Employment Digest

Keep up to date on articles and news and subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Resume Tips for Technology Professionals

With increasing numbers of job seekers competing for the most desirable technical jobs, your resume needs to be better than the rest to get noticed.

Technical Summary
Effective technical resumes clearly show the candidate’s technical skills — a hiring manager shouldn’t have to go fishing for this information. An excellent way to include technical knowledge is to add a Technical Summary or Technical Expertise section to your resume. Break the section into subcategories so the reader can quickly scan through your knowledge of programs and applications. Possible categories include technical certifications, hardware, operating systems, networking/protocols, office productivity, programming/languages, Web applications and database applications. Only list programs/applications that you could confidently discuss in an interview.

Career Summary
Many hiring managers say they are searching for candidates who offer more than technical credentials. Soft skills such as interpersonal communications, ability to work collaboratively and commitment to achieving corporate goals are just as desirable. In other words, your resume needs a personality. The reader shouldn’t only be impressed by your technical qualifications, but should find you to be likeable and well suited for the team. You can highlight some of these skills in a Career Summary section.

Focus on Technological Results
Technical candidates usually make one of two critical errors on their resumes — either the document is excessively long with excruciating detail on every assignment ever completed, or too short with hardly any descriptions at all. There needs to be some middle ground — the resume should be succinct yet effectively showcase your achievements.

What to Include
For each position held, give a brief synopsis of the scope of your responsibility. Then show how your performance benefited the company. Give examples of how past initiatives led to positive outcomes such as enhanced efficiency, faster time-to-market, monetary savings, etc. Accomplishments are most powerful when they are measurable, so include actual performance figures whenever possible. Focus on your most impressive technical projects/accomplishments. What types of challenges did you face? What did you do to overcome the challenges? How did your performance improve the organization’s bottom line?
For contract work, provide a bulleted list of your top projects, indicating the company (or type of company if confidential), reason for hiring you, scope of your project, your specific approach to the project, challenges/obstacles faced, work performed and benefits to the company.
If you are new to the field and concerned about a lack of experience, consider offering free or low-cost technical services to charitable organizations, friends, family or local businesses. This allows you to hone your craft and show related work or volunteer experience on your resume. Also, pursue as much training as possible to get up to speed. Entry-level candidates should focus on their potential in the field, ability to quickly learn challenging concepts and motivation to succeed in the industry.

Keywords
The best keywords for your resume depend on your job target and experience. Specific programs and applications are often used as keywords, which is another reason why a Technical Summary is a good idea. To determine the best keywords for your industry, examine job postings on Monster and see which credentials and skills are used frequently; these are potential keywords that should be incorporated into your resume.

In Search Of Talent

After years of weakness, there’s reason to be hopeful about tech employment again. The clues? Selective raises, talent raids, and headhunters.

With Google and Microsoft fighting over who has the right to employ him, Kai-Fu Lee can officially consider himself a hot commodity. And with Hewlett-Packard’s cost-cutting CEO, Mark Hurd, throwing a $2.2 million signing bonus his way to jump from Dell, CIO Randy Mott is hot, too. (And on the hot seat.)

Most of us aren’t in such great demand. Yet what’s happening in these cases–companies upping the ante to get the IT talent they really want–is showing up at other levels of the IT org chart. After several years of slump, the U.S. IT job market is showing some life, at least for the right people with the right skills and experience.
Read the rest of this entry »

What If They Read Your Resume First?

Your cover letter is a perfect opportunity to introduce yourself to hiring managers, dazzle them with your credentials and persuade them to read your resume, right?

Sure unless hiring managers never read it.

While it’s important that your resume is accompanied by a hard-hitting cover letter, busy hiring managers often review your resume before deciding whether or not to take the time to read your cover letter, which means they may never get to it.
Read the rest of this entry »

In Search Of Talent

After years of weakness, there’s reason to be hopeful about tech employment again. The clues? Selective raises, talent raids, and headhunters.

With Google and Microsoft fighting over who has the right to employ him, Kai-Fu Lee can officially consider himself a hot commodity. And with Hewlett-Packard’s cost-cutting CEO, Mark Hurd, throwing a $2.2 million signing bonus his way to jump from Dell, CIO Randy Mott is hot, too. (And on the hot seat.)

Most of us aren’t in such great demand. Yet what’s happening in these cases–companies upping the ante to get the IT talent they really want–is showing up at other levels of the IT org chart. After several years of slump, the U.S. IT job market is showing some life, at least for the right people with the right skills and experience.
Read the rest of this entry »

Hard-hit professionals working `survival jobs’ years after layoffs

William Spolec sips iced tea at a window table in a busy downtown Starbucks.

Dressed in slacks and a knit shirt, a brown leather attache case at his feet, he easily could be mistaken for a casually dressed professional taking a late afternoon break.

Instead, the veteran human-resources executive is early for a seven-hour shift behind Starbucks’ counter.
Read the rest of this entry »

Job Search Websites A User’s Guide

Summary: Learn these three steps to an easier online job search, plus discover four kinds of websites that show you the hidden job market.

You spend all day in front of the computer looking at job listings and fine-tuning your resume. But all you get is a headache. How can you give your online job search an advantage?
Read the rest of this entry »

Be prepared if job future is uncertain

Alan Dages lost his banking job in the early 1990s when every other middle manager also seemed to be receiving a pink slip.

With few banking prospects on the horizon, the former assistant vice president in international trade finance accepted a carpentry job with a friend. He also took on a $10-an-hour job in the DuPont Co.’s legal department, but continued to look for a management-level position in financial services.

“And, as it turned out, I didn’t find a suitable comparable job at all,” said Dages, 58, of Wilmington, who ended up starting his own translation business after some serious soul-searching and networking.
Read the rest of this entry »

Older workers adjust to taking orders from younger bosses

As vice president of a general contracting company, Fletcher Burton isn’t shy about telling workers what to do.

But the 27-year-old says that giving direction to employees old enough to be his father can be awkward. About one-third of the experienced journeyman carpenters, equipment operators, drywall experts and acoustic ceiling installers for Anderson Burton Construction are over 40. He also manages older superintendents hired to oversee projects for the firm based in Arroyo Grande.
Read the rest of this entry »

The ABCs Of Negotiating

If you’re in the middle of negotiations, “non-starter,” “take it or leave it” or “not at that price” shouldn’t be part of your vocabulary.

Most universities don’t offer Negotiation 101, and few parents teach their children the nuts and bolts. It’s a learned technique, and picking up the basics isn’t hard. Whether you’re a veteran sales rep for Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ) or a Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ) trader, you can always sharpen your skills no matter extensive your experience.
Read the rest of this entry »

Armed for a winning interview

Now that the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” have faded and the mortarboards flung in the air have settled back to earth, a whole new generation of job seekers are entering the workforce to compete for the perfect job that will lay the foundation for their career.

Even when equipped with a diploma, a resume and a handful of references, high school and college graduates still have to pass a major test that can provoke more nail biting than a biochemistry final exam.

The oft-dreaded interview can be the most intimidating portion of the job hunting process. Employment insiders, like Anita Pinnow and Dana Zimmerman, understand the challenge of the job interview better than most.
Read the rest of this entry »