Reddnet Scribbles

In this long-overdue article, I want to discuss the practical aspects of writing a resume, especially ones aimed for technology fields.

You can find a ton of how-to-resume stuff, but most of it lacks practicality, or just doesn't map to the needs of the majority of technology professionals. I also want to hit darker aspects of resumes that never get the kind of serious discussion they deserve.

I've been on both the hiring, and the applying end quite often through the years, but this is just one man's opinion... take what you find useful, and leave the rest.

BTW, this is a very long article (get some coffee).

Also note: I refuse to use the fancy French spelling. The English language does NOT include accent marks...

The Purpose of a Resume:

The sole purpose for a resume is to impress a potential employer into wanting to give you an in-person interview. This is the only goal you should have in mind when you author your resume!

A resume is not the place to try and tell them everything that you've ever done. Save the intricate details for the interview. Evaluate everything you put on the page and ask yourself, "will this make them want to call me, or is it just empty details?"

Remember that your resume belongs to you!

It is just a tool that you create to in order to tell your story. Treat it like a marketing campaign, and make it an interesting story! Your resume needs to be memorable, but it does not have to be complete, accurate or even all that informative overall.

Since most resumes tend to read like an extra-dull grocery list, any resume that manages to stand out has a good chance of landing you an interview.

Make sure yours stands out!

How your resume is read:

When you write a resume, you work at a very deep and detailed level. You will be grappling with every word, every space, and every font choice as if each were a life-and-death decision.

The problem is that a hiring manager will not read at that level of granularity, especially on the all-important "first pass"! They will just be skimming the resume to get an overall impression of you.

It is the first impression that really matters! If you get past that then you will probably get an interview.

Step back and ask yourself, "If I just skimmed this for five seconds, what would my impression be? What would stand out?"

Even better, find someone else to skim it for five seconds and then ask them what stood out! You will be amazed (and probably depressed too) the first few times you do this. But eventually, with enough feedback and revision, you will get it right!

This is just basic human psychology; if the first impression is good it shapes how they view the rest as they read deeper into the details. The details just have to avoid giving them a reason to change their mind about you!

Objective Statement:

Objectives are a bizarre relic from a sadistic and cruel past. Fortunately, most contemporary resumes omit the vile objective statement and I strongly advise you to do the same.

The best objective statements are short, dry and boring. If you must write one then the best you can hope for is something forgettable that doesn't draw any attention at all.

Just make sure it doesn't stand out for bad grammar or idiotic content. I've trashed more than a few resumes for nauseating levels of bullshit on an objective statement, and I'm probably not alone... so avoid overuse of buzzwords and PC catch-phrases.

Personal Summary:

I prefer to see a "Personal Summary" section (sometimes just called a "Summary") instead of an objective. This is also the popular trend these days.

The summary is just a short paragraph or two about yourself and what you do professionally. It is a good place to stick in the technology and skill highlights that define the kind of work you do, but don't use this area to list your entire skill-set.

Unlike an objective statement, the summary is a useful content section. It may be the only thing the manager read before their first impression is made; so pay attention and make this really stand out!

Use a friendly and slightly relaxed conversational tone. You want to sound professional, but you also want to sound like a real human being too.

And here too, avoid too many buzzwords... technical managers aren't impressed by that crap!

Keep it short and to the point! This isn't an autobiography, so 3 to 5 sentences are good.

When posting to a job board or with head-hunters, the summary section is a good place to disclose if you are willing to relocate or take contract positions. Put this stuff in second paragraph at the end of the section.

You can probably spin a mean compound sentence, but please don't. Complex structures are hard to decipher when skimming. Have friends read your summary out-loud without having pre-read it first; this lets you hear how well it really flows.

Skills & Technologies:

Most tech resumes include a section to highlight your skills and the technologies you've worked with before. I've seen too many resumes do this section badly though.

Use a formatted list, and organize this stuff! Don't just vomit a bunch of techno-babble all over the page and expect the hiring manager to pick out the skittles for you!

I'm also not a big fan of listing "how proficient" a candidate thinks they are with each skill. If you list a skill, then you had damned-well better be very proficient with it! If not, then you don't have that skill, now do you?

The biggest mistake people make is listing every technology they've ever heard of. This makes it look like you are not focused, are being keyword whore, or are just using the shotgun approach to job hunting... any of which fails to impress.

If you are applying for a specific position, then custom tailor the list before you send in the resume. Eliminate stuff that doesn't fit what the company is interested in and focus on what they find most important.

Certifications:

Some certs are just plain required or expected for some positions. But most certs are "extras" that you pick-up along the way.

You'll find a lot of advice about this kind of cert on a resume, and a lot of it says they aren't worth listing at all. But in my experience, listing certs never actually hurts you as long as the certs are somewhat relevant to the position you apply for.

Don't expect your certs to compensate for an unremarkable resume or to cover for a missing degree though.

There are some options as to where on the resume to list a cert. If you have a degree you can put them in the education section. If you don't have a degree, then you can have an entire section for the certifications if you want to. But degree or not; most people just to put them in the summary or skills section.

No matter how you list them though, don't let your certs draw more attention than your real degrees and work experience!

Many certs have logos, but I advise caution there. If you make the certs flashy it may draw attention away from more important parts of the resume. If you use the logos, shrink them down to a reasonable size.

What to do if you have no formal education:

You are probably fucked!

I'm in this boat myself... my last formal education was high-school where I graduated in the bottom half of my class.

Resumes tend to get pre-screened by non-tech types in HR or at a head-hunter's office. These people have been told that "x degree is required", and they usually don't know how to evaluate a resume for "equivalent work experience" either.

Any resume without the required degree has a poor chance getting past pre-screening. Even if it does, there are more than a few managers who are just plain snobbish toward us non-degreed simpletons anyway.

If you have an "in" at the company, try to use that to get your resume on someone's desk through the backdoor. Otherwise, just submit the resume and hope it gets to someone that appreciates work experience more than academics.

There is no point in listing a high-school diploma, so just skip the education section and use the space for something that might matter.

Work History:

For most tech positions, work history is the most important section of all. What you want to show there is a steady employment history with regular upward progress within your field.

Unless you are a very recent college grad, this section goes before the education section.

Job Titles:

The thing that annoys me the most is a job title that doesn't tell me anything at all!

Listen!

I do not care what fancy-pants title your previous employer gave you! What I want to see is a title that tells me what your actual job was!

If your employer used job titles that I won't understand, then pick an equivalent industry-standard title that clearly describes what you really did every day.

For example: "Program Analyst"; after 15 years in the field, I have no idea what this job title means. As far as I can tell it's just a catch-all to describe something vaguely computer related used by people that have no idea how to actually spell "computer"!

If you write web applications, then use "Web Developer". If you were senior on the team, then you might say "Senior Web Developer".

Job Details:

The tradition with IT resumes is to list the "duties and responsibilities" of your job.

This sucks! Don't do it!

If you followed my previous suggestion and used a decent job title, then you don't need to use the details to tell me what a Senior Web Developer does for a living.

Hello! I already know what a "Senior Web Developer" does; thank you for using a good job title!

Instead, what you might say is, "I designed and implemented C# libraries for the back-end business layer of the company's web based enterprise accounting product".

It could use some revision maybe, but it does a good job telling me what was unique about your particular role as a web developer. In fact, that one line manages to convey quite a staggering amount of useful information that isn't obvious from the job title alone.

Saving space by not re-describing the job title gives you more room to brag. I know, tech types really hate to do this; but the resume is not the place for modesty!

Brag!

Did you win awards? Did you get published? Did your solution save the company billions of dollars? Did you lead the team that solved the world hunger crisis?

Tell me what makes you worth hiring!

Really Old Jobs:

Jobs you had 10 years ago or more probably aren't that important to a hiring manager today. If they weren't in the same career field, then don't even list them.

If those old jobs are relevant, then list the company, dates and job title, but omit the details.

Job Dates:

A lot of people worry too much about the work history dates. A hiring manager is not likely to verify your exact employment dates. They just want to see about how long you've been in the field, and how consistent the history is.

They will look for long gaps, out-of-field jobs, and odd overlaps or inconsistencies. Tread carefully if you try to fudge the dates, but you can usually push them around a little bit here and there.

Don't worry too much about short gaps of unemployment... it can take a bit of time to land tech jobs, so a few gaps are expected.

Just list the month and year, and spell out the month name. The dates don't need to be exact and numeric dates are harder to comprehend when skimming.

Omitting Jobs:

You can omit entire jobs from your work history, and there are cases when this is a good idea.

If you job-hopped a lot, then omitting some of them will make the history look more stable and consistent. Also, if you worked for a company with a very damaged reputation you might consider leaving it off.

Leave out jobs that aren't relevant to the field.

It is better to look unemployed than to list that McJob you had. I know you just took it to help pay a few bills while you hunted down a real job; but from a hiring manager's viewpoint I really don't give a damn either! If the job wasn't in the field, then you may as well have been unemployed.

Contract & Temp Jobs:

With a contract or temp job you don't have to list the name of the agency on the resume. The manager doesn't care who actually signed your paychecks, what they want to know is where you actually worked! So list the company for which you performed the actual work as your employer.

On the flip side, if you had a lot of different temp or contract jobs over a long period of time, you can just lop all of them together under a single job listing. This makes it look like one continuous job, and gives the appearance of a more stable work history.

Same Employer Twice:

If you quit and then came back to a company, you can omit this from the resume too. Just list the overall first and last date.

This won't work if the gap was very long, or if you need to list the job you held in-between. But consider this: was there something special about that job in-between that you can't say in the details from one of your other job listings?

Internal Promotions:

Internal promotions are tricky too, but generally it is best to simply list the "best" position you had at the company.

If you are new to the field or if you had the job for a very long time, then showing your internal promotions might be a good idea.

You don't always have to list internal promotions as separate jobs though, especially if the two positions were a natural progression.

For example, a support tech that promoted from level 1 to level 2 can just use "Support Technician" as the job's title, and then list the promotion as a bragging point in the details.

Self-Employment:

Self-employment, other than as an independent contractor, does not look that good on a tech resume.

I know you are proud that you were "your own boss" and all that crap, but you probably weren't very good at it... otherwise why would you want to take a step backwards to become an employee?

Self-employed in the tech field usually means one of the following:

• doesn't play well with others
• would rather be doing his own thing
• may quit to launch a start-up to compete with us

You can just say you were a contractor and leave out the whole "self-employed" part, or list your company name as if you were an employee.

Your self-employment experience could make a good story during your interview, but it won't help you on your resume.

The really dark side:

Early in your career especially, you have some disadvantages.

Lacking a long work history or having a scattered work history... or just being young and stupid in general can make landing those first few critical jobs a real bitch!

There are a lot of risky things you can do with resumes, and I've seen just about all of them at some point or another.

I advise very strong caution if you go down this road though. You can land yourself in deep trouble if you push it too far; sometimes even legal trouble.

But in case you are going this way anyway...

• Large companies and well-paying senior positions come with more background checks, contacting of references, and otherwise verifying your story. The same for temp agencies, contract firms, and head-hunters who will often verify your resume before they go out on a limb and suggest you to their own clients.
• Small shops, start-ups, and entry level grunt positions at big companies are unlikely to verify as much.
• A smaller company that is not technology related might not know enough about IT related stuff to know if you are full of shit or not... As long as you can walk your talk on the job then you might get away with murder on the resume.
• Never lie or exaggerate on a resume for government jobs, medical companies, security firms, defense contractors, law enforcement, legal firms, finance/accounting, or any other company similar to those. These will check into your history, and are quick to take legal action if they suspect fraud!
• Do not claim skills you do not actually possess! Don't think you can lie about a skill and "learn enough to get-by" before your first day starts... you can't.

Some things you might get away with (that I still don't recommend):

Companies that no longer exist:

Confession time...

Back when I was first starting out, in the mid '90s, I had nothing going for me. I used to job-hop a lot, had a spotty work history and I had no degree... even my high-school transcripts were crap!

The good thing about companies that no longer exist is that there isn't an easy way for the next employer to verify anything; as long as you aren't stupid enough to list previous co-workers as references (duh!).

I'd worked for one company with a decent reputation around town as a part-time PC tech. I'd worked on-and-off there for about 3 years --more off than on though. I'd also been fired twice (for being young and stupid, not for a lack of skill).

I had about 10 or 15 other part-time positions at several random companies during that same time period; none of which looked good on my resume.

Then the one company went out of business. For my professional career, this was the best thing that ever happened to me!

I was able to list that job on my next resume as if it had been a continuous, three year long, full-time bucket of pure awesome! I listed all my achievements from all my jobs during that period as if it all happened at the one company. And I used a job title that sounded much better than my real one did.

None of this was a "lie" exactly. The dates I used were the real ones, the job title described the actual role I performed, and the listed achievements were real too. The rest was a series of strategic omissions.

I don't do this kind of thing on my resume anymore; my work experience these days is a fantastic story without needing any exaggeration. But I'd probably never have gotten those first crucial "real jobs" had my resume been truly "honest" either... especially without a degree in the highly competitive market of the late '90s.

If you decide to do this kind of thing yourself, please tread carefully. Base your exaggerations on the truth as much as you can. But most of all make sure you can really walk your talk! No amount of resume bullshit will cover up for a lack of competence during the interview!

Fake Employment:

I've seen a few people try this with mixed success, but I've never tried it... just too hard to get away with in my opinion.

Some people do list fake employers to build a stronger work history than they really have. This is especially popular to cover up job-hopping or unemployment.

But most potential employers these days will Google your previous employers, so it seems like a better idea to just say you were an independent contractor. It would be easier to just make up a bunch of fake clients don't you think?

School & Education:

Fake degrees are also a popular lie.

I have to admit that I've been tempted to do this myself. The problem is that "Unknown University" doesn't look much better than "No University"... at least not on a resume with a decent work history anyway. It might get you past HR pre-screeners, but getting caught in the lie could also be a tragic end to an otherwise legitimate career.

Claiming a degree from a real university takes a serious sac-o-steel! I've certainly never possessed that kind of moxie myself! Not only could you get in trouble with the employer, but now you've got a real school with a reputation to uphold and a team of lawyers that take this kind of thing very seriously.

If you do plan to fake a degree, then maybe you will have some luck with a professional fake degree provider. Some of them give you pretty convincing paperwork, have legit looking web sites, and might even provide transcripts and such... I even hear that some operate phone numbers in case your potential employer calls. I don't know much about the pro-fake-services though, so you are on your own there.

You can also consider just going back to school, or enrolling in one of the online schools. Sure, it isn't going to look all that great, but it does give you something to put in an education section at least. Even if you are still in class, you can still list it and it does show that you are putting some effort into advancing your education.