Résumés for a New Millennium

by Diane Evans

Once upon a time, the high-tech world was an employee's dream. Need a raise? Need better benefits? Your employer doesn’t offer free drinks or snacks? No problem! Just quit your job—10 recruiters will contact you by noon and you will be working tomorrow at your desired salary.

Today, the world has changed. The dot-com era dissipated like the morning fog, leaving workers strewn across the landscape, once again among the teeming hordes of the unemployed. The workers stood up, brushed off their best interview clothes, and stood in line with their 1990s résumé, hoping for the handout of a new job.

Therein lies the problem—after years of needing to do little more than raise a hand at a job fair ("I’m a programmer! Pick me! Pick me!"), the average high-tech worker knows little about the résumé process and how to use it to their advantage.

With a little effort, anyone can build a winning résumé that will work, even given today’s job market. Although each person’s résumé should be as personal as the person it represents, there are strategies for making you noticed above the crowd.

Contact information

The first item on your résumé should be clear contact information, including a cell phone that you can be contacted at seven days a week. You don’t have a cell phone? You are at a great disadvantage in today’s market. Suppose an employer has a position come available, and wants to interview five people. The employer has 100 résumés to choose from, and starts calling the applicants at random. They will schedule interviews with the first five people they call. If you aren’t available, they most likely will go on to the sixth person on the list.

If you are trying to move to a new geographic area and are willing to pay your own expenses, find a local address to list on the résumé. Use the address of a friend, relative, or buy a mailbox in that city. Get a cell phone with an area code for that area. Most cell phone companies have nationwide roaming available, so it isn’t hard to get the "right" number. Or, get a prepaid cell phone that you just use for the purpose of getting a job. If it rings, you know you have a recruiter on the line!

Summary

The summary section has replaced the outdated, useless section that was called "Objective." If you are honest, your objective is, "To get a job that will pay for my mortgage, car payment, and buy a few toys." This type of statement doesn’t impress employers today.

Instead, start out with a strongly stated summary of your skills. "Experienced technical writer with 10 years of experience..." or "Programmer with five years experience...." Sell yourself in this section; consider the summary to be your one-minute interview with the CEO. What skills can you bring to the company? Why should they hire you?

If you have difficulty writing this summary, ask someone to help you. Friends, relatives, coworkers, and others that know you can be helpful in this process. If you have no one else to assist you, contact your local community college or job service center. Both have people who can assist you in your job search for free.

Skills

List any software and hardware that you are skilled in using, as well as other skills (troubleshooting, network administration, technical writing, etc.). List the number of years of experience with each skill, rounded off to a whole number of years. "Microsoft Word—10 years," or "Technical Writing—5 years." This will give the employer a quick look at your overall skills and experience.

Job experience

What should you list here? You will hear a lot of conflicting information about this, but the most successful résumés list jobs worked over the last three years, or the last three employers if one job spans more than three years. For each job, list the name of the company as you knew it—although you might need to include a new name in parentheses, such as Sprynet (now Earthlink.) List the geographical area (Seattle, Washington) but not the entire address. List your job title. If you worked at a dot-com or small company where titles were unimportant, give yourself a title that reflects the job description.

When writing a summary of your job, be as flattering as possible. If you are uncertain about what "buzz words" are in use today, do a general search on Monster.com or Dice.com and find a job similar to yours. Use the language from the job description to spice up your résumé.

Numbers are important. Show a potential employer how valuable you were. "Wrote a 100-page document...," "Wrote 10,000 lines of code...," "Created 150 Web pages...."

Along with each job, include a short description of the tools and environment for the job. A potential employer can quickly scan the résumé and see that you just spent two years in a Unix environment or that you are current in RoboHelp. The other advantage to this section is that a program that is used often, such as Microsoft Office, will appear several times on your résumé. If the employer is using a search engine to find résumés (such as on Monster.com), your résumé will pop up sooner that someone who just includes this information in a single section.

Avoid wishy-washy language, such as "proficient" or "leveraged." Use action verbs whenever possible. "Responsible for creating" doesn’t tell someone whether or not you were successful. Instead, use "created." Keep all tenses the same throughout the résumé; don’t hop from present to past tenses.

You don’t need to include the reason for leaving a position. Most employers today understand that jobs ended due to the end of contracts, funding, or companies. Sometimes the reason for leaving may sound lame in today’s economy ("I wanted more money.") This information just isn’t necessary.

Don’t worry about limiting the size of your résumé. In the old days, résumés were best if they took less than two pages since that made them easy to print out and peruse. With the electronic world, the employer may not even notice the size of your résumé if it is written in HTML or Word. Have the most relevant information on the first page (contact information, summary, last job with tools and environment), and the rest of the résumé will contain supporting evidence.

Education

Include your education as a section at the end of the résumé. For an experienced high-tech worker, your job experience is much more important than your education. List relevant degrees and certifications, as well as additional classes you have taken. Let the employer know that you stay current in your field.

Other

Include other sections as appropriate to your set of skills. This could include publications, awards, citations, memberships in professional organizations, or other job-related information. Avoid "hobbies and interests." Few employers care about these kinds of things anymore, and they can sometimes prejudice an employer. After all, if you list "President of State Republican Party" or "Chairman of Single Parents Association," you are telling the potential employer much more than they need to know about your personal life.

References

You don’t need to list references on your résumé; this might be more personal information than your references would like to have passed around. Instead, have a list of references ready to present during an interview or before, if necessary. Have a list of no more than six people who have agreed to be your reference. Let them know when you are job-hunting so that they are not caught unawares.

Sometimes you might lose track of a reference. Someone once told me that the high-tech employment arena in Seattle is very "incestuous," and he is correct. Everyone has worked with everyone else at some time. Ask mutual friends or coworkers, "Any idea where Joe is now?" Check the phone book, or guess at an e-mail and see if it works, such as john_smith@pss.boeing.com. Search for them on Google.com, or at Qwestdex.com. There are a lot of ways to track down your former managers.

If you think that one of your references is no longer saying good things about you, it is easy to check them out. Have one of your friends call each of your references and pose as a potential employer. "I’m thinking of hiring Susan as a technical writer" is all it often takes to get the information you need.

Last of all—Formatting and editing

Format your résumé in a way that pleases others. If you are experienced at Microsoft Word, create your own template. Don’t have a single line in your résumé that is formatted in "Normal" style. If you claim that you are experienced in using Word, you should be able to show this quickly.

If you are not experienced with Word, find a friend who can help you or read a good book, such as Word for Dummies by Dan Gookin, to learn what is needed to make a nice-looking résumé.

Then, proofread your résumé. When you are finished proofreading it, have three friends proofread the résumé. Be sure that all words are spelled and used correctly.

Cover letter

A good résumé requires a good cover letter, one that is reflective of the job for which you are applying. One approach to a cover letter is a T-letter, which is a point-for-point answer to a job description. At the conclusion of writing a T-letter you will either know that you are fully qualified for a job, or know that you are not a fit for the job. Although a T-letter is not a guarantee of getting a job, it will greatly increase your chances of obtaining that elusive interview.

Although a lot of guidelines have been given in this article, your final résumé should be as unique as you. Choose your own format, fonts, and method for showcasing your talents. Getting a job begins with getting an interview; these tips will increase your "interview hit" percentage, and help you join the ranks of the employed!

Diane Evans is a Requirements Analyst with Rosetta Inpharmatics in Bothell. A native of King County, she lives in Renton with her husband, Frank, her dog, Buhner, and her cat, Sammy the Fat Cat.