How To Write A Resume That Showcases Your IT Skills
By Nigel Patterson
The technology sector is booming, and an increasing number of IT professionals are re-thinking how to write a resume in order to show off their skills to best advantage. This growing market is thirsty for aptitude with a specific technology focus and savvy IT workers are benefiting from increasing competition for their expertise.
They're not the only ones taking advantage of the digital revolution. Recruiters are also using technical advances to work more efficiently, using software solutions to find resumes that match particular criteria. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) allow busy human resources staff to quickly screen large numbers of resumes and find those that match specific preferences such as job-related skills, relevant work history and an applicant's location.
If you're not sure whether to prepare your resume to be 'scanner-friendly', it might be advisable to enquire of a prospective employer whether they use software to process applications that they receive. Whatever industry you're working in, it's also important to analyze the job advertisement and description carefully and use your resume to target the specific requirements of the position you're applying to fill: focus on job specific information in your resume objective and edit out irrelevant personal information.
It's possible to write a resume that's suitable for scanning without sacrificing good presentation that will appeal to the human reader. Here are three main areas to consider:
- Keywords: many systems will search your resume to find words which match selected criteria. Some resume writers like to include a keyword list near the top of their resume; others prefer to use keywords in descriptions throughout the document.
Your own professional knowledge will often be the best guide to the appropriate keyword terms. You can also look in the job description to find work-related vocabulary. Other sources might include company brochures and reports, industry related articles from the media and professional forum groups.
- Layout: give prominence to IT skills by including them near the beginning of your resume. Not only is this a good opportunity to build in keywords, but you can highlight the most important aspects of your training and certification. Consider using a dedicated skills summary or profile statement below the header section of your document.
Don't sacrifice legibility for the sake of cramming your information onto one sheet of paper. If you have substantial relevant data to include on your resume, use a second page. But avoid printing on both sides of a sheet -- your second side may be missed!
- Presentation: make the job of the scanning software easier. These simple guidelines will ensure that that your resume is easily deciphered:
- Don't use tables or columns in your layout. The scanner will probably try to read the whole page from left to right in a single pass.
- Use a simple, sans-serif font such as Arial or Verdana in which characters do not touch each other.
- Don't rely on different font styles such as bold or italic text. Use capitals for titles and section headings.
- If you have bulleted lists, use an asterisk or hyphen instead of the bullet point. Avoid hollow bullets -- the system may try to read them as characters.
- Set one inch margins for your document. Use single space for text in your main body, separating paragraphs with a double space.
- Print your resume on bright white paper. This will ensure the cleanest possible reading of your data. Inkjet printed text can be easily smudged -- a laser printed document or high definition photocopy may be better.
IT professionals are well placed to benefit from the burgeoning demand for high-tech expertise in a wide range of industries. Highlighting these skills in a resume helps to prove your potential value to an employer and strengthens the case for hiring you.
Nigel Patterson is a business writer and publisher of http://1stClassResume.com.
Visit his website for more resume writing help, tips on writing an effective cover letter and how to prepare for a job interview.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nigel_Patterson
A Professional Resume Gives You an Opportunity to Market Your Career
Perhaps you've discovered that your career has stalled. While it is true that you are gainfully employed, you just don't seem to be progressing down your career path as fast as you'd like. You've determined that the roadblock in your career is not the result of your lack of experience, your lack of education, or your lack of interpersonal skills. You've come to the conclusion that your failure to hit a career high is due to the fact that you simply don't know how to market yourself well.
You realize that you cannot take out a billboard advertising your credentials. And, while you can certainly work on polishing your networking skills, a lack of contacts doesn't seem to be the problem. You've been diligently sending your resume to numerous employers, but no one seems to be biting - you haven't secured a single job interview for quite some time. You're stuck in a career rut - and the only way out is to make your resume more professional and more attractive to a potential employer. But how do you go about accomplishing that goal?
Realize the Importance of Your Resume
Up to this point, you might have been throwing together your resumes at the last minute, thinking that you could compensate for any problems with your resume in your subsequent job interview. However, you must realize that your resume is, in fact, your most effective career marketing tool. If worded properly, it can open doors for you, offering you opportunities that you wouldn't have had otherwise.
A resume represents your initial introduction to a hiring manager. It should demonstrate how your work history, career accomplishments, job skills, and personality traits are ideally suited for the job that's been advertised. In fact, you can think of a resume as being like a corporate website, introducing anyone who reads it to who you are, what you've done, and what you could potentially do for a client - i.e., an employer. The resume needs to be inviting to read and reflect upon - but, like a website, it should provide snippets of information in an easily digestible format.
Demonstrating Your Marketing Savvy
Once you realize the crucial function of your resume in terms of marketing yourself, your next step is to find ways to show off your marketing savvy. In order to do this, you should draw up a list of your chief skills and professional attributes. Then, come up with a list of career milestones that provide further evidence of your abilities. Do not limit yourself to paid work experiences. Also include your significant volunteer activities, educational experiences, and the like. Some of the skills you might want to highlight would include your managerial ability, your leadership capability, your communication ability, and your decision-making capability. These are the types of skills a prospective employer is likely to be looking for in a job applicant.
Next, you need to give serious consideration to your audience - the prospective employer. You should try to determine the employer's chief challenges, based on the nature of the industry, the competitors the company faces, and similar considerations. With this information, you should have a greater understanding of the employer's wants.
Connect the Dots
Once you've identified your strengths and an employer's needs, you need to connect the dots, showing how you can fulfill the requirements sought by the employer. This can be accomplished by carefully crafting your objective so that it will capture the eye of the hiring manager, making him or her think that you are the perfect candidate for the position.
Drawing the right connections may, in fact, be the most critical part of the resume-building process. Unless you can convince an employer that he or she would be better off hiring you, you are unlikely to make the final cut. At times, you may need to demonstrate a fair amount of creativity in order to show the connection - but it is well worth the effort, particularly if it enables you to attain the job.
Polishing the Product
Any sharp marketer knows that you have to hone your advertising copy in order to ensure that it captures the interest of the consumer. The same is certainly true for a resume. Once you have the basic format in place, dress it up by placing the most important points near the top - whittling away extra verbiage so that the document is not overly wordy - and deleting any non-essential information such as social security number, birth date, and marital status. While it is a wise idea to incorporate certain stylistic techniques such as italicization, bold-face, and elegant fonts, resist the urge to overdue it. Otherwise, your resume could end up being quite difficult to read.
Be Sure to Use Marketing Phrases
Given the fact that you are attempting to market your career, it's advisable for you to use some key marketing phrases throughout your resume. These would include words such as "top-earner," "high-performance," "number-one seller," etc. Granted, you don't want your resume to sound like a commercial, but you do want to get a strong message across. After all, the employer is in a buying mood - he or she wants to hire someone to fill a vacant position. Therefore, you should take advantage of the opportunity to highlight your qualifications in the most effective way possible.
Remember - One Job Leads to Another
It is important to keep in mind that the position you're now applying for may not be the last job you ever have. Chances are it will lead to additional jobs - jobs that offer even greater opportunities for professional advancement, networking, and significant responsibility.
Consequently, in addition to marketing yourself in the here and now, you are marketing yourself for the future. This is particularly important if you are applying to a company that has a history of promoting from within. You want to show the employer that you have the capability of growing with the company, contributing significantly to the corporation over the long-term. In other words, your resume could lead you to the job which could provide the stepping stone to even more rewarding positions in the years ahead.
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