IT Resumes

Tips for May and June Tech Grads

If you’re part of the class of 2017, you may be planning to push that job search off until later in the summer.  The tech field is a job seeker’s market, right?  Why not kick back and take a little break before entering the workforce? Don’t be tempted to do this.  Unfortunately, the tech field is a bit less of a job seeker’s market for entry-level grads.  IT staffing companies find that there are absolutely less open IT jobs out there for recent grads.  You also don’t want to limit your options.  If you wait until later in the summer or fall, IT recruiters will have filled plenty of the jobs with coveted employers.  Starting your job search doesn’t have to be so arduous, though.  Here are 4 simple things you can do to start searching for IT jobs now.

1. Make your resume visible to employers and technical recruiters.  Post your resume on Monster, Dice, LinkedIn, etc.  Make a public, professional LinkedIn profile.  Don’t just rely on your school’s internal job portals.  If you’re a programming student, get on Github or similar sites.  IT staffing agencies will be looking for great candidates there, too.

2. While you’re at it, reach out to IT staffing firms.  Find some trusted IT recruiting companies in your area and reach out to and pass along your resume.  Even if you’re working on your final exams, they can begin your job search for you now!

3. Do your research on the kinds of roles you prefer your salary expectations.  Make sure to take your location into consideration here.  IT recruiting firms find that sometimes new grads will price themselves out of great jobs because they don’t have realistic salary expectations.  Your IT recruiters can help you out a bit, but it’s also important for you to do your own research prior to conversations with them.

4. Get a real email address and clean up your social media.  You don’t want to keep your school email address anymore—you’re going to be a professional soon!  Get an email address that you won’t be embarrassed to share with potential employers and IT recruiting firms.   Make sure you clean out all pictures, quotes, comments etc on your social media that you wouldn’t want a future boss to see.  IT recruiting agencies definitely see candidates with terrible social media profiles miss out on roles.

 

Graduate IT jobs
Graduating in May or June? Time to get a new email address! Photo credit: vloveland via Pixabay.

 

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Why You Should Update Your Resume—Even if You’re Not Looking for a New IT Job

Even if you’re not looking for new IT jobs, you should still take 15 minutes to update your resume.  What’s the point?  Especially in tech, passive candidates get offered interesting opportunities all the time.  According to a 2015 survey from LinkedIn, around 60% of companies recruit passive candidates.  There are a few reasons why IT recruiters may often end up contacting people who aren’t openly on the job market.  LinkedIn makes this easy, as people often wind up essentially posting their resumes online, even when it’s not for job search purposes.  (Over 3 quarters of LinkedIn participants are not expressly looking for new jobs.)  Particularly because there is such a dearth of qualified tech candidates in the US, IT staffing companies also find that employers will be looking for rare skill-sets.  In an effort to fill them, they may turn to passive candidates simply because they are capable of doing the job (when so many candidates are not).  But is this a good thing for the candidates?  Absolutely.

If you’re a passive candidate, getting contacted by IT recruiting firms about jobs is a bit an ideal circumstance.  You have the space to really consider if a job will be a good move for you, since you’re not desperate to leave your current role.  You’ll also have a chance to really negotiate for what you want—a better commute, schedule, salary, etc.  As a passive candidate, you’re the one sought after (likely because you have the right skill-sets, experience, and will be able to really hit the ground running).  You are the one with the most negotiating power.

So if you’re an IT professional, why not take the time to polish up your resume. Polish your LinkedIn profile, too.  Even if you couldn’t imagine leaving your current role, you never know what kinds of opportunities you might be contacted about.  Make sure you’re ready if IT staffing agencies reach out with the dream job you haven’t even dreamed of yet.  Take time to update the most important parts of your resume.  Are all the technologies you’ve worked with under your ‘Technical Proficiencies’ section?  Did you list your most current role and your achievements there? Is your summary full of the kinds of achievements, skills, and experience that your ideal roles ask for?  Make sure it’s all ready for technical recruiters, even if they asked for it next week.

 

Polish your IT resume
Polish your resume, even if you love your current role. Photo credit: StartupStockPhotos via Pixabay.

 

Land IT Jobs You Don’t Have the Experience For (Yet)

If you’re seeking a new role in an area of the tech field you don’t have much experience in, there are ways to make you a more appealing candidate to IT recruiters anyway.  Whether you’re looking to land your first Helpdesk role, or you want to move from Desktop support to a Network Engineer role, here are 3 ways to beef up your application materials and impress technical recruiters.

1. Seek out opportunities within your current employer to get hands-on learning experience relevant to the IT jobs you want to work in.  You might be able to do this in your current company in 2 ways.  Firstly, your bosses may allow you to get some hands-on experience in a formal way (like a side project for a different department).  This is probably the most preferable.  If you do well, you can demonstrate that you met the expectations of a manager in this area.   If your company can’t help you out with any formal learning opportunities, you might still be able to informally shadow the people who hold the roles you’d like to hold one day.  While this isn’t something you can put on a resume, it will help you to better direct your own study of relevant skills and technologies.

2. Seek out opportunities outside your current employer to get relevant hands-on learning.  You can volunteer, take freelance jobs, or perhaps create your own project on your own time.  IT recruiting firms have an easier time placing somebody who can point to demonstrable experience, even if the candidate made that experience happen.  Consider offering your services for free or reduced charge to local nonprofits, checking websites with volunteer opportunities, or reaching out to people within your network to seek out hands-on learning opportunities for the skills and technologies you’re interested.  If you’re learning how to code, create your own website, etc.  Having a portfolio of examples of your work will certainly make you more marketable to IT staffing companies.

3. Consider getting a certification if there are any relevant ones.  Employers generally put a lot of trust in certifications, so these can be a great way to help IT recruiting agencies visualize you in the roles you want.  IT recruiting companies always find that that candidates with certifications can get at least a bit of  an edge over those who don’t have them.  Certifications can also be a way to gain more hands-on experience with technologies or skills.  (Some certifications actually require hands-on experience.)

 

IT Job search
Want to move into a new kind of role? Get some hands-on experience in your off-time. Photo credit: StartupStockPhotos via Pixabay.

 

The Best Certification to Get in 2017

Is one of your new year’s resolutions to invest in your career with a new certification?  The most valuable one to get in 2017 will be an AWS certification.  Here are a few reasons why IT recruiters suggest you consider going after one this year.

1.    You’ll make more money.  AWS certified professionals often make around $100,000 a year or more.  AWS certifications consistently topped income-oriented lists last year and there’s no reason they’ll fall this year.  There are still far too few AWS certified tech professionals out there for the number of open IT jobs that require it.  Even if you’re not looking for a new job, IT staffing companies find that many employers are happy to give raises or promotions to staff that get AWS certifications. Since the process for getting AWS certifications is so rigorous, employees nearly always become more valuable to their companies after attaining them.

2.    You want to work remotely.  IT recruiting firms find that many of the jobs that require AWS certifications also allow for partial or complete remote work.  This is true for a few reasons.  Firstly (and most obviously) cloud technology makes it easy to do this kind of work remotely.  Secondly, as mentioned before, AWS certified professionals are rare.  This means that employers need to woo them with excellent perks, which of course includes options for remote work.

3.    An AWS certification opens doors in many industries.  More and more companies are going to the cloud for their storage needs.  No matter what industry you’d like to work in, there are probably companies that use cloud technologies and are seeking IT professionals with AWS certifications.

4.    You want to invest in your future.  An AWS certification will continue to be valuable for many years to come.  The cloud will only become more popular and AWS seems to be the reigning provider.  The only certification that seems somewhat comparable is Azure (and for many reasons, some people argue that this certification is less valuable on a resume).  Amazon is dominating the web services market with a constant stream of new products and competitive pricing.  If you get an AWS certification now, IT staffing agencies will likely have no problem finding you IT jobs for years to come.

 

best IT certifications
AWS certifications will help you earn more in 2017. Photo credit: Kaboompics via Pixabay.

 

How To Write a Good Resume (Even with Employment Gaps)

When you’re searching for new IT jobs, the most powerful tool you have is your resume.  Even the best IT recruiting firms can’t land you a job if your resume is terrible.  Here’s one mistake that can really ruin a good resume: a poorly handled gap between jobs.

Having a gap between jobs isn’t the end of the world.  IT staffing companies come across a fair share of candidates who might have a gap somewhere in their career.  The problem occurs when you either don’t provide any explanation at all, you lie to cover it up, or you give too much detail.  Here’s how to avoid these pitfalls when you write a resume.

1.    Too Little Info: Technical recruiters find that some candidates really do just leave a gap on their resume completely unexplained.  Especially if this gap is more than a few months, you’ll raise red flags with IT recruiters and potential employers.  While it might seem like listing the gap and giving an explanation brings too much attention to it, it’s actually the opposite.   Not listing the gap at all brings far more attention—negative attention.  Simply list a gap that’s over a month in the same format as a job.  Give a one-sentence explanation of what occurred.  It’s perfectly fine to say you moved, took time to care for a sick family member, took time for maternity or paternity leave, etc.  If you were unemployed, list relevant courses or volunteering you did during your gap.

2.    Too much Info: On the opposite end of spectrum, IT staffing firms suggest that you don’t list extensive details about what you did during your gap.  It will almost certainly look unprofessional if you can’t sum up this time in a sentence or two at most.  Sometimes IT recruiting agencies see people marking out employment gaps for childcare or some other kind of caretaking as though it were a job.  They might list coordinating doctors’ appointments, managing medications, etc as ‘job duties’.  Don’t do this.  This always comes across as tone deaf and makes employers and IT staffing agencies uncomfortable.  Even though you may feel that what you did has created applicable experience to the roles you want, you’ll be violating professional norms.

3.  Inaccurate Info: Never lie to cover a large employment gap.  Sometimes IT recruiters find that candidates will make up a job, extend the dates of a job beyond when they were really there, or do other dishonest things.  Even if your technical recruiters don’t find the lie here, employers may find it.  Lying on your resume is the quickest way to lose a job.  Even if you do land the job, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media are making the world a very small place.  You don’t want somebody to find out through the digital grapevine that you lied on your resume.  You may get fired for it!

 

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If you have gap in your resume for childcare, don’t forget to note it! Photo credit: miapowterr via Pixabay.

 

Is Your Resume in The Wrong Format?

Technical recruiters receive resumes from IT professionals that are built from all kinds of resume templates.  Most resume templates are fine (even the free resume templates), but there is one type of format that IT recruiters usually cannot use: a functional format resume.

What is a functional format resume?  It’s a resume that shows IT recruiting agencies and hiring managers your skills and duties and the top or bottom of the resume and lists your past IT jobs in a separate section.  Sometimes IT staffing firms find that the candidate will list the years they held positions, sometimes not.  Basically, this format seems like an easy way to write a resume if you’ve held similar positions for a while.

The problem is that the IT recruiting companies usually can’t submit you for IT jobs with this kind of resume.  There are a few things hiring managers and recruiters hate about this resume template.  Firstly, hiring managers tell IT staffing agencies that these templates don’t show the progression of your career very well.  To truly understand how you’ve progressed in your career, a manager wants to see the variation in your duties at each job.  That means you’ll need to list what you did at each job, not just give a general notion of what you did at all jobs in one spot at the top or bottom of the document.

Secondly, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage by using a functional format resume.  This kind of resume format doesn’t really let you list your major professional achievements.  IT recruiting firms find that the candidates who really impress employers are the ones who list their big contributions to each employer.  This will require a little more work on your part and a more traditional format for a resume, but it’s worth it.  This kind of resume lets hiring managers and IT staffing companies really see that you’ve been a valuable employee to each one of the places you’ve worked.

Lastly, resumes like this make hiring managers and IT recruiters feel like you’re trying to hide something.  Particularly when you don’t give dates, it can look like you’re trying to quickly gloss over your professional history without giving much detail or information.  This isn’t the first impression you want your resume to give anybody.

 

resume format IT jobs
Writing a functional format resume may be easier, but it won’t get you further in your job search. Photo credit: Line-tOodLinGfc via Pixabay.

 

2 Seemingly Small Things That Hurt Your Job Search

Sometimes IT recruiters find that candidates make mistakes that seem small, but actually have a big impact on their job search.  Here are two mistakes that seem pretty insignificant, but will likely make it hard to land IT jobs.

1.    Your email signature has an inflammatory or unprofessional quote. IT recruiting companies do find that from time to time people will have quotes in their email signatures.  This looks pretty innocuous, but it becomes a problem when the quote is about controversial things like politics, religion, or is just plain rude or unprofessional.  When you email with IT recruiting agencies and hiring managers, they know very little about you.  For this reason, your emails wind up making a big impression on the IT staffing firms and interviewers you send them to.  So to make sure you’re doing your best job search: take out all the quotes in your email signature.  Don’t risk either making technical recruiters uncomfortable or leading them to possibly conclude anything negative about you.

2.    Did you leave track changes on the resume you sent to your IT recruiting firms?  Some IT recruiters will look the other way.  However, to some IT staffing agencies, this is a sign that you aren’t very detail-oriented or polished.  Considering how important it is in the tech field to pay attention to little details, making this mistake could send a bad message about you.  There’s also a chance that you’ll wind up leaving some unflattering, negative, or unprofessional material on your resume if you don’t turn off the track changes function.  Maybe one of the comments on your resume suggests that you not add a certain technology because you’re weak in it.  Perhaps a comment has a curse word in it.   Double check to make sure that the track changes function is off and that you’ve made all the changes you need to for your resume to sparkle.

 

IT job search mistakes
Hold off on the quotes in your email. It could hurt your IT job search. Photo credit: maialisa via Pixabay.

 

Resume Too Long? 3 Easy Cuts to Make

Most IT staffing firms will concur that IT professionals don’t really need to adhere to the 1 or 2 page rule for their resumes.  IT recruiters routinely work with candidates who have very long resumes, sometimes over 5 or 6 pages.  However, IT staffing agencies’ best candidates aren’t always the ones with novel-length resumes.  Technical recruiters find that busy hiring managers tend to respond much better to concise, efficient resumes.  If your resume could use some trimming, here are a few things IT staffing companies suggest you consider cutting.

1.    Objectives.  You don’t need to spell out the kind of IT jobs you’re looking for in an objective, so it’s really just wasted space.  This is true for two reasons.  Firstly, IT recruiting companies are trained to read technical resumes, even complicated ones.  They will be able to figure out what kind of role you’re seeking or what kinds of roles you’d succeed in.  If you have an objective because you’re looking for a particular type of work environment or certain accommodations, this is better said in conversation with IT staffing agencies or interviewers.  Putting a detailed description of what you want in your next role doesn’t really do anything– other than possibly make you look demanding.

2.    The words ‘responsibilities,’ ‘responsible for,’ or headings for internal jobs bullets like ‘duties’, etc.  IT recruiters see a lot of resume examples or resume templates that spell out the obvious.  Again, this is wasted space.  Use the bullets under your jobs to note major professional achievements, as well as some of your duties.  You don’t need to indicate that this is what you’re listing, though.  Recruiters and hiring managers will already know.

3.     Your references or their contact info.  Technical recruiters do find that some candidates will actually put references and their contact info directly on a resume.  Don’t do this!  For one thing, it wastes space because people tend to want to see this info on a separate email or document later.  For another, it makes you look a bit unprofessional.  You are breaking norms by adding this info to your resume.  You’re also making people’s information public if you’re posting this resume on Monster, Indeed, etc.  Cut this section of your resume—it’s more likely harming you than helping you.

 

Trimming Your IT Resume
Ready to cut down your IT resume a bit? Photo credit: Taken via Pixabay.

 

2 Ways to Make Updating Your Resume Easier

Possibly the worst part of searching for new IT jobs is having to update your resume.  Even when you’re working with IT recruiters, this is still a task that you’ll have to deal with.  Here are 2 easy ways to make the process much less painful the next time your IT staffing firms ask for the most updated version of your resume.

  1. Take notes ahead of time. On a day when you have a little free time, create a document where you will keep notes about what you achieve in your current position.  IT recruiting firms would suggest you think about achievements that cement your value to your managers, your team, end users and clients, etc.  Add these items to your document as they occur.  Even if you love your current job so much that you could never imagine working with IT staffing agencies to leave it for a new one, you should still do this.  The reality is that most people do tend to work at more than one employer; thus you’ll probably actually need to job search again in the future.  Taking notes on professional achievements and contributions at your current position now means that you’ll have better information and more details than if you just try to remember it later.
  2. Always keep your technical skills section up to date. Again, even if you aren’t even remotely close to contacting your technical recruiters to look for a new role, it’s worth taking a few minutes of free time one day to add new certifications, skills, programming languages, etc to your resume.  If you don’t have time to add them to your resume in proper formatting, simply take notes on them along with your other notes about your current position.  Updating your resume can be a stressful, overwhelming process.  You wouldn’t want to forget a key programming language or certification as you rush to get an updated version of your resume to your IT recruiting agencies.

With these steps, whenever you are ready to update your resume for IT staffing companies, you’ll have all the information you need (together in one place, too).  Updating your IT resume will take half the time and you can get on with your job search faster!

 

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Relying on yourself to remember everything you need to update your IT resume with is a bad strategy. Photo credit: SolGar via Pixabay.

 

Unconventional Titles on IT Resumes

IT recruiters come across plenty of candidates who have odd job titles in IT.  IT staffing companies find that especially in the tech field (and particularly startup companies) titles can include words like ‘ninja’ or ‘rockstar’.  If you have one of these creative titles, here’s how to handle it on your resume so you attract IT staffing firms and hiring managers.

Firstly, try to figure out what your title would be at a more conventional company.  If you’re having a hard time coming up with this, IT recruiting agencies would suggest you check out the titles other people use on LinkedIn, reach out to people in your network, or consult with your technical recruiters. Next, list your official title on your resume.  Then in parentheses, list the conventional title next to it.

The last thing IT recruiting firms would suggest you do if you have an unconventional title is to make sure the bullets below that job represent your duties and accomplishments clearly.  Good bullets will work with that conventional title to clear up any lingering confusion about your title and role.  As your write your bullets (under this and all other IT jobs on your resume) keep in mind that sometimes IT staffing agencies might be sharing your resume with less technical hiring managers.  Try to write your bullets so they can be understood by a variety of readers.

 

ITJobSearchNinja
Are you a Coding Ninja? You may need to add a bit more info on your IT resume. Photo credit: OpenClipartVectors via Pixabay.