but it is about time that at least ONE thread does appear of this nature.
I want to PUBLICLY (and empathetically), give my exceptional gratitude to Mike (aka Supracentral), and yes folks, I am being sincere. :icon_surp
The story:
As everyone in the US know, the Job market has been "mish mash" of lay offs, contract terminations etc through most of 2009. Just me alone, I bounced from one job to another, 4 jobs total with unemployment for what amounts to 40% of the year. Retirement funds had dwindled to zero, and as everyone knows, the bills just don't magically stop. Well unlike preivous years, what worked before job hunting wise, was not working AT ALL in this market. Why? Not a lot of jobs, LOTS of applicants (and to showcase this, I have been in the field of IT for a long time. So I contacted some recruiters and they verified, for each position they had open, average of about 100 resumes recieved in ONE day), it made for an exceptionally competitive job market, one where experience was not going to get my foot in the door (learned the hardway) which was a complete 180 from before.
So I asked for help. Well Mike agreed on the condition that he was going to be truthful which I whole heartedly agreed. By truthful I mean that, no "sunshine being blown up my ass" to make me feel better. So I emailed him my "book" (which was my resume up until that time), 8 pages of verbose, chatty resume.
Well he told me the TRUTH. The resume as it stood was in good contention to be one of the first resume to go in the trash. The REAL trash bin (not the computer trash bin). The resume as it stood was just to "wordy" and showed no achievements, just what what I did job wise. What is the difference you ask? Acheivements are goals that are met or exceeded as part of a project that helped the company in saving man hours, money, process time or a combination of all three.
Anyway, Mike put on his hiring manager (which was invaluable as now I see the reactions to my "resume") cap and just layed it on the line. He detailed what HE wants to see as a hiring manager, which is what more than likely any manager that is innundated with resumes is also doing currently, and I adjusted my resume accordingly.
So what were the caveats?
Resume Length! No more than 2 pages, ESPECIALLY in a very competitive job market. I have 14+ years of experience but that we are looking to grab attention not lul people to sleep. SIZE DOES MATTER. Short and sweet! I'll explain how it was explained to me afterwards.
Check the spelling! thier instead of their or there. We're (contraction of we are) instead of were or where. teh instead of the. Punctuations, grammar, run-on sentences etc.
Bullet points! The bullet points should be achievements which should be no more than 2 sentences max. If you read it and it says what you do but no achievements, than you will be in trouble. Why? A manager is looking for what YOU can do for them. They will rake you over the coals once you get an interview but the resume tells them, hey, this candidate can save me money or streamline process, or he has time management experience or .... help me in some way, shape or form.
Now why are these three things important? Well think about it, A hiring manager has 100+ resumes to go through (and doubt this will change for quite some time). We (as possible candidates) do NOT want to make it harder for the hiring manager to go over our resume. Remember, that we are after the job they posted. Once we land the interview, then you can talk about the technical merits of the job, how you did it (if asked), or how you achieved your goals and what were the outcomes. The resume is just to get you the interview.
In the end. I did the changes and went forward with the new, improved resume. I submitted my resume to a couple of companies. Incredibly, out of the 12 companies I sent resumes, 10 companies reached out to me after reading my resume to schedule interviews! Put in other words, a 83% rate of contact from possible employment opportunities! Before I was lucky to get even a 5% call return.
The funny thing is that the resume actually opened up different opportunities, some that I did not even think I had a chance at. In the end, I accepted a job offer from Best Buy Corporation, to test what they call network connected devices.
What is a network connected device?
Blu-ray player with netflix connectivity or pandora radio.
TV with the same thing.
Digital picture frame with a flickr backend.
and a slew of ther products before they hit store shelves. Or in other words, bleeding edge.
So as I began, and I will now close.
Thank you Mike. I owe you muchas cervezas or mexi-cokes.
-Figgie
cliffs: that why you are unemployed you lazy bum! Read the post!
I want to PUBLICLY (and empathetically), give my exceptional gratitude to Mike (aka Supracentral), and yes folks, I am being sincere. :icon_surp
The story:
As everyone in the US know, the Job market has been "mish mash" of lay offs, contract terminations etc through most of 2009. Just me alone, I bounced from one job to another, 4 jobs total with unemployment for what amounts to 40% of the year. Retirement funds had dwindled to zero, and as everyone knows, the bills just don't magically stop. Well unlike preivous years, what worked before job hunting wise, was not working AT ALL in this market. Why? Not a lot of jobs, LOTS of applicants (and to showcase this, I have been in the field of IT for a long time. So I contacted some recruiters and they verified, for each position they had open, average of about 100 resumes recieved in ONE day), it made for an exceptionally competitive job market, one where experience was not going to get my foot in the door (learned the hardway) which was a complete 180 from before.
So I asked for help. Well Mike agreed on the condition that he was going to be truthful which I whole heartedly agreed. By truthful I mean that, no "sunshine being blown up my ass" to make me feel better. So I emailed him my "book" (which was my resume up until that time), 8 pages of verbose, chatty resume.
Well he told me the TRUTH. The resume as it stood was in good contention to be one of the first resume to go in the trash. The REAL trash bin (not the computer trash bin). The resume as it stood was just to "wordy" and showed no achievements, just what what I did job wise. What is the difference you ask? Acheivements are goals that are met or exceeded as part of a project that helped the company in saving man hours, money, process time or a combination of all three.
Anyway, Mike put on his hiring manager (which was invaluable as now I see the reactions to my "resume") cap and just layed it on the line. He detailed what HE wants to see as a hiring manager, which is what more than likely any manager that is innundated with resumes is also doing currently, and I adjusted my resume accordingly.
So what were the caveats?
Resume Length! No more than 2 pages, ESPECIALLY in a very competitive job market. I have 14+ years of experience but that we are looking to grab attention not lul people to sleep. SIZE DOES MATTER. Short and sweet! I'll explain how it was explained to me afterwards.
Check the spelling! thier instead of their or there. We're (contraction of we are) instead of were or where. teh instead of the. Punctuations, grammar, run-on sentences etc.
Bullet points! The bullet points should be achievements which should be no more than 2 sentences max. If you read it and it says what you do but no achievements, than you will be in trouble. Why? A manager is looking for what YOU can do for them. They will rake you over the coals once you get an interview but the resume tells them, hey, this candidate can save me money or streamline process, or he has time management experience or .... help me in some way, shape or form.
Now why are these three things important? Well think about it, A hiring manager has 100+ resumes to go through (and doubt this will change for quite some time). We (as possible candidates) do NOT want to make it harder for the hiring manager to go over our resume. Remember, that we are after the job they posted. Once we land the interview, then you can talk about the technical merits of the job, how you did it (if asked), or how you achieved your goals and what were the outcomes. The resume is just to get you the interview.
In the end. I did the changes and went forward with the new, improved resume. I submitted my resume to a couple of companies. Incredibly, out of the 12 companies I sent resumes, 10 companies reached out to me after reading my resume to schedule interviews! Put in other words, a 83% rate of contact from possible employment opportunities! Before I was lucky to get even a 5% call return.
The funny thing is that the resume actually opened up different opportunities, some that I did not even think I had a chance at. In the end, I accepted a job offer from Best Buy Corporation, to test what they call network connected devices.
What is a network connected device?
Blu-ray player with netflix connectivity or pandora radio.
TV with the same thing.
Digital picture frame with a flickr backend.
and a slew of ther products before they hit store shelves. Or in other words, bleeding edge.
So as I began, and I will now close.
Thank you Mike. I owe you muchas cervezas or mexi-cokes.
-Figgie
cliffs: that why you are unemployed you lazy bum! Read the post!
