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?"

Comments

Well, be careful!

[iknownuttin]

I got caught on the job looking at porn and...

Oh wait! You said Jack of all trades! My bad! I thought I saw 2 'f's there.

Don't do that

[eln]

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.

Re:Don't do that

[jafac]

What the parent poster said.

And also; make sure you are able to talk about Your Own Initiative:
Projects you managed. Problems you discovered and fixed, on your own, without oversight. Also, if other techs come to YOU for advice, detail those happenings as well.

If you're the go-to guy, and can be trusted with a small budget, and a certain amount of autonomy to come up with fixes to long standing annoyances that nobody else thought of even trying to solve (overcoming organizational inertia) - then try to convey that. Most managers would give their left nut/tit for this kind of worker. (and often, this kind of worker is misclassified as "junior").

Bottom line is: breadth of skill does nobody any damn good, if that skill does not come with initiative. Breadth of skill is difficult for a busy manager to manage. That level of management is usually tasked with fighting fires with his or her immediate superiors. They're too busy to task you - so you put your skills to good use, be everyone's hero.

Re:Overstate your talents

[eln]

When we do technical interviews, our policy is that anything on the resume is fair game to ask questions about. So, if someone comes in with a laundry list, we'll try to find a question to ask about some obscure technology they say they're proficient in (nothing too tough, just something that someone who knows the technology would know). This will tell us how much they're trying to puff themselves up.

We'll also ask progressively harder questions in each category that we have expertise in just to see what they do when they start becoming unsure of themselves or just flat don't know the answer. We are much more impressed by someone who simply says "I don't know" than someone who tries to bullshit us. If you don't really know a technology, don't go around pretending that you do.