Job Hacking

I can learn new things quickly. Really.

Back when, I was a Technical Support Engineer on a C library. And not too shabby at it, either. ;-)

One of the things we got used to was the lies (intentional or otherwise) that customers said on the phone:

• Sure I initialized the pointer properly...
• I'm certain that my make script has the switches you recommend...
• Of course I'm compiling in the Large Memory model...
• No really, I KNOW what I'm doing. I started programming before C was even imagined...

As a recruiter, I find that one big different between then and now is that the lies have changed. Here's one of my current favs I see on resumes all the frickin' time:

I can learn new languages and software very quickly.

Since it's Friday, I thought we'd have some fun with this and tear it up. Here goes:

• Define very.
• Define quickly.
• Define learn.
• Did you read the job description, and which of the languages that we require for this job on day 1 don't you know?

Y'all need to go into the bathroom, look at yourself in the mirror and repeat after me:

• I shall not use adverbs on my resume. (Adverbs = -ly ending. See "Lolly Lolly Lolly get your Adverbs Here")
• I shall not state that I own a skill in vague way on my resume.
• I shall always read the job description thoroughly. Twice. Only then shall I send my resume in to the recruiter/hiring manager.

Think about it this way: We work in an industry that is filled with smart people. Hiring Managers expect that the people they interview are smart. That they are quick studies. That they are creative. They also know that while most people can pick up the things that are similar between all languages, it's the nuances that will kick you and their team in the ass.

Instead of all this vague clap-trap, try something like this:

Adept at learning new programming languages. On a team of 10 developers who were told to learn and use Ruby on Rails to re-write a website, I was the first to write valid code for the project, and my code represented over 50% of the total code base at ship.

Indubitably!

For all you first-timers out there... reverse chronological order

When writing a resume, post the items within in a given section in reverse-chronological order.

Example:

Education
MBA, Stanford University, 2008
B.S., Computer Science, MIT, 2000

Why? Because the reader, the recruiter or hiring manager, wants to see the those experiences that are most germane to the role.

My, my, my

In the process of getting to know another person, one tip that always seems to be at the top of the list is to ask the other person about themselves while avoiding talking about yourself.

This same tip applies to resumes, and in particular the Objective Section of the resume.

Here are some no-nos:

• Seeking a job that challenges my technical skills...
• Obtain a role that challenges my thought processes...
• A role that advances my career...

The reader of your resume does not care about these things. They care about finding someone who will solve their immediate problem of adding a person to their team that will kick butt and take names. They just want to know that you can take on the role in question. For example:

• Seeking a Web Developer role.
• Practice Director of a growing Consulting firm.
• Network Engineer at a nimble startup.

Talking about yourself removes any thought in the hiring manager's mind that you are going to be there for them, and replaces it with a clear notion that you are out for yourself.

Would you want to interview a person who tells you up front that they're not a team player?

For all you first-timers out there... shotgunning your resume

Shotgunning one's resume means sending it out to all job ad postings you see, regardless of whether you qualify or not.

This is a very, very bad strategy. Do not do it.

Why?

First, any company seeing your resume will instantly know that you either can't read, or you have weak impulse control. Second, you will make all the recruiters upset with you for wasting their time at having to read your resume and take whatever administrative action is necessary on their end. Third, it makes you feel bad because you have used a bunch of your time and you will see absolutely no positive result for this effort.

Target your efforts, and keep plugging away at finding the job you want.

Accomplishments

Everyone has accomplishments. Things they've done that indicate they did something for themselves, their team, their organization, their company.

A pet peeve of mine is the "Accomplishments" section on a resume. To me, they are redundant, muddle your story, and significantly reduce your crispness as a candidate.

Your accomplishments should be tied to the roles where they occurred. And, it is ideal if all roles have at least one significant accomplishment that is either operationally or financially tied to the business:

• Winner of Upselling Contest
• Reduced bug counts by 20%
• Improved Client Satisfaction scores by 25% and recurring revenue by 20%.
• Reduced team churn by 50%
• Increased deal revenue by 50% in my first year, and 150% in my second.

One of the side benefits of accomplishments is that when you go back and read them again, you get that big burst of feeling good all over again. Good stuff when you're pounding the pavement looking for a new job!

re: For 'Confused in Austin'

Louise Fletcher at Blue Sky Resumes has a nice post today about what makes for a boring resume.

Key sentence, "In other words, what are the unique blend of personality traits, skills and experiences that make this web designer different from the other people who sent resumes?"

Exactly.

The Blue Screen of Life

A long, long time ago, I learned how to code.

I was fortunate that a couple of guys who were REALLY into coding took me under their wing and showed me the tricks of the trade. I'd get all soft and mushy on my readers at this point, but if either of those two dorks read this, they'd give me a large helping of shit. Let's just say there are lessons, and then there are LESSONS. knowwhatimeanvern?

One of the interesting bits I learned from them was which colors to use in my editor. There are some combinations that cause a lot of eye strain, and there are others that don't. And, like all things in life, there are some variations around the end points of the ranges, given the variabilities of us humans. For me, and seemingly a large subset of the population, a blue background with white letters seems to work just great.

Why is it that none of the resumes I receive in any format use this formatting?

It could be a nice touch for a job-hunter to do for an overworked recruiter. Or, it could be that you just want to stand out a bit from everyone else, show those reading your resume that you know a thing or two about writing code for hours and hours at a time.

It could  differentiate you from everyone  else in a really subtle, positive, software-development kind of way.

Paris Hilton has a video resume?

If you haven't seen it yet, here's Paris Hilton's ad for President.

I'm not bringing this up to be a whore for page-view attention. Really, I'm not.

I am bringing it up because it's a kick-ass video ad for a job. And, it's also the prime reason why we won't see video ads springing up everywhere. Why, you ask?

• You don't have drop-of-the-hat access to a camera & lighting crew that knows what it's doing.
• You probably can't hire a professional writer at a moment's notice to come up with great dialog.
• You probably can't read off a teleprompter and make it almost look like you're not.
• You're probably not as hot as Paris Hilton (hey, her words, not mine!)

But, if you did have all these at your disposal, you'd do it. In a heartbeat.

It would be, um, hot.

And I'm not using celebrity videos to up my page hits. Really, I'm not.

A little branding

What's more powerful than saying you worked for a famous company/organization on your resume?

Copying and pasting the logo into your resume.

Applying the Opposite Test

So, you read my post about the Opposite Test and thought, "Yeah, good idea for all those losers who aren't good at writing their resume (but I'm great, so I'm not going to worry about it)".

Read the following lines from resumes I've seen recently:

• I thrive on problem-solving, planning, budgeting, and supporting complex projects.
• Self motivated individual, with strong leadership, communication, and organization skills.
• Sound knowledge of Object-Oriented Programming and Concepts, Networks and Databases.
• Proven ability to consistently design and maintain secure, high-performance infrastructure in support in a scalable and highly available production environments
• Accomplished, entrepreneurial leader seasoned in spearheading the development and marketing of diverse software and web products.
• Highly motivated and creative technical professional who offers many years of accomplished experience in all phases of the software development lifecycle.

What do you think: Are these differentiating statements? Would you call any one of these people for an interview based on their ability to stand out and show you that they can do something great for you? That they are enthusiastic about your open position?

Put your thinking caps on boys & girls, because there's going to be a test. Send in your resume and see if you get called!