31
Jul
2009
Resume Writing 101
I look at anywhere between 50 and 100 resumes on a daily basis for a variety of positions. About 99% of these are for IT positions ranging from low-level help desk positions to CIOs and CTOs of companies. They vary in size, length, content, and format and there is no real standard out there on how to make one. One thing remains constant, however; if I look at 10 resumes and 3 are formatted in a meaningful manner, it is a good day. That means that 70% of the resumes that I view on the job boards, through referrals, through applications, or any other sources have done an ineffective job of marketing themselves. Seventy Percent! That’s astonishing to me that it is a good day for me if only 70% are failing at self-promotion.
The sad thing to me is that it is really not the difficult to create at least a decent resume. Now I don’t claim to be the authority on this subject, just someone who has seen enough to offer some suggestions that people may or may not find helpful. I just can no longer idly stand by and watch people hurt their own chances at their dream jobs and I decided it was time to try and get out there and help. That being said, I’ve decided to use my daily experiences as a staffing specialist to try and create a series on resume creation. If you choose to take any advice I give, please let me know if it helps you at all or if you have any ways that I can refine my advice. Again, I don’t claim to be the expert and I know that there are still things I need to learn.
Let’s start things off by discussing what a resume is and why we need one if we hope to acquire a new position. This is especially important in an economy such as this one where employers generally have the upper hand. A resume is a piece of marketing material. It is the first thing that a potential employer looks at to become acquainted with potential new hires. The point of it is to give a high level overview of a person’s professional accomplishments in hopes of enticing a hiring manager to want to know more. The why should be fairly obvious to most people. We each have a resume because we are trying to market ourselves and the skills that we can bring to a company.
A lot of people will tell me that they have been using the same resume for a number of years and that they have always eventually found a position with it. That’s awesome and I don’t doubt it. My question to them is, “which opportunities did you miss out on?” You never know who passed on you solely because of your resume. If it’s hard to read or the content is not meaningful or there is just too much on there to manage, you don’t know who skipped you and felt that way and you may have missed the perfect job. That $1 million salary position working as a roller coaster tester in Disneyland could have slipped right through your resume’s fingers! Okay, so there is no million dollar roller coaster tester at Disneyland, but you get my point.
Someone once explained resume to me by comparing the individual to a company. Any company out there trying to sell anything has some sort of mechanism to convey to its consumers precisely what it offers. Now that sales person may be able to convince you that their laptop or watch or whatever is the best one that you can buy once you are in front of them. However, if you are trying to narrow your search based on the information they have on their website, are you going to go for the one sentence description or the detailed description with pictures and an interactive tour? I go for the details and pictures because I want to know my product before I even step in the store. A resume is the same thing. You may be the best interviewee on the face of the planet and you can land any position you interview for. But if your resume is that one-pager that gives no detail of your work history and doesn’t paint a picture of your skills, why should I call you over someone else?
Now we at least know what a resume is and why we need one. I feel that this is true across industry, whether you work with IT folks like myself or with lawyers, nurses, teachers, or ditch diggers, I feel this is an appropriate and accurate definition of what a resume is. The next post will be about the common myths I hear and see with resumes that are just not true any more.
3
Apr
2009
Battling the Job Market
So in my daily life of working as an IT Staffing Specialist, head hunter if you would, I am responsible for talking to a variety of “professionals” in the IT industry from systems administrators to software developers and from the lowest, entry-level folks to senior resources who are targeting C-level positions. It varies from day-to-day and can be very interesting at times and rewarding. Knowing that you are helping people find jobs that they will enjoy is something I feel like I can be proud of and I know that I have helped some people launch their careers and move on to the next steps; not to mention that the money’s not too bad. For the last couple years I have been doing this, partially while going to school, it really has been enjoyable. Lately, however, there seems to have been a shift in how conversations tend to go with potential candidates and the hiring practices of our clients entirely due to the wretched state of the economy and the effects it has had on the job market.
Conversations with candidates used to be about careers and goals. I used to be able to ask potential employees what their ideal job would be and most people had a sense of pride in what they do and would happily tell that they wanted to concentrate specifically on this or that technology and are looking to work in a company that is mid-sized. People had a sense of what kind of culture they would be happy in and where they could make an actual career for themselves and it was exciting for me to see their excitement and passion in what they do. My job is no longer like that with a growing majority of the people I talk to on a daily basis.
Now, I ask people what they are looking for and they tell me they are looking for anything they can get. And, please, don’t get me wrong, I feel for these people who are currently unemployed and I understand that we all have bills to pay, but there is a lack of pride and foresight. People are willing to do anything right now regardless of how it fits with their true career goals and completely ignoring how it might negatively effect their future.
I can still remember in my last company one particular interview. I was sitting in a small conference/interview room with a candidate and my boss at the time. The gentleman we were talking to was a bit younger, no more than 2 or 3 years older than myself, and we talked to him about what his goals were in his professional life. He was ambitious and knew that he wanted to one day be a systems architect of some sort but just did not have the guidance to achieve his goals. So my boss and I sat there and mapped out a high-level road map of the types of things he should try and do with his career and from an educational perspective. We told him what certifications would be most pertinent and what types of positions to target to ultimately achieve his goals. This wasn’t a one or two year plan but a life long career plan that we helped him with. That gave me a sense of pride to be able to help someone to understand what it would take to achieve their goals. This isn’t the case anymore.
The reason I bring all of this up is because these people who say that they were previously making $70k annualy but are willing to take a $15 an hour position are hurting themselves. If you are one of these people, please listen closely. Employers do not want to hear that, nor do recruiters… at least not any employers worth working for. There are some companies out there taking advantage of these people and putting them in positions with drastically reduced pay and those aren’t companies you want to be with. If you have to take one of those jobs in the meantime, do what you have to do. But don’t hurt your chances of landing that dream position because it is still out there. Here is my suggestion to all of you, whether you have this attitude or not. Look for a position that you will enjoy doing and will strive to do well in a company that you can see yourself working at 3 years or 5 or 10 years from now when we are back on the upswing of economic success. Go in with a positive attitude and show your passion beaming through you and employers will react to it. It may take a while and no one is saying this is going to be easy, but, in the end, it will pay off because you will be happy and you will be able to make a true difference in a company.
Always remember, a job is something you had in high school to make some gas money. But a career, a career is something you adore and share with the people around you. Listen to yourself talk about your current employment. If everything you are saying is a complaint about the work and the people around you, it’s time to reevaluate where you are and what you’re doing because you are likely at a job and not a career.