Resume Writing for IT Professionals

A Step-by-Step Guide on Writing Effective IT Resumes

Ultimate Guide

Inside:
1 Understanding profitable skill sets

in the IT Industry

2 Assessing your background 3 Locating a target job 4 Critically reading a job posting 5 Researching a target company 6 Pulling it all together

ULTIMATE GUIDE: Resume Writing For IT Professionals

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An effective IT resume is the first step towards demonstrating yourself as a

viable employee. It shows your background, establishes your persona, and when done well becomes a spotlight that helps you stand out from hundreds of other applicants. Sitting down to write (or revise) your resume, however, can seem daunting. You have your basic biography, but in most cases rattling off a catalog of everything youve ever done just isnt feasibleor desirable. So what goes in and what stays out? How, amidst all this chatter about bullet points, stressing accomplishments, and describing your work history, do you actually write a resume? Well, unfortunately there is no magic formula. Resumes, like candidates, are intensely personal, full of tics, idiosyncrasies, and individual stories. What enhances one resume might damage another. While no unswerving blueprints exist, however, there are common elements. This resume guide will help you make informed decisions about: Understanding profitable skill sets in the IT Industry Assessing your background Locating a target job Critically reading a job posting Researching a target company Pulling it all together

How to Use This Guide

Even though well be discussing writing a resume as a series of discrete steps, it probably wont work like that in practice. Writing is a recursive processit goes in fits and starts, as steps overlap and spark new ideas. Every step you take, and word you write, shifts and impacts every other decision, so there will be some back and forth. Consider these sections as different aspects youll need to address, rather than rigid process instructions.

Understanding Profitable Skill Sets in the IT Industry

One of the initial steps is recognizing what will catch a potential employers eye. Every job has its own requirements and expectations (more on that later), but there are nevertheless some reoccurring features. These can be classified as hard skills and soft skills. Here are things you might see popping up repeatedly as hard skill traits for IT positions: Operating Systems (Unix/Linux) Desktop Operating Systems (Macs, the various iterations of Windows) Programming Languages (Java, C++, Perl)

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Network Administration (design, capacity planning, management) Systems Analysis and Systems Design Database Management or Design HTML, XML, or other Web-based programming skills Hardware and Accessories (printers, docking stations, PC cards, etc.) Workstation and Desktop Administration Virtualization (server virtualization, desktop virtualization, application virtualization, cloud computing, etc.) Mobile application development Securities, Data Protection, and Fault Tolerance Any industry specific technical skills (ex. Computational chemistry programs; salesforce, accounting, or stock tracking software; logistics support, etc.) Proprietary applications

Many companies, depending on size and focus, wont be looking for someone who can do all these thingstheyll look for someone who can do some combination of these things very well. Smaller businesses will usually look for generalists IT professionals with a broad set of skills who can do more but may not have deep understanding of any one technology. Specialists on the other hand, are valuable to larger organizations looking for experts specializing in specific technologies. Understanding the distinction between generalists and specialists will help you define your technical skill set and identify the organizations you should be applying to. Beyond technical skills, (which you should think of as the baseline of competency for an IT position), companies look for employees who can demonstrate so-called soft skillsless concrete but no less crucial. Here are the major types: Leadership Skills A solid leader does many things well. Hiring managers want someone who can motivate others, resolve differences (whether of opinion or personality), anticipate issues before they arise, and weave the goals of one department into the larger fabric of the companyamong many other things. Writing/Communication Skills Business is a world of constant documentation. Incoming employees, even highly technical ones, are often taken aback by the amount of writing. On a call-center job, you write nightly reports about volume and trends, as well as accounts of individual calls. Teams and individuals write status reports. You could write field reports about client consultations or conferences, and incident reports to document security breaches. Lower level employees write proposals seeking approval for projects or equipment, and managers write memos to dictate policy and document standard operating procedures. And dont even get me started on process instructions. Teaching and Training Skills Even though youre the technology expert, youll still train people to use the technology. Sometimes, this will be simple (say, setting up a secure network password) and sometimes more complicated (like, say, using the database you built so lovingly). The training may be on a one-off basis, or in the context of training multiple end-users in a classroom setting. DONT

List skills in which you may not be proficient.

DO

Be honest about the skills you possess. List those skills that your superiors have recognized.

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Project Management Skills A common industry buzzword is multi-tasking handling more than one project or task at once. Its a challenging skill set because it involves heavy prioritization, time-management, and organization. One step above multi-tasking is project management, where you oversee a multidimensional project, often involving overlapping stepsor multiple employees working at the same timeand coordinate them all to achieve a common goal. Especially for higher level IT jobs, project management is a crucial skill set. Interpersonal Skills Most technical jobs arent done in isolation. You solve other peoples computer problems, answer their questions, and harness technology to meet their objectives. Since technology enhances peoples lives, you better make sure that (as an expert in technology) people dont find you too frustrating. Playing nice in the sandbox is just as important as an adult as it is when youre a child. When you read job postings, or consider what you might bring to a position, be mindful of these common traits, and try to present your material (and anticipate a companys needs) accordingly.

Assessing Your Background

Equally as important as knowing what employers want, is knowing what you have to offer and how to present this information. It is common to think of all ways of describing something on a resume as being equal. That is simply not the case. Ideally, a resume will profile the most noteworthy parts of your backgroundthings separating you from other people doing the same job. As you consider your resume, keep the following questions in mind. Doing so will help you generate clear, specific resume material. 1. Describe any times youve been singled out for recognition. This can be in a formal settingreceiving employee of the month, for example, or earning a specific compliment during an annual review. It can also be more casual, like getting a gift card from a manager as an attaboy for working overtime to meet a deadline. What, specifically, earned you the recognition? What did you receive? 2. Describe any specific ideas or proposals implemented at your previous jobs. The ability to innovate, and communicate innovation, is highly prized. If any specific ideas of yours made it through the approval process, include them on your resume. What specific thing did you propose that made the company better? 3. Describe times you were given special responsibility. Think about moments a manger picked you to head up a project, or take on an opportunity, when they could have selected other people. What was the nature of the task? What did it involve? 4. Describe times you contributed something tangible and measurable to the companys success. Companies love quantifying accomplishments. Did you increase network efficiency? Or boost DONT
List every job or experience in your background in the same level of detail.

DO

Select specific moments and experiences that highlight your accomplishments.

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overall office productivitylike faster response time to customer inquiries or order processing? Did your work increase profits, sales, web traffic, or market share? If so, by how much? Did you increase the companys industry profilelike by securing a publication or speaking at a conference? Think about how success is measured in your industry. How do you measure up? 5. Describe any major projects in which you were involved. What did you contribute to them, and what did they contribute to the company? How were they received? Try to avoid vague terms like assisted, helped, contributed to, and similar terms. Chart the nature of your involvement as specifically as you can. 6. Describe how you stay informed about emerging dimensions of your field. Do you attend conferences, subscribe to major publications, or maintain membership in trade organizations? Are your certifications and knowledge current? How do you ensure this? What might make the immediacy of this knowledge valuable to an employer? Each of these prompts will help you isolate strong resume material that can demonstrate the kind of personality traits hiring managers often seek, including: reliability, respect for others, professionalism, confidence, innovation, and openness to new ideas. Going through each position in your background with these prompts in mind will help you pick out material that will shine on your resume, and give you a better sense of what jobs to target.

Locating a Target Job

Now its time to see what the job field has to offer. This can be intimidating. When searching, youll find lots of things that dont quite match your education, expertise, or experience. When you toss in anxiety about all the other people looking for the same kind of job, it is easy to be discouragedand perfectly natural. If you know where to look, however, and can accept the unavoidable, needle-in-a-haystack feeling, there are fine opportunities to be found. There are two ways to conduct a job search: passively and actively. When you look passively, you post a resume to a web-site or database and wait for people to come to you. Theres nothing inherently wrong with this strategy. You have to recognize, though, that many hiring managers are so overwhelmed with candidates actively applying that there is little need (or inclination) to farm the databases. When someone is staring at a list of four hundred resumes, the last thing they often want is more. A better job search strategy is to aggressively seek out and apply to postings. People place job ads in all sorts of venues: college career centers, local or university job fairs, company web-sites, social networks, and trade publications among them. DONT
Apply for every job that crosses your path.

DO

Seek out the jobs that are a clear fit with your skills, background and interests.

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The most common way to find job postings, though, is to troll the online databases. In addition to massive, full-service job portals like Monster or CareerBuilder, try sites that focus on IT jobs specifically, like the following: www.dice.com www.computerjobs.com www.itjobs.com www.justtechjobs.com www.devbistro.com www.icrunchdata.com www.prgjobs.com There are others as well. Many others. Thousands of others. In fact, just like you probably wont use all databases and web resources at your disposal, most companies wont use all of them either. Consequently, theres sometimes a vast difference between search results at the various sites, so strike a balance between combing through the massive sites and the specialty ones. Dont go too crazy with submitting applications, by the way, or apply too hastily. Really scout the positions for something that matches your skill sets, and try not to wink at the first pretty job that comes along. It may seem counterintuitive, but youll be much more successful if you effectively target, say, ten jobs that fit you well, than if you apply to a hundred jobs haphazardly. For more details about some of the sites mentioned above, as well as profiles of a few others, check out our blog post listing the 7 Best Job Sites for IT Professionals.

Critically Reading a Job Posting

The first step to critically reading a job posting, naturally, is actually reading a job posting. Dont just dash through the headlines in your enthusiasm; examine the desired and necessary traits, minimum experience, and required certifications or GPA standards. If a company is serious enough to mention those criteria, they probably mean them. If you see something that would reasonably disqualify you, its best to move on to another posting. If you find something that seems like a good match, give it a closer look. Weve already covered the basic skill sets that companies often emphasize. While all of them are important to some extent, their relative degree of importance will be a function of the job in question. To assess what traits are most specifically in play, you need to learn how to critically read a job posting. DONT
Skim a job posting and assume it will be a good match.

DO

Start by carefully examining what is being requested. Dont just look at the traits described posting. See where consider their organization and emphasis. It is a reasonable assumption that the most important your skills line up with the specific skills the traits will be addressed first, or be given the most focused attention. Sometimes, a wellemployer is seeking. developed job posting will emphasize specific duties, making a big deal about security or problem solving. Sometimes the most important traits are mentioned more than once. If any of the above occurs, make sure that your resume follows suit, and reflects the relative emphasis of the job posting itself. You can also look carefully at how a company describes itself in this, their first impression. A company

Look critically at the

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that leads by calling itself a daring innovator will probably respond to your emphasizing accounts of any revised processes or fresh technologies, or how they might be used. If they describe themselves as a dynamic and fast paced development team theyve already communicated three ideas: constant change, and the importance of deadlines and group goals. Companies only get a finite amount of space to pitch themselves, so what they emphasize is frequently important. When you incorporate these dimensions, by the way, make sure and back up your claims with specific examples, in addition to dropping in key words. Parroting the companys language back to them, and leaving it at that, often comes across as flimsy. Caution: it isnt at all uncommon for employers to get a little sneaky when they write their job postings. Many employers will specify a certain person to whom applications should be addressed, for example, or request a specific resume section or piece of content. Others will request that applicants include specific keywords or tags for their searchable database. Such details are not arbitrary preferencestheyre actually part of the screening process, designed to weed out anyone who (a) doesnt follow instructions, or (b) is carpet-bombing the industry by sending a resume to anyone willing to read it. In either case, such resumes rarely make it out of the initial stages of candidate selection. If they make a specific request, be sure you oblige. For some insight into how inappropriate responses to a posting are typically received (hint: not well) check out this article by TrainSignals CEO Scott Skinger, which discusses some of these tips from a business owners perspective: IT Job Tips: How to get into the YES Folder.

Researching a Target Company

Now that youve got some idea about your background as a candidate, know the jobs available to you, and know how to evaluate a job posting, the next step is to research your target company. In addition to looking for cue words in the job posting, here are some ways you can learn who youre talking to: Review Your Familiarity Unless youre applying for every job that comes along, theres probably a reason you picked one company over another. When did you first hear about them? Jogging your memory can help you determine how to tactfully approach the company, blending their interests with yours. Look at Mission or Vision Statements Every company, large or small, tries to craft an identity for themselves, a brand. A corporate identity can often provide clues into what kind of employee theyre looking for. Many companies post mission statements on their website. Showing familiarity with these corporate ideals can help you craft your own persona, and determine how your individual job fits into the companys larger picture. For a sample mission statement, take a look at ShareSquared. DONT

Assume you know about a company without doing reseach on them.

DO

Research the company to learn about its vision, size, growth, culture and the type of work they provide to their customers.

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Research the Companys Place in the Industry Just like its important to know how your potential position fits into the company, its important to understand how the company itself fits into the industry culture. Are they a major player with elite status, or are they a respectable start-up? Do they aspire to marketplace dominance, or are they content with serving a small-scale market and doing so well? This kind of research is especially important if youre applying for a job at a company that isnt IT specific like, say, a company that makes diving equipment who needs an IT person. Most such companies want a techie, yes, but they also want someone who can understand their larger industry--or at minimum show theyre willing to understand it. As you research, here are things to look for: Talks or presentations at conferences or webinars. Interviews with employees/owners. Company profiles, whether self-produced, third-party, or social network (i.e. LinkedIn profiles). Press Releases, which will tell you about recent innovations Product or service reviews Most of this information will be available online. For more focused research, try running an internet search with any of the above keywords plus the company name. You can also research major players in the company, like whoever calls the bigger picture shots, so who you know youll be working with. It isnt necessary to become a full-fledged expert at the resume stagethough if youre especially interested in the position, or have advanced to the interview process, I wouldnt discourage it. The only essential step is that you show any familiarity at all. When you work this information into your cover letter or resume, by the way, try to do so with some tact. Connect the things that you discover with your own identity as a candidate, or design the bullet points on your resume to implicitly match areas of repeated company interest. Try to be more subtle than simply dropping in key words or phrases, though. If you do this well, the benefits can be immense. Most applicants write a one-size-fits-all cover letter that does little to incorporate specifics; these applications are frequently ignored. Put more positively, showing the kind of familiarity described above is a great way to get noticed for positive reasons. In an age of information and networking, most companies work hard at telling people about themselves make sure they know that youre listening.

Pulling it All Together

After youve gone through these steps, youll have a much better sense of who youre talking to, and what you have to say. Now apply the insights youve developed to your resumes. Notice, by the way, the use of the plural in that last sentence: resumes. There is such magnificent diversity of positions, backgrounds, companies, and needs that it is almost impossible for one resume to capture them all fully. For more information about presenting your resume (now that you have a firmer grip on your material and objectives) we invite you to check out the following pages, from TrainSignals IT Resumes 101 series:

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IT Resume Basics Learn about the different sections of an IT resume and how you can avoid getting bumped from the pile during your job search. Crafting Your Education Section See what should (and shouldnt) go into the Education section of your resume, how to incorporate your IT certifications, and where your Education section should live on your resume. Tips for a Perfect Technical Skills Section Optimize the Technical section of your resume with these 4 tips that cover accuracy, formatting, and more. How to Optimize Your Work History Section Want to set yourself apart from the competition? See how specific details added to your Work History section can help tell a story and show off your expertise. Language Skills, Volunteer Experience, Publications ... Get the info on how to incorporate additional sections and valuable information to your IT resume including language skills, volunteer experience, publications, presentations, professional affiliations and more. And for even more information, as it becomes available, you can always visit our IT Career Help Section at www.trainsignaltraining.com/it-career-help, which updates frequently with content about resumes, cover letters, interview techniques, and job search strategiesas well as all manner of other IT related information. We hope to see you regularly. In the meantime, we wish you the best of luck with your job search! DONT
Think about your job search from just your own needs and wants. Dont send the same resume to all employers.

DO

Approach your job seeking from the employers point of view. Ask yourself, What value can I bring to this company to help them fulfill their mission? Customize your resume to address the specific qualities and skills theyre seeking.

About the Author

Alan Ackmann teaches Business and Technical Writing at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. His creative work has appeared in a variety of literary journals, including Ontario Review and McSweeneys. In addition to teaching and writing, he edits resumes on a freelance basis.

About Train Signal

TrainSignal, Inc (www.TrainSignal.com) is the leader in video training for IT Professionals. Their training products cover Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA, Citrix and VMware. Courses are available via online streaming and in offline viewing for training on the go. With videos that cover both real-world and certification topics, TrainSignal has something for everyone.

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ULTIMATE GUIDE: Resume Writing For IT Professionals