1.11.2004
Hang In There, You're Nearly Done With The Resume!
So, you've done your Education & Affiliations section, the Professional Skills Section, your contact information, and as of last week, you completed your experience section. You put all the companies you'd worked for in the last 10 years down, matched the dates up (using only years) so that they didn't gap, and made exciting bullet points using action verbs and dollars and cents to make a strong case for why the employer should hire you, and you even alphabetized each set of bullet points under each employer's listing. Whew! So, what comes next? Well, the worst part is over. Almost. This week, we deal with the Summary of Qualifications section.
Now, this one can make or break your resume. You see, this part of the resume is "above the fold". It will be seen first - before even the listings of the companies for which you've worked. So, it's kind of like employment haiku. It's evocative. It's a good place to stick things that you want to put subtly into the mind of the hiring manager, that don't really fit under the bullet points as accomplishments, per se. Or they're things you want to reinforce, such as being trilingual in French, Russian, and Japanese.
How you start is that you make a list. Take the most valued technical skills that you have. Say, for instance, that you have done Java development under WebLogic. You'd put, in your list, Java, J2EE, and WebLogic. You might put Design Patterns in there too. If you spoke multiple languages, you'd put these in the list. Then you'd put in things that recruiters are looking for these days, such as Unix and Oracle. These things make you more attractive. Please make sure that you list only skills that you actually possess. Placing them prominently in this list ensures you'll be asked about your skill levels on each. Then you identify some of your "soft" attributes, such as being a team player, or being adept at time management. Because of the way the template is arranged in three columns, make sure your list is divisible by three so that the columns of words balance nicely. Now alphabetize the list that you've made. Your list should look something like this:
Design Patterns
French
Highly Organized
J2EE
Japanese
Java
Oracle
Russian
Team Player
Time Management
Unix
WebLogic
Copy it into the bulleted three-column section of the Summary of Qualifications section. Make sure the columns balance out; you may need to pop the font size down or use smaller version of the words. Make sure you run spell check, and re-alphabetize if necessary. Put it aside for a couple of days. Look at it critically, or have a friend do so. What kind of person do these words evoke? I would say these words evoke a senior-level Java programmer, who is sophisticated and has traveled the world. They've got a strong database background, and enterprise experience. They're probably a team lead or have been a development team manager of some sort; maybe they specialize in Java based development, especially WebLogic. They might even have hardware experience to which they have not immediately alluded. That's the power of this section - it can imply all sorts of things not actually stated on the resume. It can create a much more favorable impression in the mind of the resume reader, which can position them to read the rest of your document in a much more sympathetic manner. If upon further reflection, the Summary section doesn't evoke such wonderful and positive associations, revamp it until it does. This is a crucial part of branding and selling yourself. Take the time to get this part right. It's small, but has an unbelievable impact on the overall perception of your resume.
When I saw this article the other day, I just about hit the roof. Why should any of us take a pay cut? Why don't these unbelievably greedy folks realize that they have more money than most third world countries and should back the hell off already? Why should any software engineer in their right mind take a 33% pay cut in order to make Steven Ballmer happy? How could he possibly even think that was a good idea?
I know from personal experience that Microsoft has a reputation for massively underpaying its staff. They put you through all kinds of rigorous all day and multi-day interviews and really drag the process out so that you're just so grateful to have been accepted that you take whatever paltry wages they toss your way. They tell you that because their benefits are so generous (no co-pays on anything, etc.) that it makes up for it. If my family (of four) went to the doctor every month, each of us, assuming I'd have to pay for the co-pay on the visit (and let's be generous here) if there was medication prescribed for us on each visit, it would cost me this:
12 months x 4 people x ($10 co-pay + $20 name brand medication) = $1,440
A job where I'd make $95,000 a year as a software engineer anywhere else would pay me $70,000 a year at Microsoft. "Prestige" and "cachet" don't pay my bills the way that $25,000 would have. This little Fairy doesn't see any advantage in working for Redmond.
(I would have had to have, for each person in my family, to be prescribed 25 medications a month (non-generic) (per person), every month, the whole year, every year, in order to make up for the loss of pay in working for Microsoft. Plus I would lose the tax advantage of having exceeded 7.5% of my adjusted gross income in medical expenses in order to deduct itemized on the 1040.)
There's no better way to start the New Year right than to use the new Job Fairy Voodoo Doll! Get even with that backstabbing colleague of yours. Put a hex on your ex. Show that stupid boss just who's who! Good clean fun for the whole family. JobFairy.com is not responsible for bad ju-ju or any and all results from use of the voodoo doll. Dark spirits invoked at your own risk.
Yeah, we're in the slowdown.
Job postings are down now; this is the Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day slump that didn't really start to happen until right before New Year's! What I'm betting is that the hiring slump will be shorter and less severe in duration than usual. Worst case scenario is that hiring doesn't pick up until end of the first quarter - that all that late hiring cannibalized the spring hiring that would have gone on otherwise. But I don't get that feeling - I just think this is a delayed and shortened end of year hiring slowdown. There are few other indicators that would show any reason why hiring would be delayed this year. I just think there's going to be a whole lot of soul-searching when it comes to budget time, but with the recent positive developments in the stock market and politically, there's no reason not to get back to tricks. And the current administration is going to do whatever it takes to foster a positive climate for employment. Every unemployed or underemployed voter is one more that will vote for change. And they know that.
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