IT Resumes

Use These Verbs to Revamp Your IT Resume

The New Year is a great time to polish up your resume for your IT recruiters and IT staffing firms.  Employers often hire much more in January than November or December.  To make the most effective bullet points, put the verb at the front of the sentence.

The first kind of verb that will really wow employers and IT recruiting firms are verbs that show a dedication to great customer service.  IT staffing companies often are tasked with filling IT jobs that require not only great technical skills, but also excellent communication skills and abilities with end users or clients.  Some verbs that you might want to use for these bullet points might include: Delivered, Enhanced, Expedited, Improved, Accelerated, and Outpaced.

The second kinds of verbs that will impress your IT recruiting companies and IT staffing agencies are verbs related to significantly improving something (perhaps a process, software, websites, etc).  Listing concrete achievements like this will help employers see your worth and envision you at their company.  Try using verbs like Customized, Merged, Modified, Overhauled, Refined, Remodeled, Restructured, Streamlined, and Upgraded.

The last kind of verb that will impact your resume is one that shows leadership.  Whether it’s a project you officially led, or simply a project you showed some initiative on, make sure to show off a bit and mention them as bullets under your relevant jobs.  Try to use verbs like Designed, Developed, Initiated, Instituted, Launched, Pioneered, and Spearheaded.

 

IT resumes accomplishments
What have you achieved at previous IT jobs? Don’t forget to list it on your IT resume! Photo credit: Foundry via Pixabay

 

Quick Fixes for your IT Resume

If you’re looking to attract technical recruiters and IT staffing companies, you may want to polish your resume a bit.  While IT recruiters and IT staffing firms do care a lot about the content of a resume, that first quick glance at your resume is pretty influential, too.  It’s definitely worth employing these quick tips to polish your resume so that it looks more appealing to hiring managers and IT recruiting agencies.

  1. Make it easy to contact you. Don’t hide your information or omit it.  IT staffing agencies need to be able to reach you if they see IT jobs that are a good fit for you.  Put your contact info in one spot at the top of your resume.
  2. Make your resume easier to read. Cut down blocks of text and cut down your resume in general.  While you don’t need to stick to the 1 page rule most other industries require, do cut your resume down as much as you can. Organize your resume into important categories like Professional Experience, Technical Proficiencies, Education, etc.
  3. Make sure relevant skills and experience are near the top of the page. IT recruiting companies and hiring managers both look at many, many resumes.  Don’t let things that are less relevant clutter up the top of the IT resume.  Make it immediately obvious to IT recruiting firms and hiring managers that you’re a great candidate– especially for the kinds of IT jobs that you’d love to be considered for!
Working on IT resume
You’re not done with your IT resume just yet! Make sure it’s clean and easy to read before posting it! Photo credit: deathtostock.com. 

How to Make Your IT Resume Just Technical Enough

As you polish your resume for your IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies, you might be wondering how technical to make it.  Technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms do sometimes come across resumes that are simply too technical to effectively represent a candidate.  IT staffing firms also come across resumes that don’t give enough technical details to sell their candidacy.  How do you walk the line between these two extremes?

Start by thinking about the IT jobs you’d like to be considered for.  Would they involve a lot of conversations with end users or clients?  Would you need to be able to speak to both tech savvy people and people who aren’t tech savvy?  If this is the case, IT recruiting companies will want to see a resume that isn’t so technical it’s unreadable for anybody without computer science degree.

On the contrary, if you’re aiming for positions that are highly technical and don’t require much interaction with end users, don’t skimp on details. For positions like this, it’s easier for IT staffing companies to advocate for your candidacy when you give more information about your technical proficiencies and professional achievements (especially ones that are relevant to the IT jobs you want to be considered for).  Successful IT professionals tailor their IT resumes to the jobs they want, right down to the level of technical detail they provide.

IT jobs IT resumes
Will your target IT jobs involve communication with end-users? Edit your IT resume accordingly! Photo credit: deathtothestockphoto.com

 

Are You Using This Bad IT Resume Advice?

IT recruiters and IT staffing firms want IT professionals to give the best version of their resumes possible.  This might seem pretty straightforward and easy to do, but technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms come across some resumes that have clearly been built with terrible advice.  Some resumes are so long they could be novels.  Some resumes are so poorly organized or full of heavily technical terms that they’re nearly unreadable—to IT recruiting agencies, hiring managers, or anybody else!   Here’s one easy mistake you can avoid (or fix) to maximize the power of your IT resume: don’t add a description of each company you’ve worked at.

Unfortunately, many IT staffing agencies come across resumes with this mistake.  While it’s not the worst resume mistake you could be making, it’s still not helping you impress hiring managers or IT recruiting companies.  When you list a company and its general location (like the city and state), then it’s easy enough for IT staffing companies or interviewers to look it up if they are curious.  You don’t need to give a summary of what the company does.  Instead, use this space to list more of your professional achievements.  This is info that you really want your IT recruiting firms and potential employers to see— and this is info that’s not available online.  So use the space on your resume wisely!  Delete those company descriptions and replace them with more info to strengthen your candidacy for IT jobs.

IT resume Typing
Take out those company descriptions. They’re not impressing your IT recruiters or potential employers. Photo credit: DeathtotheStockPhoto.com.

 

Another IT Resume Mistake to Avoid

When you’re searching for IT jobs and polishing your resume for IT recruiters and IT staffing companies, there are a lot of ways you can do display you experience and skills.  Many IT professionals will send technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms resumes with sections just to detail their technical proficiencies.  Some IT staffing firms and IT staffing agencies will get resumes with a summary section at the top of the resume.

These are all great things, but sometimes they can create a problem when an IT professional doesn’t start listing their experience until after the first page.  IT recruiting companies want you to be thorough in creating your resume, but your resume will definitely turn off hiring managers and interviewers if you take a page or more to start listing experience.  Hiring managers and IT recruiting agencies only have so much time—if you don’t catch their attention with some strong, relevant experience quickly, you’ll probably lose it.

IT resumes
Your resume shouldn’t be a novel– get them interested from the first word! Photo credit: Simon Cocks via Flickr.

How Far Back Should Your IT Resume Go?

Many IT professionals who aren’t entry level have a hard time deciding how long of a resume to submit to their IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies. While most technical recruiters and IT staffing companies don’t suggest that IT professionals with experience need to submit 1 page resumes, there is a good rule of thumb to follow.

If you’re entry level and creating a resume for your IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms, you should try to keep your resume to 1 page.  You can do this by omitting any jobs that aren’t IT jobs or aren’t relevant to your IT career. If you do have significant experience as an IT professional, then your IT recruiting firms will want to see about 10-15 years of your most recent experience. How much exactly?  That depends on how long you’ve been working.  For example, If you’ve been working for 15 years, you may want to include only  about 10 years of experience.

In IT, youth is an asset (fortunately or unfortunately) and technologies change quickly.  You might actually  do yourself a disservice to leave more than this amount of experience on your resume.  Your best IT resume will make it seem like you understand or specialize in current technologies and that you have experience (but aren’t at the end of your career or command an astronomical salary).

IT resumes
Don’t list more than 10-15 years of experience on your IT resume! Photo credit: Dafne Cholet via Flickr.

1 Easy Way to Make Your IT Resume More Effective

There is plenty of advice out there on how to polish your resume to attract IT recruiters and IT staffing companies.  While some advice is mediocre, here is one tip that will definitely get you a lot more attention from technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies: Break up and cut down any big blocks of text in your IT resumes.

Why will this make a difference to IT recruiting companies?  It’s all about making it easier for IT staffing firms to see that you’re a great fit for a job.  When IT recruiting firms are trying to find the best IT professional for a job, they’re looking at hundreds of resumes. It really slows readers down when your resume is full of dense blocks of text—and time is of the essence for IT recruiters.  So make it more likely that IT recruiting agencies will be able to quickly scan your resume and see how accomplished and experienced you are.  Use bullet points that are concise and cut out extra info that’s too technical or unnecessary.  It might just help you win your next IT jobs!

Common IT Resume Mistakes

As you polish your resume for IT recruiters and IT staffing firms, you may want to stop and make sure you’re not making any mistakes that will make technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies take your candidacy less seriously.  Here are some mistakes that are especially common in resumes from IT professionals:

1.    Your resume is full of clichés.  IT staffing companies and IT recruiting companies don’t want to see that you’re wasting precious space on your resume with phrases like “hard worker” or “fast learner”.  These phrases are too hard to quantify and don’t mean much anyways.  Focus on listing actual technical skills and accomplishments.

2.    You wrote your resume all in the third person.  IT recruiting firms see this far too often from both US and international resumes.  The problem with talking about yourself in the third person, especially on your resume, is that you’ll come across as egocentric and out of touch with professional norms. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot this way.

3.    Lastly, your resume shouldn’t be on a creative template or format.  Graphic designers are often guilty of this because they’re trying to show off their skills.  However, when you work with IT staffing agencies, they’ll want you to keep your resume in a simple, conventional format.  Your skills and experience should speak for themselves.  Don’t obfuscate them with a nonconventional format, border, etc.

Leave This Information Off Your IT Resume!

There are some countries where it’s normal to add personal information to IT resumes.  IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies want to know things like your birthday, marital status, religion, whether you have kids, etc.  Or sometimes IT professionals will list this kind of information not because it’s a cultural norm, but simply because IT recruiting companies have never told them not to.

It’s important for IT professionals seeking new jobs to know that in the US, technical recruiters and IT staffing firms are actually pretty uncomfortable getting personal information on a resume.  A hiring manager may actually find somebody to be unprofessional for including it.  It could cost you IT jobs to leave all this personal information on your resume.  While most IT recruiting firms and IT staffing companies might see past this mistake and help you clean up your resume, it’s best to leave it off in the first place.  You’ll save your IT recruiting agencies some time and solidify your impression on them as more professional.

Don’t Stall Your IT Job Search With This Mistake

Perfecting your IT resume to attract IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms can be daunting.  You want to achieve the best balance of including experience and skills that IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies want to see, all while keep the resume clean and as brief as possible.  So if you’ve spent hours agonizing over polishing the perfect resume to attract IT staffing companies and IT recruiting agencies, don’t let it go to waste by making this little mistake: leaving off adequate contact info.

It’s easy to see why some people might think it’s best to avoid giving too much contact info on their resume. There are certainly reasons that people want to make it harder to contact them.  However, if you don’t give adequate contact information, technical recruiters will assume you’re not serious about looking for IT jobs.  It’s best to at least give your phone number and an email address.  Ideally, a link to your LinkedIn profile is helpful, too.  Once you are working with IT recruiting firms that you trust, you can take your resume down.  This will help you avoid unnecessary exposure.