{"id":1196,"date":"2011-05-12T19:54:40","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T01:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/famille.org\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2011-05-12T19:54:40","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T01:54:40","slug":"the-resume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/famille.org\/?p=1196","title":{"rendered":"The Resume"},"content":{"rendered":"

Probably the first thing that you’ll turn to when you lose your job, or decide it’s time to find a new one, is your old resume. I had one too, and I had floated it – somewhat halfheartedly – for a few years before my “position was eliminated”. It clearly wasn’t very effective, because I didn’t get much response from it.<\/p>\n

Then, when I was laid off, my former employer hired an “outplacement firm” (who my coach worked for) to, among other things, help me prepare my resume.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s how it went, and how it turned out.\u00c2\u00a0 First I’m going to cover the advice that they gave me, and then how I modified that, and what my results were.<\/p>\n

First, format isn’t terribly important.\u00c2\u00a0 A header at the top should cover contact information.\u00c2\u00a0 You should include as much contact info as possible, including URLs to your pages on sites like LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Next should be a brief profile.\u00c2\u00a0 This is where you summarize yourself: what you are, what you’ve accomplished, and your background.\u00c2\u00a0 It should start out with a statement like “A <your field> professional with a proven record of delivering <solutions>.”\u00c2\u00a0 You should include an adjective or two, like “expert”, etc. – but don’t overdo it.\u00c2\u00a0 Following this intro sentence, you should cover at a very high level<\/em><\/span> your background – e.g. “direct marketing”, “focus groups”, “Linux”, “Security”, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 Cover as much as you can in one sentence, but don’t drill down yet.\u00c2\u00a0 Finally end with a sort of sell sentence… I don’t know exactly how to describe this, so I’ll break one of my rules (which I haven’t mentioned yet) and post mine here.<\/p>\n

A detail oriented technician, problem solver, and technical coach with a reputation for taking on the most difficult and challenging projects and completing them on time and on design.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There, does that help?\u00c2\u00a0 Good.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, this is the part of my resume that changed very little over the years.\u00c2\u00a0 What comes next changed quite a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 My professional experience.<\/p>\n

At this point, I was told to start listing job data – employers, along with a summary of what business the employer was in.\u00c2\u00a0 Dates should be given as “Month Year to Month Year”… if employers want more detail, they’ll ask.\u00c2\u00a0 Next, list your latest<\/em> title or job role, and the dates you held that title or role.\u00c2\u00a0 I was told that as you describe your role, you should start with a paragraph that summarizes what you did<\/em>, and how it affected the company or department.\u00c2\u00a0 You can also list any particular emphasis your role had, and any products or processes you used to accomplish your role.\u00c2\u00a0 For instance, (not from my resume):<\/p>\n

Designed distributed application layer for websites involving JavaScript running on Solaris 10 with an emphasis on application speed, ease of use, and cross-site connectivity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After this brief summary, you start to list some bullet points.\u00c2\u00a0 This is where you list what you accomplished – important projects you completed, high profile accomplishments, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to start with an accomplishment word, like “Improved” or “Reduced”.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, explain what you improved or reduced.\u00c2\u00a0 Then say “by”, and explain how you did it.\u00c2\u00a0 Explain it from early idea stages through to implementation or delivery.\u00c2\u00a0 It should be two or three sentences (each bullet point), and you should have usually 3-5 bullet points per role.<\/p>\n

You then repeat this for each role you held within the same company, and then repeat for each company you worked for.<\/p>\n

Now, how that worked out for me.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, pretty good… but not perfect.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s where the talk becomes a bit IT-specific.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know about other careers, but in IT, it’s all about technology – what products have you mastered? Which ones have you learned?\u00c2\u00a0 Which ones have you briefly touched?\u00c2\u00a0 In reality, for IT professionals, right after your Profile but before you work experience, you need to list – pretty much in bullet points – what technology you know, and how much you know it.\u00c2\u00a0 And you must<\/strong><\/em><\/span> be honest.\u00c2\u00a0 Do not try to fake your way into a job you don’t understand.\u00c2\u00a0 It won’t end well.<\/p>\n

Finally, at the end, summarize your education – colleges you attended, degrees you received. Also, list any certifications.<\/p>\n

The last steps involve checking your resume for accuracy and errors, with multiple eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 Typos are death.\u00c2\u00a0 You must catch them all.\u00c2\u00a0 Spell check and grammar check everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Then have someone else spell and grammar check it.\u00c2\u00a0 Then read it, out loud, to someone else and take any corrections they suggest.\u00c2\u00a0 Clean it all up, spell check it one last time, and then you’re ready.<\/p>\n

In my experience, the resume my outplacement firm helped me build was described as polished and very professional.\u00c2\u00a0 At the same time, before I added the bullet list of technologies I know, it was also passed over by a lot of recruiters and HR people.\u00c2\u00a0 These folks have hundreds or thousands of applicants for each position, and they quickly scan a lot of resumes.\u00c2\u00a0 If yours doesn’t have the keywords they’re looking for, even if you’re perfect for the job, they’ll skip it.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s also important to update the “Profile” section with keywords from the job req – NOT FAKED, of course – so if a job req says “Looking for a marketing professional with 10 years of experience in focus groups”, the first line of your resume for that employer<\/span><\/em> should read “A marketing professional with 10 years of experience in focus groups.”\u00c2\u00a0 And, it has to be true.\u00c2\u00a0 If it’s not true, don’t lie – print the truth, and hope for the best. And, as you probably guessed, you need to change that line for each employer<\/em><\/span> with whom you apply.<\/p>\n

In reality, this resume worked great for me – and in fact, after I added the technology bullet points at the top, I had no end of calls from recruiters and HR.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, it was just a matter of weeding out the best jobs, pursuing those, getting past phone \/ tech screens and interviews, and negotiating a final offer.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll get into more details about those in future posts here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Probably the first thing that you’ll turn to when you lose your job, or decide it’s time to find a new one, is your old resume. I had one too, and I had floated it – somewhat halfheartedly – for a few years before my “position was eliminated”. It clearly wasn’t very effective, because I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gettajob"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1211,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}