order, the U.S. government has a contingency plan to use United States Marines to keep the ports open. The government realizes that the longshoremen (the most militant union of them all) will not allow anyone to break any picket lines without a full tilt riot (or worse) ensuing. But even those guys won't stand up to
I don't think the port operators would be this bold unless they "knew" something, if you know what I mean. And all of this nonsense is happening as the major swindlers are gearing up for the critical Christmas shopping season:
In Portland, terminal operators told about 200 dockworkers to leave the Port of Portland's largest container terminal at about 3:15 p.m., in the middle of what union members had expected to be a full day shift.
"I never thought this would happen," said Bruce Holte, president of ILWU Local 8 in Portland. "It affects our whole economy. The Pacific Maritime Association wants to destroy our economy. Who knows how long they'll want to play this game."
Ever hired anybody? Ever sifted through a pile of even 10 just resumes a day, especially while you're trying to code something on your own?
Yes, you have 1" to catch my eye. You don't catch my eye with education (the piles are already sorted by BS, MS, etc) You don't catch my eye with experience; I want to know what you want to do, not what you did (you are, after all, hiring for the future, not the past). If you sound interesting, I'll read what you've done.
You ESPECIALLY don't catch my eye with a multi-page resume if you've worked any less than 10 years. This means you're a babbling idiot who can't summarize properly. This means you'll write lousy memos, ramble on at meetings, and aimless documentation (all of which I've seen, amazingly enough all with multi-page incoherent resumes). The memo part is key. People won't listen to you if you can't write a good memo.
Yes I have 10 years experience. Yes my resume is 1 page with a clear objective. Yes when my dot bomb went under I was somehow only out of work for roughly a week (admittedly after taking a month of voluntary vacation), fending off offers from both coasts, where everybody else is suffering.
Coincidence?
- Matt
Well since the President is hell bent on waging war with Iraq of course the economy is going to speed up. Nothing like a good war to boost our economy.
I don't think that is true anymore. The Gulf war didn't seem to change the economy.
It depresses everybody it seems and they hunker down and don't spend. Plus, higher oil pricess.
Table-ized A.I.
but seriously, in my field (industrial design) your resume is meaningless. its all about your portfolio of work. i know kids that didnt even graduste that got top jobs because they had a hot portfolio. whats my point, employers want to see what youve accomplished, not the paper slips youve accumulated.
I want 2D games back.
5) PROFIT!!!!!
Avoid spelling mistakes and typos. Come on folks, this is a resume. If you misspell something, then your chances just got cut in half. Once we were interviewing for a documentation person, and she misspelled 3 words on her resume. She had no chance after that.
A good tip about experience with different things is to rate your experience. I know on mine, I broke up technical experience into three categories: experienced, some knowledge, familiar. That way when you say "familiar with dbase" you can expand on that in the interview to tell them exactly what "familiar" means.
Know what you say you know. We were hiring someone into our QA group, and we were testing on Unix servers. We had to have someone with Unix experience. One guy had the word "unix" in several places on his resume, but when we got him in the interview, he couldn't even answer my basic questions. (what is your favorite shell in Unix?) He asked me what I meant. He didn't know what shell scripting was, but he thought he could learn it. Then came the blunt questions "how well do you know Unix?" He said "pretty well". Guess what, for proclaiming to know Unix and not knowing a damn thing about it, he got to see the door.
Don't put the standard, tired, canned crap on your resume (Objective, hobbies, etc). Believe me, they all start to look the same. What you say in your objective really doesn't help at all, it can only really hurt you. If your objective isn't worded for the position you are interviewing for, then HR may not even pass your resume on. And if I want to know your hobbies, I'll ask you about them in the interview. And printing your picture on it is dumb. Being "clever" for the sake of being clever probably won't help.
Show that you know how to use your experience, put down some quick details about projects that you have worked on (# of people on the project, the type of project, etc) Don't go into too much detail, but don't just say "coded in C". Be specific, but not boring. If you read what you wrote, would some questions about it come to mind? (and not - what the hell does that mean?) Pretend to have been interested in past projects, even if you weren't. Nobody wants to hire someone who is just there to get a paycheck and doesn't care about what they are doing.
Be honest. Really, that is about it. Don't blow smoke up anyone's butt, don't interview as someone you are not. Be yourself, that is who they should be hiring. If you aren't right for the job, then it is because you aren't right for the job, not that you didn't put on the right game face.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
This is sadly true. If you want a job, your resume must proudly wear your bullshit.
:)
I may have worded it a bit humourously, but I was actually being serious. I don't care, however -- karma is karma
But you really do have to BS everything and present yourself as some sort of living God, even if the facts couldn't possibly check out.
All the other things you mentioned work whether you BS or not, however.
- Make it look nice. If it looks like crap, I think your code looks like crap. Marketing is critical here.
- Don't include every technology you've ever touched. If you do, I love calling people on their tech knowledge. You've used Intermedia, interesting. Tell me, what's the function of a stemmer and how does it work in Intermedia? Don't be too agressive. You cannot know everything.
- If you put multiple tools or editors down, make sure you know them. I used to ask people what they liked about a Visual Cafe over JBuilder, and, more importantly, why. If they used BEA and Websphere, great, tell me why I would use one or the other. If you can't do that, then you don't know the tools.
- IMHO Certifications quite frankly are crap. They show you can take tests, not that you understand the tools or languages. Mention them later, not at the top.
- A style note: use verbs!!!! Developed, Created, Architected, Designed, Coded, Documented etc. Do not use sentences. I was responsibile for is a banned phrase.
If you have any other questions or comments, just let me know. Hope it helps....tizzyd
With all the resume tips being posted, heres another.
Keep it under 4 pages. I dont care if you have 25 years of experience, keep it 3 or fewer pages. I personally watched my manager THROW AWAY a bunch of 5-6 page resumes he had. Too much information. No one cares what you did in 1983.
siri
beautiful women everywhere
Yes, but if you are a CS major, you never get to actually touch them.
In a few years, I'll have at least a Master's, but that's only if I completely fail to achieve a PhD.
High-end degrees in computer science may actually count *against* you. Be careful. Many employers are thinking about finding someone with specific skills, and a PHD will just make them think that you want a higher salary dispite not knowing the specific skill more than the next guy.
Table-ized A.I.
The current job situation in the IT industry reminds me of the energy industry nearly two decades ago. At that time, I was graduating with a bachelor's degree in geology and was looking forward to employment in an oil or mineral exploration company.
Then the price of oil dropped to less than $20 a barrel.
The immediate fallout was that oil and mineral companies put a hiring freeze on new undergraduates. Several of them were holding on to their graduates and PhDs in the hope that oil prices would recover leaving them with a core exploration group to field when it was needed.
It wasn't long before energy companies started laying off the people with masters degrees and, soon, the PhDs. In short, there was blood in the streets. The old joke was renewed: "Why did the guy with a bachelors in geology fail to get a job at McDonalds? Because he didn't have his PhD."
I couldn't stand the idea of going back to school. I was tired of school (starvation) and wanted to start working again. I gathered up all of my networking contacts and pressed them hard for any job available. None of them were offering jobs in geology. So I started looking in other related industries.
I figured that if I could get inside of Exxon or Shell, then I could post for internal positions when they started arriving. My foray into the petrochemical industry started with a job in a small formaldehyde plant. I was the only operator with a degree. Heck, I was the only one in the plant with more than a high school education. That experience, however, gave me an in-road into another field - industrial hygiene. I went from plant to factory performing routine studies of industrial exposure to workplace hazards.
After a few short years, I had learned enough about the field that I considered certifying as an industrial hygienist.
But I found an ad in a local newspaper that was offering a job as a well-site geologist who had industrial safety training. Because I had taught industrial safety as a hygienist, I got the job. It was a lateral move with fewer benefits and was a contract position. But it was in geology, a field I had long given up hope of getting a job.
I was eventually hired on permanently and have been here for the last 10 years. I now have more work than I can perform myself. I will have to farm the excess out to people who have more education and work experience than myself.
The point? Don't stop working just because you've graduated and can't get entry-level work in your field. The IT field will eventually shake out the deadwood and under-qualified. If you continue to keep your skills up, the day will come when your skills are not only needed, they are hard to find. This translates into greater job security than if you were to have taken the first job you could find in your field only to be laid off 8 months later.
Don't give up.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
There was a guy on IRC just yesterday, presented the channel his resume...
Interests and activities:
System level programming, networks, viruses, hacking, mail bombing, mail faking, Denial of service, password cracking, trojans, software reverse engineering.
I mean, dude!
The sad thing is, he was serious about it.
Speaking from experience in the Portland Oregon market.... someone is on crack Most of my friends in the tech field are all hurting in a bad way. I have inside info from several different hiring managers complaining about the sheer number of applicants for one position. (network security slots in health care and a few actual tech shops) where the manager and HR have had to deal with 500 applicants for one position. The supply/demand model for tech workers in Oregon is severly broken!! DONT MOVE HERE!!
everybody hates job-hunting, so my advice is to make it like a role playing game. you "roll up" a resume and send it off to do battle with various hr creeps. if you "win" (get the job) you gain some experience and skills that you add to your character.
/dev/urandom
right now my resume looks like this:
name: frymaster
class: paladin (web)
level: 6
alignment:
str: 12
int: 16
wis: 15
dex: 17
char: 9
hp: 45
bonuses:
+9 vs. enterprise applications
+4 vs. venture capitalists
spells:
exercise stock options
exorcise stock options
dispell windows
summon libraries
banish end user
read documentation
evangelize
skills:
hide in office (+20)
comment code (+10 elvish)
languages:
java, php, elvish
2 1337 4 u!
The unemployement figures dont count people who stop looking for various reasons. The link suggest over three million may have stopped looked already in the current recession. A more accurate way is to look at Bureau of Labor total payroll figures which seems to be falling.
An engineering friend of mine is trying a different approach. Rather than learning to smile better, lie better, and shave better, he is using technology itself:
He is putting a timed spring on the back of his resume. (Actually, it is kind of a flipper, penguin-like even.) When they toss his resume in the trash, it pops back out onto the top of the desk at night. It has multiple reloads so that it can pop back out multiple times.
If it works, I am going to buy a set.
Table-ized A.I.
Really, are people putting these on their resume's? Truly dweeby.
Remings me of the sigs you'll see where people describe their awesome dream machine they build. Who gives a flying, spattering shit what your hobbies are?
--
My Baby
Dual i386, with 64M(!!) overclocked 35Mhz memory and a SuperX VLB PCI card, hand build Linux OS (I call it TurdWare 1.0!).
Besides, as I'm sure you know, my point wasn't that people who submit poor resumes are worthless. My point was that hiring managers have only a limited amount of time to go through a lot of resumes. Unfortunately, if you make errors on your resume, it is quite likely that your resume won't be seriously evaluated.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"help the economy out and buy things"... yea I like that. I love when George tells regular working guys like ourselves to "Invest in America".. meanwhile, I'm out of a job in three months because my CIO is "investing in India".
What really pisses me off, is going to Yahoo finance, and finding out that while 27,000 were laid off last year because of a "slowing economy", the top four exec's made a combined 60+ million.
Top that off with the Big Business Tax break that my Gubner "Jeb", gave to the company I work for last year... s**t shouldn't I be seeing some of this money f**king "trickle" by now?
However, I've come to realize I am wrong about trickle down economics. What it really translates too is this... The money flows into my CXX's pockets, they in turn have enuff money to hire that extra toilet cleaner... So I am brushing up my resume to reflect My Mad 31337 Bowl Scrubbing sK1lz!
Awesome!
First off, nobody should look for a job without reading Nick Corcodilos' excellent Ask The Headhunter.
Second, think like a hiring manager. Remember that the hiring manager has 50 resumes in a folder that HR has dumped in his lap, or worse, 50 emails that have been forwarded from HR.
Tell me, as a manager, exactly what you can do for me. This might mean some extra work on your part customizing a copy of your resume, and of course writing a job-specific cover letter. DO IT. Don't skimp here.
I want to know exactly what the applicant can do to help me out. Make a thumbnail sketch of what you are. The top of my resume looks like this:
Five lines sum up my background and experience, and highlight my key skills. Compare this with the standard meaningless "Objective" heading. Besides, "To obtain a position as a developer that will utilize my skills & experience" is just cargo-cult resume writing.Other little notes from my resume sins file:
Ask The Headhunter makes the key point that managers WANT to hire you. They want to find someone that they can hire so that we can all get back to doing real work. Make it easy for me to see that you are the person for the job.
Don't write a 10 page essay about your previous jobs
I get conflicting info on resume size for techies. Some still say 1 page only (which is nearly impossible for seasoned technies unless they list barebones), others say no longer than 3 pages.
I am going to leave mine at 3 until I see real statistical evidence otherwise, not heresay. (Other professions don't count.)
Table-ized A.I.
Having scanned thousands of resumes in my time...
.5%, or worse.
In general, only the first sentence of the first few paragraphs are read. The rest is skimmed.
The skim looks to weight the paper on keywords and your written presentation skills.
Time spent per resume? About 3-8 seconds.
If you pass that test, it will be read -- but mostly for reasons NOT to hire you. This would include the typical "degree bigot" check for grossly outdated BS/MS credentials.
"Objectives" are strictly rejection criteria. There is simply nothing you can say to fit the details of any given job well enough to make sense. Thus, your "objectives" rarely fit well with the job under review -- hence the rejection.
The biggest problem today is automated HR systems. They can only search for that obnoxious laundry list of every technology everyone in the chain remembers the company ever used. The systems simply cannot recognize aptitude.
So you end up with these stupid generalist resumes. You know, people with every freaking technology in the world listed. Typically the result of finding themselves on the market so often for sub-par performance.
Trouble is the market is absolutely flooded with people who have been told "Computers are where the money is", and literally boatloads of people brough in under fraudulant H1-B requirements. What was a search for a 5% "cream of the crop" is now a search for the
What was a hundred resumes is now ten thousand. How does anyone stand a chance in what has become more a game of chance than skill?
The guy who posted this story is, well, let me put it in his words, "...My name is Tom Limoncelli and I'm a 32-year old poly, bi, white male that lives in New Jersey." Dude, next time, leave the details out...sheesh.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
I've reviewed a lot of resumes. A lot. One piece of advice; write a cover letter, very brief (a paragraph!) that is costomized _specifically_ for where you are applying. Furthermore, I suggest that you touch up your resume for every job.
The point of the cover letter: to get the interviewer to read the resume, and to positively bias them towards what they read there.
The point of the resume: to get the interviewer to want to interview you.
Don't oversell any one point. It's a waste of energy. The point of your resume is not to get the interviewer to want to hire you. The point of your resume is to get the interviewer to want to interview you.
For tech jobs, make sure you have a "buzzword" section. Little to no prose is acceptible in this section. We interviewers have short attention spans. It's common for us to use a yellow hiliter and simply hilite your technical skills. It's quite possible that we can make the decision to interview you on your cover letter alone. To wit:
"
Dear Sir or Madam,
I noticed that XYZ widget company is looking for a skilled senior XXX engineer. I've long had an interest in your company, and I'm enthused with the work that you've done, particularly in the area of ZZZ research. I have up-to-date skills in XXX-A, XXX-B, and XXX-C. Let's schedule an interview to see how it would be possible for me to contribute to your team.
--[Signed, hotshot]"
Anyway, hope this helps.
C//
Not bad, except for that small mistake (and kobolds probably can't have int > 11, web devs either).
We all know that when your applying to a job that has a lot of applicants, the company in question wont even read half of the resumes. They will scan them in and have a computer look for key words that they are interested in for a future employee.
Here is the punch line: When your applying for a job online, throw in a line of text at the end of your resume that consists of about 50 key words that you think employers might like to see on a resume but aren't on yours. For example "I know absolutely nothing about MFC, Java, Microsoft, HTML, insert random high paying skill here". Now highlight it and change its color to the same color as the background color of the page. This only works when you submit your resume via email and in a text format that doesn't make the color change immediately visible. The effect being that the email parsing bots will read your resume and go "WOW this guy/gal is awesome, here boss read this guys resume right away." He/She will then print it up and read it over seeing only the information that you wanted them to see, thus getting you past round one.
I'm not advocating that people should do this, I just think it's a funny way to beat the system.
No some parts of IT tend to be recession-sensitive. The thing is to pick wisely. I can't speak for the coding side of the house having never been there. But I know that in the last few years of slow down. I as a datacomm, network infrastructure, security kind of guy have seen *no* slow down and in the past year have seen a lot of new interest. (Mostly having to do with the security side of things.) The reason so many folks in "IT" are having problems right now is because a large number of them got some kind of a cert during the bubble years and thought they were good to go. Had no love for the profession had no depth had no real understanding. And where in the I can run a windows/*nix server crowd. Well the herd go thinned. Get a good solid deep background then learn as much as possible about *every* aspect of IT and you too will be recession proof.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I have seen a lot of posts like this. They imply that somehow, if you are out of work, you must be
less qualified than those who are working.
But a lot of big companies did large layoffs that were in large part random.
Mangers were given targets to meet for headcount.
I know of several qualified programmers who are out of work.
There employment status has nothing to do with their ability.
Normally, it would be easy for a qualified candidate to find another job quickly.
But now there are lots and lots of qualified un-employed people and very few jobs (in IT).
So if you are working, and you think it is because you are hot stuff.
Lets hope YOUR bubble doesn't get burst.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
1. the area you live in sucks. MOVE.
2. you aren't nearly as skilled as you think you are.
3. you aren't nearly as skilled as the -other- applicants are.
4. You want bubble-boom pay rates. Lower your standard of living.
You will of course notice that I state in my post that I don't know anything about the coder side of the house. My statement is purley my observation that network/security guys and no not server admins either, have made if through this fairly well and that if you want a fairly recession proof IT job you might look in that direction. Nothing about anyone else.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
In this article I write about some of the most common mistakes that I see on resumés, and how you can avoid them.
I proofread resumés for friends... a lot. With the economy heating up I'm getting asked to more frequently. I find that technical people often have difficulty "selling" themselves. While "The Practice of System and Network Administration" (co-authored with Christine Hogan) has tips on hiring sysadmins, we didn't include specific resumé-writing tips. Therefore, I thought it might be useful to write down the thoughts I have in this area. (Our negotiation section does have tips on how to negotiate your salary, but that's putting the cart ahead of the horse.) How do employers process resumés?It's important to write your resumé to be useful from the perspective of your potential employer. In writing they say, play to your audience.
That is, an action film is expected to have an explosion or something major in the first scene, a romance is expected to introduce at least one of the main people in the first 5 minutes, Steven King always includes the elements that his fans expect. A resumé has to be written for its audience too. What are the audiences of a resumé?What makes writing a resumé difficult is that there are two audiences.
First is the non-technical HR clerk that receives the resumé. If it gets past the clerk, it will arrive at the desk of the person that will be your future boss. Your resumé has to have the elements that will please both of these people: The HR clerk The first person to see your resumé, sadly, is a non-technical clerk who is handed 10,000 resumés a day and a list of positions that need to be filled. This person does the first level of sorting. Your job is to make sure you get through this person's selection criteria. The problem here is that this person doesn't know the difference between UNIX and Solaris, or that if someone knows Solaris 2.5 then they are hirable for a Solaris 2.6 job. Luckily, this person only reads the top part of every resumé, so you make make sure that you have "Objective" and "Skills" sections made just for him/her. Don't say "Solaris 2.6", say "Solaris 2.x" or just "Solaris" (people have forgotten about Solaris 1.x by now).
The Hiring Manager Each pile that the clerk created is handed to an appropriate "Hiring Manager." This person does understand the technology that you'll be working with, or at least they think they do. The rest of the resumé must be in their language. The most common mistake that I see is that people don't write anything for the clerk. Therefore, their resumé never gets to the hiring manager.
The "Objective Statement" and "Skills" section at the top of your resumé is what the clerk reads. Make sure your resumé has these sections and make them clear. Typically I see resumés without an "Objective Statement" at all! Tip 1: A good "Objective" statementA good objective statement tells a plainly-stated title you would like ("UNIX programmer", "CGI Developer", "Project Manager", etc.) and a couple skills that you have ("excellent writing skills", "experience with digital audio technology", "experience with large development projects", etc).
If you aren't sure what your title is called, look at a couple job advertising web sites to fill you in.
You can also specify what industry or department you want to be in ("financial services", "telecommunication", ".COM", etc.).
Here are some good ones that I've seen:
- Objective: A position as a Senior UNIX/Linux Developer that lets me
utilize my years of experience in the TDM cellular technology.
- Objective: A position as a Project Manager in the EDA industry that
lets me utilize my excellent communication and presentation skills.
- Objective: A position as a Junior UNIX/Solaris Sysadmin (SAGE Level
II) in the financial services industry that lets me utilize my superior
Solaris knowledge.
- Objective: An entry-level position as a HP-UX/UNIX Sysadmin that
enables me to demonstrate my ability to learn on the job.
A sample bad objective statement (this is a real example):- Objective: I am an expert in building large, scalable services
based on open protocols.
That person didn't get any calls back, even though he had builtHow could the clerk classify such a resumé?
A better statement would have been: "A senior architect of UNIX-based email and web services that lets me utilize my experience in building extremely scalable systems with high up-times." He did change his resumé to something similar, and soon started getting phone calls. Tip 2: A good "Skills" sectionUse buzzwords. There is a reason for them, it makes communication faster. I hate "buzzword compliant" presentations, but only when they aren't adding any value to the statement. When they appear on a resumé they do add value because the clerk undestands them. Better-trained clerks are given a list of synonyms. For example: they might be told "We need a Solaris sysadmin... but that means anyone that mentions Sun, SunOS, or UNIX should be considered. Oh, other synonyms for UNIX are: AIX, Linux, IRIX... a person that knows any of those but wants to learn Solaris is fine for this position." However, that doesn't always happen so it is ok to be a little redundent: I include the word UNIX in addition to the name the vendor uses (i.e. "Solaris/UNIX" or "Red Hat/Linux/UNIX").
List the best skills first. I see many "skills" sections that list 20 operating systems or 20 languages or 20 vendors and that's a fine way to show that you have a lot of experience over many years. However, the person reading your resumé is only going to read the first 3-4, so make sure those are the ones you want to work in.
A friend listed the languages she knew in the order she learned them. Which of the these two would a clerk find most useful if he/she was told to find a "Windows C++ programmer"?
OR The second list is the more appealing, right?While I'm at it, I believe one should delete the super-old technologies like Commodore 64 and Apple II unless, of course, you are applying to work someplace that still uses those technologies.
A concise way to list skills is to group them. The first example below is the most concise, the others are longer.
Skills:
Operating systems: Unix (FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux), Windows 95/98/2000/NT, and others.
Here are some other good examples of "Skills" listings that I've seen:
Skills:
Operating systems: Unix (FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux), Windows 95/98/2000/NT, Cisco IOS 7.x-12.x, plus some experience with AIX, HP-UX, OpenVMS, NetBSD, OpenBSD and others.
Programming Languages: Perl/CGI/mod_perl, C/C++, HTML, Unix shells and tools, awk/sed, SQL, Python, Pascal, BASIC.
Network Products: Cisco Routers, Cisco Switches, Cisco PIX Firewalls and Cisco IP Telephony equipment (ICS7750); Checkpoint FW-1; Linux/Unix firewalls (IPFilter, IPFW); Avaya Cajun products; Network General Sniffer, tcpdump, Ethereal, Snort.
Network Technologies: FastEthernet, Gigabit Ethernet, FDDI, OSPF, BGP, ATM.
Tip 3: ClassificationsIf you are a sysadmin, use the SAGE Job Classifications to describe yourself and/or the position you are looking for. More and more HR departments are using them, and certainly the cool companies that you want to work for are using them. However, explain enough so that someone that hasn't read http://sageweb.sage.org/resources/publications/8_j obs/
will understand what you mean. That's why the above example was redundant: "a
Junior UNIX/Solaris Sysadmin (SAGE Level II)".
Tip 4: Pick a good filenameNever use a filename like resume.doc
when sending your resumé as an attachment. Name the file something like
resume_tom_limoncelli.doc so that if the HR person saves it, he or she
will be able to easily tell yours from someone else's...and your resumé won't be
overwritten the next time someone else sends them a file called
resume.doc. (Thanks to my friend Tina for this tip.)
ConclusionA good resumé is your key to finding a new job. However,
you'll never find a job if your resumé doesn't reach the right people. Making
your "Objective" and "Skills" sections complete and accurate is how you make
sure it reaches the right people.
Tom Limoncelli is co-author of The Practice
of System and Network Administration with Christine Hogan, Director of
Network Operations at Lumeta Corp. and
maintains www.EverythingSysadmin.com. He can
be reached at talsagewire@whatexit.org.
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
In response to the comment about the "economy picking up" in this article and people bitching that it's not - well - stop bitching. While not 100% true, I am generally a more happy person knowing how many unskilled workers were filtered out of the working public.
.coms to Fortune 500s. It boggles my mind that there are so many unskilled workers out there in the industry. With the amount of money that had to have been spent on unqualified labor, it's no wonder the economy is in such a bad condition.
I have spent time interviewing people coming from everything from startup
I now do consulting/retainer work for several companies, including a large Fortune 100. There are literally HUNDREDS of people in the IT department with no discernable skills. It would be so much easier and more cost effective to replace ten of them with one qualified employee.
That said, my only resume advice is this - keep it short and highlight what your future boss would see as your highest acheivements. They will be in the mindset of looking for items that will ultimately be able to benefit their image to their superiors. Also, some items to show you have a life outside of IT wouldn't hurt either.
geezus fucking christ you right wing assholes are insane.
have you ever heard of the fucking "COMMERCE CLAUSE" in the FUCKING CONSTITUTION?!?!?!
you know the one that says "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; "
how the fuck can this be construed as to being outside of their constitutional duties, asswipe?
and in my next lesson - why supply side doesnt work.
fuck head.
... hi bingo
Good suggestion: get the hell out of IT.
I am tired of fighting with a million other starving cattle for measely scraps of jobs. That is not my style.
I am somehow getting the hell out of IT one way or another. I like computers, but fuck this meat market where every scuff on my fucking shoe makes or breaks me.
I refuse to tolerate this anti-dignity any more. I am a human, dammit, not a bottle of Windex in a store.
I'm seriously considering looking for a job in a city about 5 hours away from the one I currently live in. Any advice? People seem to ignore my resume since I live so far away. I have taken to using a relative's address who lives in this city. Any other suggestions to keep the resume out of the old round file, or network in an unfamiliar city?
Cheap storage VM.
I don't care what the advice givers say, I am not taking the Penguin logo off my resume!
www.4jobs.com* allows a user to set up a home page with their coverletter, resume, references, and
even a "QandA" section to (I guess) get the more mundane parts of an interview out of the way.
If you've got something constructive to say, you're welcome to surf to:
www.4jobs.com/evanrichter
and email the address found there to let me know what you think.
If you REALLY like it, are hiring, and you're in Portland, please don't hesitate to give me a call!
* I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated in any way with 4Jobs -- except as a user!
I hope you don't write your resume like you wrote your submission.
is that MANY people who go out and pass the test still can't apply that book knowledge to the real world. Passing A+ doesn't mean anything unless you also have spent ALOT of time troubleshooting systems. Passing a Microsoft test doesn't mean you really can DO anything practical. The tests are not designed to show amount of real experience a person has with a product except for say RH or cisco tests.
end of rant.
But certs are a marketing edge especially when the interviewer doesn't understand the position that you are trying to get.
Appearance is EVERYTHING and so Certifications mean EVERYTHING in Asia.
Apparently some humans are marketable...just like that can of soup or bottle of shampoo. Maybe slavery was abolished because they realized that some people will sell themselves.
Yes, I know what was meant, but it still makes me shudder when people talk about "marketing" them selves...
---
Open Source Shirts
Your practice of not customizing obviously hasn't worked for you these last five months, so why are you offering this bad suggestion to others? Tailoring your application to the position is absolutely *vital*. When I'm recruiting, I want to see a cover letter that addresses what I'm looking for, before I even look at the resume. I also expect the resume to be arranged in such a way as to highlight the specific skills and experiences I've requested in the position posting. I don't care whether you have an "Objective" field or not, provided that if you do have one, it's not a lame "to get this job" type inanity. Likewise with hobbies - use your judgment as to whether listing a particular non-work interest will add value to the application. Most always, listing hobbies is a waste of time.
As you admit in your third paragraph, you're mostly sending off standardised letters to positions you're not even that interested in. Has it not occurred to you that this is plainly evident to the recruiters?
If you think you can craft a good application letter and resume in 30 mins you're mistaken. My advice would be to concentrate your applications on the positions you want. Read the posting carefully (it's amazing the percentage of applications I throw straight in the bin because it's obvious from the first paragraph that the applicant hasn't even bothered to more than skim the posting). Do some research on the company. Then write a cover letter that states succinctly why you think you're the best candidate for the position. This doesn't need to be an essay - one or two well written sentences will get you that interview. Finally, you may need to tweak your resume to highlight specific areas. This should take way less time than writing the cover letter, since your resume is already written and is only two pages.
Mostly though, this is not about design and layout (very subjective, as you say, although terrible design obviously doesn't help) it's about communication. If a candidate is not able to write a cover letter that states plainly why they should be considered for the position, then they don't get considered. Conversely, I've also called candidates in for interview based on an excellent cover letter, even when the resume was very mundane or even missing a skill or two.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
Other experts will tell you to list skills in alphabetical order. This way, a screener can quickly locate the skill they are looking for.
Your "best skills" should shine in the Experience section of your resume.
Additional Tips:
The article suggests naming your resume file something like resume_firstname_lastname.doc to make your file easier to identify after the HR person saves it. Good tip.
Take it a step further. Include your name in the subject line of the email message sent with your resume attachment. This way, your message will be easier to identify amongst the hundreds or thousands of other applicants.
Send a file format more universal than .doc (assuming MS Word), but also a format the HR screener is likely to have a reader for, such as .pdf. Or send both.
Or, don't bother with the attachment. Send a link to your resume. Who wants a mailbox flooded with MB of resumes, most of which are useless? When sending links include multiple format links.
Examples:
2) We're in the longest bear market in 60 years.
...Being unemployed in a righteous republican family makes me wonder how I'm still alive..."
Let me get this logic straight. If the stock market goes down...the economy isn't growing...and therefore you wont get a job?
Perhaps my glass is 3/4 full, but when I watch CNBC, this is what I hear:
Unemployment is at a healthy rate of 5.7%, and is expected to drop more.
The GDP is growing, at 1.3% last year, and is expected to increase.
Interest rates are at a 40 year low (yes, that's a wonderful thing, it lets you get cheaper loans on houses, cars, etc.)
And all of this despite a bear market! You wonder how you're still alive? Its because you're living in the world's econimic superpower...and its economy is getting better.
Your problem lies in misunderstanding how the real world works. The bear market and low interest rates didn't suck IT jobs away, it was because investors ran out of money to keep fueling the dotcom fad. If you can't find a job in the oversaturated IT industry, consider a different field. Unfortunately, from here on out, there's always going far too many computer geeks out there than there are $50K IT jobs.
Your practice of not customizing obviously hasn't worked for you these last five months, so why are you offering this bad suggestion to others? Tailoring your application to the position is absolutely *vital*.
I should have given a little bit more information. I spent more time tailoring from May through July. The most response I got from any organization was an automated "Thank you... we've received... we'll keep you on file" response. I spent DAYS researching some of these companies, looking up Forrester and Gartner Group reports, scouring their websites, even emailing some companies who used the product made by the company I was trying to get a job at. Lots of serious investment, no return.
Starting in August, I decided to "play the numbers" -- I sent out more resumes and cover letters, spent less time researching and customizing. I got actual responses from human beings and three interviews. That's what makes me think this tactic is more effective.
Now, the investment I made up front in spending lots of time writing and rewriting cover letters those first few months is a part of what makes me able to dash off a cover letter in under and hour. I've written the "how my skills and background can work for you" part of a letter so many times that I don't need to spend much time thinking about it anymore, unless the position I'm applying for is off the beaten path and unusually interesting.
Bottom line: the second approach has gotten me more interviews, the job of a resume and cover letter. The carefully tailored approach wasted time. I now do my careful research and preparation before the interview.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Do Slashdot posts qualify as published papers?
Know your audience. The type of job you are searching for should form your resume. It should also emphasize your strengths.
Sadly, when employers hire these days, they can truly pick among the best. Out of fourty people who applied for a temporary position I'm hiring for, seven are so talented and well fit that I'm almost down to tossing a die.
Anyhow, you should also make a good application. Write briefly about what skills in your resume you think will enable you to do a good job.
That's all I can tell you. The rest is probably position specific. Tailor yourself to the position as far as possible.
Stop the brainwash
Lawyers/sales people please don't be offended. I know that if you lie you never get a job :o)
Have fun :oD
No stress!
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Oh my, has Apple's Switch Campaign finally got to Steve Jobs himself? I heard that his pay was lousy, like 1USD/year, but recently he got a 40M USD bonus so that should have taken care of his itch to switch. So he's now top monkey at Microsoft, right? I heard they needed someone to keep Ballmer company.
"My name is Steve Jobs, and I run a fruit company..."
*grin* *duck* *run*
Resume Tips For Jobs
Here I was, thinking Steve had quit and needed help on his resume!
I had so many good suggestions, too!
Murphy was an optimist.
familiar situation of being over-employed. With the
scarcity of people that do what I do and the number
of projects looming on the horizon, I just can't manage
to find the time to take off.
Any recommendations on recruiting habits, and work
habits to help me out of this bad situation?
[
Security *is* one of the few areas that seems to be strong these days. It may be because of 9/11 fears, or just more viruses and hacking. (Maybe all the unemployeed IT people are hacking around.)
The coding side seems really down right now. About 1/2 of all coding is normally for medium-term stuff. When the economy is slow, medium-term projects often get canceled. That means that coder demand could drop to 1/2 of what it is usually at.
You don't really need coders to keep things "as is" in a company, except occasional bug fixes. Thus, a company may keep just one programmer on staff where before they had multiple.
Stalled business just don't need nor want coders. It is just not an immediate need for them beyond a skeleton staff.
Table-ized A.I.
For example, MS is 85% immigrants and H-1B Visa workers
I am very willing to participate in an anti-H1B protest. I am in a mood to yell in the streets, but preferably not by myself.
Anybody else out there up for it?
Table-ized A.I.
I went through a similar process described in the article when I moved to Utah last year at this time.
I knew at the time that things weren't going to be as easy as they had before (The last couple of jobs I'd had, I cleaned out one office on Friday, and moved into a new one the next Monday), and Utah was an especially tough market (fewer jobs, and more experienced techies to compete with - not to mention the whole LDS 'inside track' - but that's a different story...).
I realized pretty quick that I needed to really sharpen my resume; not just so that it got across the pertinent facts that I had the skills necessary for the job, but my resume needed to get noticed above and beyond the 10 other equally qualified techs.
Many people will tell you that an objective is crap; this is not so. Think of it as a mini-cover letter. Make your objective custom tailored to each type of position you want to apply (i.e. do a different one for the resume you use to apply for 'programmer' positions than the one you use for 'web developer' jobs). Yes, this means you will end up with various versions of your resume. I had, in all, 5 different versions.
Also, make sure your cover letter explicitly responds to the requests made in the hiring ad. Whether the person reading your cover letter is technical or not, what they really want to know, and in as few words as possible, is if you will fit their needs. Address their needs, tell them (very briefly) that you've solved similar problems before, or have other applicable experience/skills. As I made my Resume's objective tailored to the position; I made my coverletter tailored to the specific company. Yes, this means writing (or selectively editing) a lot of cover letters - one for each application, if you're smart.
Lastly, I had to change the way I looked for jobs. I noticed, at least in Utah (and this is true in other places as well), that web sites such as monster and hotjobs.com had fallen out of favor. This is probably because the local companies were reallyo only interested in local candidates, and not interested in paying headhunter's fees (headhunters still dominate some online job boards) when there's so much local talent laying around. I found the local paper (imagine that) to be my best source of job leads.
The bottom line is, folks; it's a different job market out there now than it was even just 18 months ago. It's time to get your game on, get hip to the strategies that work, and dump those that don't. Otherwise, you'll find yourself working in a place where your name is on your shirt, and not on your desk.
Need a simple, easy to use data tier generator? http://www.gryphinsoftware.com/
...if you can back it up. Besides, the other guy called him out on it.
"the second approach has gotten me more interviews, the job of a resume and cover letter."
But are they interviews for jobs you really want and are particularly well suited to? That you research the companies is great, you're way ahead of the masses. But the point of the research should be to reject companies that aren't a good match, and not even bother sending them a resume. All that said, the lots of resumes approach may be the way to go with big companies. I wouldn't know, I hate big companies. For small companies, or at least the one I'm now at (and occasionally read resumes for) a customized resume is essential. Just to throw in my own appocryphal (sp?) evidence- My last job hunt lasted a month and I wound up with a job I love. I sent out exactly one resume after spending a day and a half on the cover letter. The cover letter detailed why this was the perfect job for me, and I the perfect candidate for the job well enough that my boss has since admitted he didn't read my resume until after arranging the interview.
For those in the audience using anything more advanced than 7 bit ASCII, the correct spelling is résumé.
But are they interviews for jobs you really want and are particularly well suited to?
:)
One was nigh unto perfect for me. The other two were merely good fits. I generally don't apply for a job unless I know it's going to be somewhere where I'll contribute and enjoy putting skills to work.
My last job hunt lasted a month and I wound up with a job I love. I sent out exactly one resume after spending a day and a half on the cover letter. The cover letter detailed why this was the perfect job for me, and I the perfect candidate for the job
Would you mind posting the text? OK, emailing it?
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Do not misspell software on the resume.
I have seen 'soft ware' and 'SoftWare'.
Normally I do not care much about spelling on resumes but you have to draw the line somewhere...
my uncle did it. He applied for a sales position, and he had no experience, so he completely fabricated his resume and experience and got hired as a sales position, and he worked there for 15+ years!
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
But wanted to. Seeing as how probably
;)
the majority require resume in Word format,
I wanted to send some recruiters an "interactive"
resume (with some macros, etc). Not at all
malicious code, just highlighting in some
ways various sections, etc. It was a sorta
"hey, look at me!" thing.
Granted, it's a gamble. It may piss someone off.
But on average, I'd rather have one person be
angry at it, and one love it, than both just
filing it with the others.
Since I got a job at least for now, I'm letting
this idea out there
Considered harmful.
I've rarely read a resume that accurately reflected what a person did or could do. A cocky genius would write a crappy resume and be a pain in the neck to work with, but they might do some great stuff.
Insecure, introspective, aspergic people also often write sad resumes but that doesn't mean anything. Is the employer looking for a wizard, or a fork-lift driver ?
If you don't have a network of people to help you land a sure thing and are reduced to applying with a resume that matters, then you're in pretty bad shape. Be humbled when alone in the wilderness. Carefully determine what the employer wants and then be it. Do the same thing when meeting big bears in the forest.
What's the point of the "Objectives" section ? Most employers don't really care what YOU want to do; they want a handle on you, they want to know what kind of carrot to put in front of you. Make it easy for them. If they find out the handle on their mug is broken
Some scouting employers don't know what they really want, they may have a vague idea and are just looking for some free direction from people they don't intend to hire at all. Tease them with vague ideas but don't give them anything solid unless they hire you.
Some people are classifiable as "generalists" in the sense they can do just about anything very fast on the uptake, but probably not as well as someone who's been working for 5 years doing one thing. In these quickly changing times, being a generalist may be the way to go, but there's no way easy to say you are flexible without appearing weak and flimsy except by listing a large number of things that you've worked on, none of which you are an expert on. In that case, you might consider saying that you "managed" these projects rather that worked on them.
Good luck.
My CL's, which have helped get me interviews (no job, yet) are a form of T-resume.
My 1st paragraph is short: "saw your ad in X for a Y at Z corp. Here is how I match your requirements:"
Then I have a list of skills or projects, each one directly matching a requirement listed in the ad. I choose 5 (or 6 if they are short) from a set of 30 different descriptions I have used over time. Because these are pre-written, I can put together a decent cover letter in 20-30 minutes. The last paragraph is a standard closing paragraph.
Within 10 seconds of starting to read the CL, the reader knows several things:
I don't add anything about how I'd be an asset or other general statements- those statements are too obvious and takes up room on the CL (and time in the reader's brain) Better to spend that time on capturing their attention.
You're getting different reports from different sources who are looking at different perspectives of the same overall situation.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
My only beef about Certs ( MCSEs specifically, ) is how they get in the way when you need to fix something, defensivly spouting nonsense.
Include your Gender, Race, and Ethnicity on any electronic resume.
I know it doesn't sound right but the fact is employers are required to keep records of these figures for prospective 'job applicants'. When the law was enacted, the employer would simply write this info on a resume as the person came in to apply. Now they get so many electronic resumes they either have to hire someone to call the applicants who did not include the info or round-file it.
I just recently learned this from a Seattle Times article this weekend; Online résumés are taxing employers.
Now I'm just trying to figure out a tasteful way of including this info in my own resume; as a footnote? in the header?
Ya Sure! You Betcha!, The_THOMAS
reports that with the economy speeding up, more and more people are freshening up their resumés.
ROFL!!
Vaya con Dios, man...
Anyone who seriously thinks they can raise a family/maintain a home on a W-4 salary after watching the last four years really needs a ticket out of fantasyland. Every single job app is one stupid manager away from another round of destroyed credit, destroyed retirement savings and reposession of everything they own.
Don't believe it? Who's going to stop your manager from firing your a**? You? HR? Who? Yeah, that's what I thought.
If you still believe one single %#(*&@%) word that comes out of those idiot middle managers' mouths after ALL THIS, you're a fool.
I can't know what you can do unless I know what you have done before.
For me the most important part is past experience, that tells me very quickly who should be called for an interview and who should not.
If what you want to do is in line wuth what we want to do, all the power to you, but first I want to make sure you will be able to deliver. Past experience tells me if you can or not.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
yeah, but they are all sacrificially killed.
it's a sig, wtf?
Wow, all you have to do is know everything?
I'm surprised more people don't do this!
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
1. Resume is no longer than 2 pages. This is an absolute must.
2. Write a cover letter. Don't send me a random resume to the hr@ email address with no letter. Send a physical copy of your resume as well. Yes, it's more difficult but it shows that you took the time to do it and are really interested in the job.
3. Wear a suit to the interview. No matter what. If you don't wear a suit, you are instantly disqualified as a candidate.
4. Bring a pen, paper, 3 copies of your resume, a copy of your references, and a writing/coding sample if you have one. I can't overstate the importance of being prepared.
5. Take notes. It doesn't matter if you are interested in what you are writing. Just write something.
6. WRITE A PHYSICAL FOLLOW-UP LETTER AND MAIL IT RIGHT AWAY. Write and send this the same day. If you could not answer a question in the interview, look up the answer and put it in this letter. There is NO better way to impress a potential employer.
I've interviewed TONS of tech candidates and less than 1% of candidates followed these simple steps. Of course, we've ended up hiring that 1% and the rest are still out there looking.
Why do all of this? Because you need to set yourself apart from the other candidates. Here is a secret that employers know: Overcoming gaps in technical skills is easy. Overcoming bad work habits is difficult to impossible. You need to prove that you have great work habits to get in the door.
Just my $0.02.
Things that "turn me off":
.
- a 10-year gap in your "activities". Either educational or in the work section. You'd better have a good explanation, and it better show on the resume: You won't get invited to tell me in person.
- Highly under-qualified work. College graduate person swapping tapes for example. Either you were very desparate for a job because everybody else was turning you down, or they figured out that that was all you were good for after a week or so, so that's what you ended up doing. It's certainly a hint when other people were declining someone a job....
- Not listing your mother tongue as a "language you master".
I'm currently interviewing people for a job: Technical, hardware/software, you have to work in Delft, The Netherlands. EE/CS college degree. Linux(unix) expertise very much a bonus. Company: Harddisk-recovery.com, send CVs to r.e.wolff@harddisk-recovery.com
Roger.
Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker with
`programming systems', but those are so high level that they hardly count
(and rarely count accurately; precision is for applications).
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