Resumes and Cover Letters
Before you even start looking at the want ads or checking the
job sites, you need to take a look at the resume you intend
to use. Your third grade teacher was right – spelling and
grammar DO count! You’ll never impress the HR folks with
your attention to detail and quality if you send them a resume
full of typos and poor grammar. Often, your resume and cover
letter are the only chance you’ll get to make a first impression.
Make sure it’s a lasting, and positive, one by having a
first-rate resume. This doesn’t mean it needs to be on
expensive, engraved stationery or that it should be full of
graphical bells and whistles. What it does mean is that it should
be well written, concise and geared toward the position you
are applying for. It should be formatted in an easy to read
style and, when sending a hard copy, printed out on good bond
paper using a laser or laser-quality printer.i
I’m not going to go into a lengthy dissertation on how
to write a resume. There are a number of good books and websites
that will give you detailed information and you’ll find
some of them listed in the Resources section later. If writing
isn’t your strong suit, I strongly suggest that you consider
enlisting the help of a professional resume service. As with
anything else, do some research, look into the provider’s
credentials and make sure you will be getting a quality product
that will accurately and honestly reflect your skills and background.
A good service will take the time to interview you, learn about
your strengths and weaknesses and assess your capabilities.
Beware of services that provide "cookie cutter" resumes
that are basically just templates that they drop key words into.
You want your resume to be an accurate reflection of your skills
and abilities, not some generic document that could belong to
anybody.
There are a variety of formats that can be used for resumes.
The most common is the chronological style, typically starting
with your most current job and working backwards to your first
job and your educational background. Another frequently used
style is the functional resume. This type of resume highlights
your skills and abilities and can be a good choice for someone
who has held a variety of different job types or who does not
have a long work history. The type of resume style you choose
to use will depend upon your personal preference and situation.
Again, you need to do your homework and decide which format
best suits your needs. That being said, here are some things
you do want to include in your resume:
Contact Information – Always, always, always
be sure to include your full name, address and phone number
at the bare minimum. Do you have a fax? Cell phone? Email address?
List those too. A word of caution… if your email address
is some cutesy appellation like cyberdude@emailbox.com, you
should probably consider choosing something a bit more professional
for your resume.ii I recommend going the simple route
and using your first and last name or first initial last name.
If you can’t do that from your home ISP, consider getting
a free email address from one of the online sites (e.g. Yahoo,
Excite, Hotmail). The added benefit here is that you can send
your resume and check for responses from anywhere you happen
to be, not just from home. Additionally, online profiles (such
as those created by AOL users) and outgoing voicemail messages
should also reflect a professional and sensible image. A prospective
employer won’t be impressed if he or she calls your voicemail
and gets a message indicating that you’re partying all
weekend and won’t be available until you regain consciousness!
Skills Summary – This section is generally
listed directly beneath your contact info and is your chance
to highlight your most important skills. It’s a good idea
to tailor this information to the position you’re applying
for, if at all possible. List your technical skills and knowledge
first, then mention the "soft" skills (e.g. team player,
good communication skills, etc.). Since resumes are frequently
scanned into databases these days, it is important to incorporate
keywords or industry buzzwords whenever possible.iii
This is not the same as using jargon, which should be avoided
whenever possible, especially those terms which are linked to
a specific employer. Don’t make the mistake of assuming
that other companies, even within the same industry, will know
what you mean. For instance, if your company’s report system
is known internally as "PARS," it should be referred
to as the "project and reporting system" on your resume.
Experience – As we’ve already discussed,
there are a number of different ways to handle this section.
Whether you list your experience chronologically or by some
other method, you need to provide more than the company name,
your title and the dates you worked there. Give some serious
consideration to the work you did for each employer. Review
your job description and any evaluations you’ve received.
These often give you good clues and keywords to focus on. Try
to present the work you did in a way that will be relevant to
the job you are applying for. Be sure to list any awards or
successes you had at current or former positions. A good way
to present your accomplishments is to think about a problem
you confronted and solved. Did you save your company money?
Develop a new timesaving procedure? Do something better, quicker,
or more economically than anyone else? Did you become Employee
of the Month/Quarter/Year? Don’t be shy; these are all
the sorts of things a prospective employer wants to know about.
A resume is not the place to be modest or humble – if you
don’t trumpet your achievements, no one else will!
It’s also important that your resume be an active, dynamic
document. In other words, don’t just list your duties or
responsibilities. Use action words or power words to punch them
up and back up your statements with verifiable statistics, whenever
possible. Visit Certification Magazine (http://www.certmag.com/issues/dec00/powerwords.cfm)
for an exhaustive list of power words ideal for use in resumes.iv
Here’s an example:
- You could say you were on a "committee to investigate
alternate suppliers" or
- You could say you "spearheaded an investigational committee
to locate and evaluate potential new vendor sources, and recommended
an alternate supplier that saved your company 25% in expenditures."
Which one do you think would get the attention of the HR manager?
The first alternative says you participated in a few meetings.
The second indicates that you have leadership abilities, can
function as part of a group and made a valuable contribution
to your employer. Of course, you can’t say something like
this if it isn’t true. There’s a big difference between
putting a positive spin on your abilities and outright lying.
Lying is unacceptable at any stage of the job search process.
Falsifying information or overstating your skills is one of
the quickest ways to lose your credibility and reputation, not
to mention your job!
Unless you are investigating several completely different career
paths (perhaps you can’t decide if you want to be a web
site designer or a carpenter), you will probably only have one
or two variations of your resume. The cover letter is your opportunity
to highlight the abilities that make you the perfect candidate
for the position you’re applying for. It may sound elementary,
but you should never send out a resume without a cover letter.
Whenever possible, try to address your letter to a specific
person, rather than the HR Dept. Make sure you clearly state
the position you are applying for or the ad you are responding
to. The Human Resource folks see a lot of resumes every day,
often for a number of varied positions. Making them guess what
you’re interested in will not make them happy or intrigued.
It will, however, probably ensure that you never hear from them.
When writing your cover letter, pay special attention to the
job skills and requirements shown in the ad or job posting (when
applicable). If the employer is looking for a programmer with
C++ experience and COBOL, it’s a good idea to mention in
your letter that you’ve worked in these areas. What if
you haven’t? Maybe you’ve got minimal experience with
C++, but excel in Java and Visual Basic. Go ahead and highlight
your expertise in these areas, and indicate that your ability
to understand other object-oriented programming languages will
permit you to quickly get up to speed with C++. The key idea
is to reiterate the employer’s needs and then clearly show
how you will be able to meet them.
The cover letter is also your opportunity to showcase any specific
accomplishments or abilities that you especially want the employer
to be aware of. An effective cover letter complements your resume,
providing the personality and customization that your factual
resume lacks.v It’s an important marketing tool,
enabling you to sell yourself to the prospective employer before
you ever meet them. The most important thing to remember is
that everyone wants to know "what’s in it for me?"
If you can show the HR folks how you’ll be able to benefit
them and their company, you are probably well on your way to
the interview!
Everything that I’ve mentioned about resumes and cover
letters also applies to their electronic forms. More and more
often, this sort of correspondence takes place via cyberspace.
As an IT professional, you of all people will be expected to
understand these protocols and use them effectively. You may
be posting your resume to a website or emailing it. Some employers
want you to include your resume as an attachment. If they indicate
a specific file format, be sure to use it. However, because
of security concerns, many employers will not accept email attachments.
Therefore, it is important that you have a text-only version
of your resume available to cut and paste into an email. Dump
all the fancy fonts and graphics (they probably shouldn’t
be there anyway) and convert your resume to ASCII text. Make
sure you look at it to see if the line breaks, bullet points,
etc. still make sense. Your personalized cover letter (including
your contact info) becomes the email message, with your text-only
resume pasted beneath it. As with any other email message, it
is important that the Subject line be relevant. Job Opportunity
may not be the best title. Programmer Ad in Morning Herald
November 25 may be better, and referencing a job posting
number (if provided) is best.vi Again, the easier
you make it for the recipient, the better your chances that
someone will actually take the time to read what you’ve
submitted.
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