JOBMATCHBOX

If you’ve ever thought about picking up a resume writing book or hiring a resume writer you may want to read this before you go out and fork over any money for someone else’s ideas on the subject.

Resume writers and guides will tell you how to style your resume in much the same way that designers will help you style your website or marketing materials.  But that isn’t why you need a resume.  That is unless you are looking for a job as a web or graphic designer, but even in that case you will need a resume before you get into the style.  Exception - if you are an artist then you may want to break the rules completely. 

So here is everything that you will ever need to know about resumes:

Rule #1: You are writing your resume for a specific audience, so your resume should speak to that audience.  If you are looking to get hired as a developer you don’t really need to emphasize that you are a realtor.  If anything, this shows me that you are easily distracted by other things going on in your life.  Focus on the things that are important for the job.

Rule #2: Your resume should be more like a short story and less like War and Peace.  Actually, if you are thinking about your resume as an essay or work of literature then you need to get over this idea really fast.  People do not read resumes like they read literature, they read resumes more like grocery lists.  Short, sweet and to the point.

Rule #3: Your summary says it all.  Objectives are goals, but summaries are for professionals who want to show their audience that they are qualified, experienced and interested in the job that that are applying for.  You need to have a thesis that summarizes what you have done and why you are qualified for the job that you are applying for.  This should be followed by no more than 3-5 bullet points that support your thesis.  The rest of your resume will support this central thesis.

Rule #4: NEVER lie on your resume.  You will have to support the lie for the rest of your career and it will catch up with you - even if you don’t know that it has.  Save yourself the need to lie on your resume by writing a great summary and then supporting it with what you have done.  If that isn’t enough to do it then you should be networking or do something else to help support your career direction.  Note: A degree from an online university is low hanging fruit that isn’t worth the cost to you - think traditional university or certificate program or get a hobby that gives you resume experience. 

Rule #5: You can easily have too many skills for your own good.  A resume is a lot like a website.  You can search engine optimize to drive traffic to your resume just like a website.  The problem is that you don’t want to do that.  Just because you used an email program on a UNIX environment when you were in college 10 years ago doesn’t mean that UNIX is a skill for you.  Take this off your resume along with every other keyword that will put your in the wrong search results.  Job boards suck at search and a lot of recruiters do to - you don’t want to talk to the bad recruiters out there do you?  I know I wouldn’t.  I made the mistake of putting Sharepoint on my resume ONCE and I got 6 calls from the same recruiter - each time I said I don’t use Sharepoint (except for on one project and not in a big way - I had only listed it in my skills).  Monster.com told him that I was a Sharepoint WIZARD because I was in his search results. 

Rule #6: If your education is relevent then put it at the top, if not then put it at the bottom.  I don’t care where you went to highschool.  If you are listing classes that you took in college 10 years ago on your resume then it is time for them to go. 

Rule #7: Work experience should be concise and to the point, not paragraphs.  List off the employer (not the staffing agency, though they do appreciate your plug), dates, location (city and state), then 3-10 bullets that speak to what you did there.  This is where you really need to be thinking about supporting your summary (thesis).  You shouldn’t repeat your summary bullet points here, but you should be expanding on them.  Don’t use your job description, use what you actually did.  Recruiters don’t assume that you are going to be a perfect fit for their job and neither do hiring teams, but they do look for patterns.  If you don’t show them what you were doing then the pattern will not present itself.  For example, if you talk about how you used Java, but don’t clarify what types of Java applications that you worked on then you are probably going to get put at the bottom of the call list by the recruiter or person reviewing resumes (if they are good, and you don’t want the bad ones calling you…).

Rules #8-10 will have to come later.  Good luck!

I just got off the phone with a recent graduate of a top computer science program that happens to be in the DC area.  The guy clearly had things going on upstairs, but said he had just accepted a programming job at a government contracting compnay (not even one that I had heard of before) for $60,000.  He’s done a few internships and has some great things going for him, but he had not interviewed with one single DC area startup company before he accepted this offer.  I asked him about the details and he said that they had a good 401k match.  I wanted to tell him that he should think twice, but I would prefer not to push someone so early in their career to burn a bridge.  The conversation that I had with him has me in a funk now.  How could this have happened.  

Today was just full of interesting conversations.  I also talked to someone who recently worked with Zed Shaw, apparently he found a job working for a company that also has not so solid financials right now.  I hope Zed’s job works out.  At any rate, my thought for the day is that just like this guy should be thinking about 401k matching and investing in the right plans in his 401k, he should also be thinking about his career portfolio.  

He is about to embark on a long career journey and he hasn’t even talked to any DC area startup companies.  Ok, maybe he doesn’t like Foosball or Ping Pong, but there is more to startups than that.  Some of the most interesting, challenging, and potentially financially rewarding work is with startup companies.  Not to mention the fact that people who work for startups get stock options and a lot more experience than someone working in a large compartmentalized government contractor.  

There is plenty of time in one’s career to pursue all of the different options that are out there.  People change careers and even industries all the time, but once you become a government contractor it is really hard to switch into anything else.   

I frequently get requests from people who want to know how much they should be making in their jobs or how much they should be paying their employees. As the person that sits in on the salary discussions for a wide variety of technology companies here in the Washington, DC area this is a frequent topic. It came up twice today, both with a client and with a friend who wanted to make sure they are in the right place. Sometimes this is isn’t easy because I’m in a position where I have to represent the interests of company management. I am open about this whenever someone asks me this kind of question and will happily tell you if I can speak candidly or not. If I will also happily tell you where you can go to find the answers. This is life in the management consulting world that I eat, breathe and sleep.

So tonight, after I just spoke with someone about this, I am going to share some secrets that will help job seekers and hiring teams can use to help themselves to know where they stand with respect to the salary negotiation table.

Secret #1: Your pay package isn’t as important as the value that you get out of it. If you work a 2500 hours in a year that is different from 2000 hours. If you work in a job where you are not learning anything, or worse, your work is super compartmentalized (think CMMI or 40 person developer team), then your value as an engineer is diminishing rapidly and it doesn’t matter how much this job pays (if you plan to move - EVER).

Secret #2: You need to network. Even if you don’t talk salary with your peers (which I would NEVER recommend - perhaps we can discuss this in a future post), you should talk to people in your community. It requires leaving your computer behind (usually), but it will pay massive dividends.

Secret #3: You need to check out Indeed.com’s salary tool. It provides some great analysis and segmented data based on job titles and zip codes. It isn’t perfect, but it is very useful.

Secret #4: You need to know what you need to make. Sounds simple, right? Maybe it is, but you need to calculate how much your cost of living is and then decide for yourself. Forget about this and you will be looking for a new job sooner rather than later.

Secret #5: Your peers will change jobs and help you get a better job down the road. If you go to work somewhere where people are uninspired then so will the opportunities that arise down the road.

The counterpoint to all of this for employers is that if you are not considering the same variables then your employees are. Start thinking about it today.