Re: Sysadmin resume (re)writers?
- From: "Michael Paoli" <michael1cat@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 15 Apr 2007 12:11:13 -0700
b wrote in news:eutsua$j7d$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
Just wondering if any of you have ever used a professional resume writing
service and if so, which one were you satisfied with? I've got a standard
resume that is just a chronological listing and I think it's hampering my
search. Don't really want to just pick a company at random since systems
programming and administration is a bit more technical than what most
firms appear to be focused on and I'd like to find a place that kind of
understands what I do for a living so they'll be able to do it right...
Had a company recommended to me, but they appear to do executives, etc.
and they cost $500, which is a bit much. :-(
My advice:
First of all, learn to do it (mostly) yourself. This will serve you
much better in the long run. Besides, if, within the hiring process,
a potential employer learns you're not quite capable of writing the
resume you've submitted, how will that impact their decision process?
If you haven't already, check out books on resume writing, and
example resumes, and also books that cover that specifically for
technical field(s) ... IT specifically, if you can find such (they do
exist). And I do mean book*s* - don't just go out and buy one book.
The various books will have at least somewhat differing and even
conflicting advice. There isn't necessarily "one" right answer. Be
at least somewhat cautious with "older" books of that nature - e.g.
particularly more than about 5 to especially 10 or more years old.
Styles/trends/expectations, etc. on resumes *do* change over time -
so what was the "perfect" resume 15 years ago, taken and updated with
all the relevant current skills that are hot on the market, won't
make the "perfect" resume of today and may even fall quite short.
Also look over lots of examples of resumes - in technical, and other
fields. Get at least a rough idea of what you want your resume to
look like. One can typically find a pretty good collection of resume
writing and resume example books in better libraries (e.g. major
cities, college/university, better career/job center resource
locations, etc.). There are also lots of resumes that can be read on
the Internet as examples. There's also lots of material on the
Internet about resume writing and such - but beware that there is
great variation in quality among such materials.
Then take your first major stab at rewriting your resume. Once you've
"completed" that, now pretend you're a busy, over-worked and short
staffed hiring technical manager. You've got a pile of - at least -
200 resumes stacked in front of you. Today you finally managed to
allocate yourself 2 hours to work on them - but you'll trim that to a
bit less than 2 hours if you can, because you have lots of other hot
stuff you need to handle. In that 2 hours, you're going to go
through that whole pile of 200, and pick approximately 20 that you
think are worthy of further consideration. All the rest of them, you
might file, but in all likelihood. you'll never look at them again.
You won't have time to look at the resumes again after that for 2
days, ... after which you'll have 90 minutes to look at your earlier
top ~20 resume pick, and decide upon about 1/3 of those to line up
for short (~20 minute) rough cut tech. screening phone
calls(/"interviews").
So now, how, after the first major rewrite, does your resume stack up
under that type of examination criteria? View it as critically and as
objectively as feasible. And rewrite it another time or two,
reexamining and refining each time.
Now start getting some critical feedback from others. Especially
useful is feedback from those that have to go through lots of resumes
(e.g. recruiters, hiring managers, HR folks, etc.), but also useful is
feedback from anyone that can competently read it and give useful
feedback on what they did and didn't like about how it read and
presented you. Take all the useful information one can gather from
such feedback, and rewrite it again. Note also that not all "rules"
on resume writing are hard and fast. What works for "most" may not
work or fit quite right for you. Adjust things when appropriate, and
make sure that the finished resume is something you're quite
comfortable with and confident in. Don't overburden your resume
reviewers, but, graciously as necessary, get at least one more "final"
critical review by at least two people, to catch any
flaws/errors/omissions that might have escaped your eye. Make the
final corrections/tweaks as appropriate based on any additional
feedback from that, and your resume should be good to go.
Additional advice - there's lots of good advice included among this
"thread" (the chain of posts stemming from your original post). To
that I'll add/reiterate/emphasize:
agencies/recruiters/headhunters - there's certainly no shortage of
them out there. Unfortunately, there are horrible ones, lots of
mediocre ones, and relatively few very good to excellent ones. Keep
track of them - over time you'll learn which ones you actually care
to, or even very much want to, work with, which ones you're mostly
pretty neutral about, which ones you don't much care for, ... and
also those that you want to avoid like the plague. At quick count, I
find that I've got 126 that I've tracked and noted. Of those there
is one I consider the creme de la creme and would always be glad to
work with and would be my first pick - from the candidate side *or*
the client side; there's a second that's quite good and I would
generally use, there are about 1 to 3 more I'd likely work with or
consider working with again, most of the remainder are in the "also
ran" category (pretty mediocre to a bit worse), and about 4 or a bit
more I've got well noted in the plague category. Many of them are
also defunct - or have been absorbed by other companies. It's still
useful to track them nevertheless. Many recruiters will often change
agencies, or you might bump into them again on a company's HR staff
(either as them being an employee of the company, or the company
contracting all their recruitment and HR candidate screening through
that one agency). Some agencies that one thought and hoped were dead
and gone will return from the grave - sometimes with a different name.
And to the extent you can and it's feasible, if you have
good/excellent trusted recruiter you work with, they can also provide
potentially good/excellent critical feedback on your resume. But they
should really only be one such source. Be sure - as I've noted - you
have others also provide critical feedback on your resume, and of
course also do your own best job you can on picking apart and refining
your resume. Remember that the agencies/recruiters are paid by the
client, not you. So while they do want to present your resume in the
best appropriate light, they're also not so interested in polishing up
your resume for you just so you can go use your resume elsewhere
without going through them. And do be fair to them - their time is
valuable. If they're spending their time helping you polish up your
resume, it should be something that is probable to be of significant
benefit to them for them to spend their time on such. Finding a
good/excellent recruiter/agency is about building high quality
long-term relationships. One doesn't want to sour what could be a
good/excellent relationship. And reputations do get known, spread,
and persist (for candidates, agencies/recruiters, etc., as
applicable).
Network, network, network - good advice. Often many of the
best/excellent job leads come via personal/professional contacts,
associations, etc. That doesn't mean exclude other search means, but
certainly cover your bases - and personal networking is certainly
among the more important and useful (and many/most would argue the
most important). Professional and association contacts are also
highly useful (e.g. USENIX/SAGE, probably LOPSA, various user groups,
etc.). E.g. at my most recent prior employer, the person we hired I
found via listing the opening with SAGE, and many of our best
candidates came via that SAGE listing. In 2003/2004 when I was
unemployed, when I did finally get good/excellent offers/leads, the
first three came via personal contacts - one from someone I'd worked
quite directly with before on a particular project, another from
someone else I'd worked with before (who I was referred to by yet
another person I'd worked with that knew they wanted to add someone),
and another excellent lead (and eventual offer) came via contact from
someone I knew (and who knew me) that I met at a (UNIX) user group.
Of course agencies/recruiters, applying directly to companies web
sites or advertisements, etc. can also work very well - at least at
times. E.g. my current employment - great opportunity - found for me
by a recruiter at an agency. And back to network, network, network -
how did I "find" that agency and recruiter? Had a bit of extended
and general conversation with a client side agency rep. I'd met at a
(LINUX) user group - mostly following the user group meeting (three
of us decided to go hang out and chat at a bar for a while following
the user group meeting). That contact (and my follow-up) lead to
candidate side recruiter at that agency, which lead to the excellent
opportunity to which I applied and am now employed. How did I find
the opportunity at my prior employer? At least originally (I was
actually subsequently rehired by them) it was found by my favorite
recruiter (at least around that time was the first time I'd been
working with that recruiter/agency). How did that recruiter/agency
find me? I'd posted my resume on USENET (and *not* in this group,
but in select group(s) covering job(s)/resume(s)/position(s) wanted -
at that time I'd posted it to these groups: ba.jobs.resumes,
misc.jobs.resumes, us.jobs.resumes). That posting also generated
other good/excellent leads (e.g. direct contact from another employer
that I applied to, was interviewed for, and quite seriously
considered). And the employer prior to that? I sent in my resume in
response to a newspaper advertisement. Anyway, ... network, network,
network, ... but do also generally cover your bases. We're also
talking small number statistics for the above, so your numbers will
probably vary, and likely rather to quite significantly.
There are also various more general web sites. E.g. Dice and Monster.
If your skills are quite marketable, experience, etc. good, and in a
"hopping" economy for your skill set, if you put it somewhere like
that, and make it searchable, expect to get hammered by responses
(perhaps about 20% direct, the remainder agencies/recruiters) - and
that amount of response may - or may not - be considered a "good
thing", depending on one's objectives and circumstances. And if the
economy's really sucky, your penultimate agency/recruiter will
eventually get back to you, tell you they just got back from a nice
long vacation, as they'd been far too busy in the several preceding
years to take any significant vacation at all ... and it'll be quite
dead out there, as there will be so many well qualified unemployed
candidates that no employer need practically publicize anything - if
they have an opening, they whisper it to a few employees/managers, and
all of them know many well qualified and unemployed folks, refer them,
and the position is filled; ... again, network, network, network - and
you may actually even hear of such openings when the economy is like
that and you're unemployed.
More on network, network, network - miscellaneous personal
contacts/groups/associations, alumni associations and professional
organizations, trade shows, expositions, conferences, training
events/seminars, etc., etc.
And of course there's the (more) "reactive" stuff - posting of resume
in the "right" places, sending in resume, submitting/applying on/via
company web sites, etc. Actually direct application on company web
site or sending in resume in response to ad *can* be quite effective,
but it's much more likely to be effective if one has networking
contact(s) to help ensure that your submission isn't
dropped/overlooked in the process and/or that it makes it to the
"right" person(s) and with endorsements/recommendations that very
significantly boost one's chances of at least making it through to an
interview.
More random advice:
Specifically tailoring resume to jobs applied to. Many highly
recommend this. It has its advantages and disadvantages.
Pros:
more likely to get through the "filtering" process and land the
interview,
tends to generally set an at least somewhat more favorable impression
so long as the resume is being referenced through the process.
Cons:
It's that much more work/trouble/pain to deal with, accurately track
various versions, etc., and the more distinct versions, the more
chances of making an error on them and potentially not catching it
before it's submitted (presumably one won't have as many opportunities
to obtain critical objective review of these resumes before submitting
them - particularly if there may be a substantial number of
variations. Of course if one never, or almost never makes an error on
a resume, this may not pose that much of a risk).
Also, it can be harder to do custom per-job resumes, if one also has
one's resume hanging out in "public" or fairly accessible location(s).
The greater the extent to which the "public" vs. submitted resume
differer, if the potential employer becomes aware of both, the more
likely it is they may question some of those differences - and the
potentially more awkward it might become to explain away all those
differences.
One can also potentially achieve at least part of the effect of
customized per-job resumes, by writing well crafted, targeted, yet
concise cover letters. Of course that's yet further enhanced if one
also tweaks the resume as appropriate for each job applied to.
Exactly how much (or little) impact cover letters have is also debated
a fair bit - and does depend who's receiving them. Some folks never
read/examine cover letters - they just go straight to the resume
anyway. Others may read (or skim) cover letter before the resume, or
might skip straight to the resume, and may look at the cover letter
after at least glancing over the resume.
The resume isn't everything, so don't spend *too* much time/resource
on it. The primary function of the resume is to get the interview.
Once the interview is achieved, the resume (at least presuming it's
factually accurate) becomes much less unimportant.
Personal web sites, blogs, etc. Employers often will look what one
says, has posted, etc. The Internet also tends to have a *long*
(though sometimes spotty) memory. E.g. if it's ever been out there,
it may potentially still be findable. So, ... if you wouldn't want a
potential employer to see it, it shouldn't go out there where it can
be seen. I can think of at least one poignant example of an otherwise
excellent candidate that learned a hard lesson from that. They were
to the point of being hired (offer already out and I think accepted)
when one of the to-be-coworkers read some less than flattering
blog(-like) comments the person had written about the prospective
co-workers he'd interviewed with. The offer got quite immediately
rescinded.
.
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