IT resume formats

Resume Too Long? 3 Easy Cuts to Make

Most IT staffing firms will concur that IT professionals don’t really need to adhere to the 1 or 2 page rule for their resumes.  IT recruiters routinely work with candidates who have very long resumes, sometimes over 5 or 6 pages.  However, IT staffing agencies’ best candidates aren’t always the ones with novel-length resumes.  Technical recruiters find that busy hiring managers tend to respond much better to concise, efficient resumes.  If your resume could use some trimming, here are a few things IT staffing companies suggest you consider cutting.

1.    Objectives.  You don’t need to spell out the kind of IT jobs you’re looking for in an objective, so it’s really just wasted space.  This is true for two reasons.  Firstly, IT recruiting companies are trained to read technical resumes, even complicated ones.  They will be able to figure out what kind of role you’re seeking or what kinds of roles you’d succeed in.  If you have an objective because you’re looking for a particular type of work environment or certain accommodations, this is better said in conversation with IT staffing agencies or interviewers.  Putting a detailed description of what you want in your next role doesn’t really do anything– other than possibly make you look demanding.

2.    The words ‘responsibilities,’ ‘responsible for,’ or headings for internal jobs bullets like ‘duties’, etc.  IT recruiters see a lot of resume examples or resume templates that spell out the obvious.  Again, this is wasted space.  Use the bullets under your jobs to note major professional achievements, as well as some of your duties.  You don’t need to indicate that this is what you’re listing, though.  Recruiters and hiring managers will already know.

3.     Your references or their contact info.  Technical recruiters do find that some candidates will actually put references and their contact info directly on a resume.  Don’t do this!  For one thing, it wastes space because people tend to want to see this info on a separate email or document later.  For another, it makes you look a bit unprofessional.  You are breaking norms by adding this info to your resume.  You’re also making people’s information public if you’re posting this resume on Monster, Indeed, etc.  Cut this section of your resume—it’s more likely harming you than helping you.

 

Trimming Your IT Resume
Ready to cut down your IT resume a bit? Photo credit: Taken via Pixabay.

 

2 Ways to Make Updating Your Resume Easier

Possibly the worst part of searching for new IT jobs is having to update your resume.  Even when you’re working with IT recruiters, this is still a task that you’ll have to deal with.  Here are 2 easy ways to make the process much less painful the next time your IT staffing firms ask for the most updated version of your resume.

  1. Take notes ahead of time. On a day when you have a little free time, create a document where you will keep notes about what you achieve in your current position.  IT recruiting firms would suggest you think about achievements that cement your value to your managers, your team, end users and clients, etc.  Add these items to your document as they occur.  Even if you love your current job so much that you could never imagine working with IT staffing agencies to leave it for a new one, you should still do this.  The reality is that most people do tend to work at more than one employer; thus you’ll probably actually need to job search again in the future.  Taking notes on professional achievements and contributions at your current position now means that you’ll have better information and more details than if you just try to remember it later.
  2. Always keep your technical skills section up to date. Again, even if you aren’t even remotely close to contacting your technical recruiters to look for a new role, it’s worth taking a few minutes of free time one day to add new certifications, skills, programming languages, etc to your resume.  If you don’t have time to add them to your resume in proper formatting, simply take notes on them along with your other notes about your current position.  Updating your resume can be a stressful, overwhelming process.  You wouldn’t want to forget a key programming language or certification as you rush to get an updated version of your resume to your IT recruiting agencies.

With these steps, whenever you are ready to update your resume for IT staffing companies, you’ll have all the information you need (together in one place, too).  Updating your IT resume will take half the time and you can get on with your job search faster!

 

ITJobSearchResumes
Relying on yourself to remember everything you need to update your IT resume with is a bad strategy. Photo credit: SolGar via Pixabay.

 

Is Your IT Resume Mobile Ready?

In today’s world, searching for IT jobs requires more than just polishing your resume and printing it on nice paper for IT recruiters.  Especially if you’re trying to attract IT recruiting firms, it’s important to make sure your resume is adapted for a more digital world. Here’s how to make sure your resume can be most attractive to technical recruiters.

  1. Polish the content on your resume. IT staffing firms will be less likely to want to work with you if your resume is difficult to read, doesn’t show off your professional achievements, or is so long it could be a novel.  Check out more tips here on how to update your resume to attract IT recruiting agencies.
  2. Make your resume mobile-friendly. This means a few things.  Make sure it’s clean and brief. Don’t use any graphics, odd formats, or colors.  Cut out all extraneous information.  (It’s worth noting that IT recruiting agencies prefer this on mobile formats or otherwise.)  Try emailing yourself your resume and checking it on your phone.  Busy IT staffing agencies and hiring managers often have to look at your resume that way.  Make sure the view is good.
  3. Don’t forget hyperlinks. If you have a website, professional blog, or online portfolio, don’t forget to provide links to it.  IT recruiting companies may also appreciate seeing a link to your LinkedIn profile.  Take full advantage of all that a digital resume can do to bolster your candidacy.

 

IT resume mobile ready
Test your IT resume on your phone – it may help you land your next IT job. Photo credit: FirmBee via Pixabay.

 

1 Way to Improve Your IT Resume

Here’s one straightforward way you can improve your resume to attract more IT recruiters and hiring managers: replace every bullet that starts with ‘responsible for’ with a professional achievement.

Why aren’t ‘responsible for’ statements on your resume as attractive to IT staffing firms?  Because these statements simply tell IT recruiting companies what the description is/was for your IT jobs.  While this is somewhat useful, it doesn’t really bolster your candidacy.  The best bullet points, the ones that IT staffing agencies love, demonstrate the value that you can bring to a new employer.  These kinds of bullet points may give some information that overlaps with a job description, but they’re very different to a hiring manager or technical recruiters.

How do you write bullet points that IT staffing companies and hiring managers want to see?  Think about times you’ve improved a process, gotten a tangible or measurable result, or been commended.  If you don’t have any examples like this, think about you responsibilities in various jobs.  Try to identify who benefited from these responsibilities and how.  You can use this information to create results-oriented statements about what you did.  These are the kinds of things you want added into your resume under each job.  They help employers picture what value you might be able to add to their company, team, etc.

So try taking some time to improve all these ‘responsible for’ statements on your IT resume.  It will help you attract a lot more IT recruiting firms and hiring managers.

 

Fix IT resumes
‘Responsible for’ statements don’t help your candidacy for IT jobs. Photo credit: picjumbo via Pixabay.

 

 

Leave This Off Your IT Resume!

When you polish up your resume to attract IT staffing firms, you may be tempted to create fancy tables or graphs to show your technical proficiencies or achievements.  Perhaps you’ve even heard that these kinds of elements might make you stand out to IT recruiting firms and hiring managers.  This is terrible advice, though.  Here’s why IT staffing agencies will respond better if leave fancy tables graphs, pie charts, etc off your IT resume.

Firstly, while it may take skills to create a pie chart or graph on your resume, this isn’t the impression that elements like this often give to IT recruiting companies and hiring managers.  If you have a strong resume with good experience and a great arsenal of technical proficiencies, you don’t need any special gimmicks to make your resume stand out to IT recruiting agencies.  If you do use these elements, you’re distracting from the strength of your candidacy and suggesting you may not understand professional norms.

Another reason IT staffing companies wouldn’t suggest you use any graphs, pie charts, etc on your resume is that these may make your resume more difficult for hiring managers or technical recruiters to read.  Since IT recruiters and interviewers are often pressed for time, they won’t usually appreciate a graph that will require them to slow down and decipher it.  Even if it’s simple, an element like this will still require more time to read than a simple, well-formatted resume.  At best, you’ll simply irritate interviewers or technical recruiters.  At worst, they may actually abandon your resume altogether in favor of one that is easier to look over (and thus establishes great candidacy faster).

So use a simple, clean format for your IT resume.  Fancy charts won’t win you IT jobs.

 

Pie Chart IT Resumes
Don’t put one any pie charts on your IT resume, no matter how beautiful you can make them. Photo credit: OpenClipartVectors via Pixabay.

 

 

How to Trim Your IT Resume

As experienced IT professionals update their IT resumes, keeping them concise is often an issue.  IT staffing firms and hiring managers certainly understand that IT professionals aren’t beholden to the 1 page resume rule that many other professionals are.  However, you certainly won’t attract more IT recruiting companies and technical recruiters with an absurdly long resume.

How can you decide what to keep on your resume and what IT recruiters will consider a waste of space? Here are some basic priorities to consider.  Firstly, make sure your list of technical skills is complete and near the top of the resume.  This is one of the most important parts of your resume, as it helps IT staffing companies see at a glance if you might be a fit for IT jobs.  Don’t cut from this area.

Secondly, keep all relevant jobs and projects on your resume. When it comes to cutting material, irrelevant jobs (or at least excessive bullets below them) should be the first to go.  You’ll also want to cut any jobs that were more than 10 – 15 years ago.  Even if they’re relevant, they likely won’t strengthen your candidacy because they were just too long ago.

Lastly, don’t hesitate to cut volunteer activities, interests, or other personal information that isn’t directly related to your career path.  Interested in hiking?  You don’t need to add this on your resume.  Volunteering at a coding class in your community?  IT staffing agencies will want to read about this on your resume.

 

Hiking IT resumes
You might love hiking, but IT recruiters and hiring managers don’t need to see that on your resume. Photo credit: Unsplash via Pixabay.

 

 

 

Delete These 2 Words from Your LinkedIn Profile and IT Resumes

One strong tactic you can use is to polish up your LinkedIn profile and resume is deleting words that will turn off technical recruiters and potential employers.  Here are two words that won’t attract IT recruiters or hiring managers if you have them in your LinkedIn profile or resume – particularly in a summary or objective section.

  1. Don’t waste space in your summary or your taglines on LinkedIn with the word ‘motivated.’ Because it’s been so overused, it doesn’t mean much to IT staffing firms or interviewers.  What really carries weight with IT recruiting companies and hiring managers are demonstrations of your motivation.  Did you move up the ranks in a help desk department at a previous employer?  Did you volunteer for some extra projects at your last IT jobs? Listing actions and results like this on your profile is a much better use of space!
  2. In the same vein, you won’t be impressing any IT staffing agencies or potential employers by calling yourself ‘driven’ on your LinkedIn profile or resume. Again, the word is far too over-used to be effective.  It’s also not interesting to IT recruiting firms when you call yourself driven.  If you had a reference call you driven, it would carry far more weight.  However, since it’s a quality that’s hard to define, it’s important to consider that your opinion can’t really count here. You are, of course, biased about your own employability.  When you pronounce yourself driven on your LinkedIn profile or IT resume, you’re really just stating something that IT recruiting agencies already know: you think you’d be an asset as an employee.  Use the space on your LinkedIn profile or IT resume to tell them something they don’t know.  What’s your technical background?  What projects have you led?  What have you achieved in your career?  This is the kind of information that IT staffing companies want to see—not that you think that you are driven.

 

Delete
Don’t leave ‘motivated’ on your IT resume! Photo credit: gustavofer74 via Pixabay.