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Marketing Yourself as an IT Jack-of-All-Trades?
ultimatemonty asks: "As an IT professional looking for a new job, I'm trying to figure out how to market myself as a 'jack-of-all-trades' IT worker. I'm currently employed at a medium sized university as a video conferencing specialist. I'm good (competent) at many IT related tasks (Linux server management, programming, Windows/Linux desktop support, video conferencing support, etc...), but specialize or excel in none of them, sort of like the lone IT manager in a small shop. What kinds of jobs would the you look for with this kind of work experience, and how would you market yourself (design your resume, cover letter, and so forth) to prospective employers so they get the full-breadth of your capabilities, without over-stating your abilities?"
If you list a bunch of divergent technologies on your resume, and you describe yourself as a jack of all trades, employers basically see you as a junior admin with exposure to a lot of different technologies that really doesn't know all that much (especially given the huge number of resumes out there that list technologies in the "skills" section because the applicant once read about it in a magazine or something).
Tailor your resume to fit each specific job you apply for. If the job is Windows heavy, emphasize your Windows work on your resume. If the job is Linux heavy, emphasize your Linux work. Also, don't just list what you know, list what you've done. Tell them about your big project that saved the company $10 million. That sort of thing holds a lot more weight than telling them you once logged in to a VMS machine.
Basically, employers don't need to know and don't care about the full breadth of your capabilities: they care about what you can do for them. Do not just shotgun a laundry list resume to a thousand different companies, make sure each resume you send out specifically addresses how you can fill the need the company has, as evidenced by their job posting.