[TriLUG] Local Resume pros?

[William Sutton]

There are almost as many schools of thought on resumes as their are people 
who review them.  Most people seem to agree that a resume should be 
concise, with enough detail to cover recent relevant experience, but not 
so much that it overwhelms the reviewer.  Of course, one person's "enough" 
is another person's "too much".

When I review, I want to see just the facts, with enough technologies that 
you're comfortable with to support the point.  I also prefer short 
bulleted descriptions to long narratives.  If I see:

* Implemented Foo using Bar and Baz with a Frobnicator

I'm more likely to quickly parse it and make a note that 
$PROSPECTIVE_EMPLOYEE can cut through to the essential data without 
wasting my time.  If, on the other hand, I see something on the lines of:

--
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod 
tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim 
veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea 
commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate 
velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat 
cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id 
est laborum.
--

I'm going to circular file it.  If I have a stack of resumes, I'm not 
going to spend 10 minutes reading and digesting all that verbiage.  My 
time is precious, and I have other things to do than sit around reading 
resumes all day.

As a consequence, my own personal resume is structured as follows:

1. header indicating name, email address, cell, landline (NOT WORK; nobody 
with any sense uses their work accounts for job hunting, even if their 
manager has told them they're on the short list and will get a reference)
2. brief description of the type of work I'm looking for (Experienced 
software engineer looking for Foo)
3. brief listing of overall skills, grouped by type; e.g., all the UNIXes 
I know on one line, the programming languages I use on another, major 
software packages on another
4. work experience, most recent first, with company name, date(s) 
employed, job title, and a short bulleted list of major accomplishments 
and the technologies used
5. significant off-the-job accomplishments, either as they relate 
professionally, or as an indicator of character (Eagle Scout, officer for 
my university ACM chapter, etc)
6. separate page containing refernces

For each job, you will want a meaningful cover letter tailored to the 
description, and may wish to tweak the resume to address it as well.

Best of luck out there.

William Sutton

On Sat, 31 Mar 2012, Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:

> On Sat, 31 Mar 2012, Carl Crider wrote:
>
>> I'm looking for a local resume pro with a decent (3-5 days) turnaround 
>> time. All leads are appreciated.
>
> I'm not sure that a general purpose resume gets you far (I don't know, but I 
> think it doesn't, IANAHM - hiring manager)
>
> I've put a lot of effort into figuring out about resumes. Not having got a 
> job yet (but having managed to avoid taking a whole lot that I don't want) I 
> don't know whether my vote should have much weight. The only things that 
> everyone agrees on is that it be 2 pages or less and that the resume is to 
> get an interview, not to get a job.
>
> Resumes will be _first_ read by read by two different types of people
>
> o HR/recruiters. For these, you are scored by matching words. You have to 
> have all the words required in the job spec (in the right tense) or not make 
> it. In this case you are applying to a company who contracts out their search 
> for their most important resource, the human capital, to idiots. These are 
> the same people who when looking for a wife say "get me a wife; she must meet 
> requirements x,y,z and be as cheap as possible". The workers being sought are 
> fungible (at least in the minds of the people involved in hiring), eg unix 
> admins, programmers... When you arrive on the job, you will be working for 
> the people who accept that idiots do the most important job in the house.
>
> o Hiring managers. I think I've seen 1 or 2 of these in the last year. These 
> people want to know what projects you've originated or pushed through to 
> completion, how you've shown initiative and how you've contributed to your 
> work place. These people don't care about details of your works skills a 
> whole lot. They want to know projects.
>
> Either way, your resume will have to be modified for each job.
>
> Joe
> -- 
> Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
> jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
> generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
> Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!
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