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.
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.
Things Your IT Recruiters Don’t Want on Your Resume
IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies will often get resumes with extra information. Maybe the IT professional has given more detail about a job than the IT recruiting firms and IT staffing companies need. Sometimes IT staffing firms get resumes that give way more professional experience than is necessary (or helpful!). These kinds of mistakes don’t usually turn off IT recruiters because they’re actually sort of common. What does tend to be a far more egregious mistake on resumes is including too many personal details.
What does this mean? Often, perhaps because of cultural differences, IT professionals will include things that don’t pertain to their IT jobs or careers at all. For instance, info like your birthday, parents’ names, or your IQ should all be taken off your resume ASAP. Leaving this info on your resume suggests a few things. Firstly, it suggests to IT recruiting companies that you just don’t know much about professional norms. In IT, having the ability to fit well into a company’s corporate culture is pretty important. If your resume doesn’t conform to corporate professional norms, IT recruiting firms may think you might not be able to. Secondly, leaving this information on your resume takes up valuable space you should be filling with your professional achievements, skills, and experience. Don’t waste an IT recruiter’s time with information that they don’t want anyways. Keep your resume focused on your career—past, present and future!
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.
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).
Are You Using This Bad IT Job Interview Advice?
Recently, technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies have come across candidates who are acting on some terrible job interview advice. Some IT professionals have heard that it will really impress their interviewer if they ask them if they have any concerns about them as a potential hire. IT recruiters and IT staffing firms would strongly urge that you never, ever ask this question when on interviews for IT jobs. Here are 2 reasons why this is a terrible question to ask.
Firstly, asking this question might suggest that you aren’t confident in your own candidacy. Your IT recruiting agencies and IT staffing companies are advocating hard for you. You need to supplement this effort by coming across as confident in your abilities and experience. When you’re in IT, confidence is especially key. Nobody wants to hire somebody who does a sub-par job working on important internal systems, websites, or provides poor tech support. Giving the impression of low confidence will make it easy for your interviewer to question your competence as an IT professional.
Secondly, asking this question may actually highlight any weaknesses your interviewer hadn’t really noticed before. Again, your IT recruiting firms are working hard to highlight why you’ll be a great candidate for the IT job. You should do the same for yourself. Don’t bring any extra attention to your potential (or perceived) flaws.
How to Talk About Weaknesses in IT Job Interviews
Lots of IT recruiters and IT staffing agencies come across IT professionals who aren’t sure how to answer this tough interview question: What is/are your weakness(es)? Worse, some technical recruiters and IT recruiting agencies work with candidates who think they know how to answer this question, but do it poorly. Here’s how to talk about weaknesses so you impress your interviewer and get some positive feedback for your IT staffing firms and IT recruiting companies.
- Don’t give a fake weakness. Give one that is real. If you say something like ‘perfectionism’ it will make it harder for the interviewer to feel like you’re being honest and genuine with them.
- Give a weakness that isn’t prohibitive to doing the IT jobs you’re interviewing for. If you’re interviewing for a Software Developer job, you wouldn’t want to say you’re not very attentive to detail.
- Lastly, make sure your weakness is something you can actually improve upon. It’s best if you can give a brief summary of how you are currently working on this weakness, too. This will ensure that your IT staffing companies and IT recruiting firms get some great feedback after your interview!
Do This to Wow Your IT Job Interviewer
Most IT professionals are looking to differentiate themselves in interviews for IT jobs. Your IT recruiters and IT staffing companies will certainly advocate for you, but you also will want to really stand out in your interview. Here is one way that you can really impress your interviewer (and by extension your technical recruiters and IT recruiting firms).
Before you interview, get a good, thorough idea of what the job will entail from your IT staffing agencies and IT recruiting companies. Then think through any potential challenges you’ll face if you get the IT job. Make a list for yourself, and then work on some basic strategies you’d apply to these challenges. If you’ve faced similar challenges, think about what strategies did work in these instances. Now practice going through these. When you go to the interview, you can use these challenges and solutions if the interviewer seems open to hearing them. If your examples are good, your IT recruiting agencies and IT staffing firms will likely hear some great feedback about you!
Don’t Quit Your IT Job Yet!
When your IT job is unpleasant or stressful, it can be tempting to simply quit and focus solely on finding new IT jobs with your IT staffing companies and IT recruiters. Technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies will tell you that this isn’t a good idea, though. Here’s why you need to tough it out in your current job until your IT recruiting companies and IT staffing firms find you a new job.
- If you work as an IT contractor, your resume is already probably full of shorter stints at a lot of companies. This isn’t a problem on its own. However, if you quit a job without having another to move into, these things combined can create a red flag. Hiring managers want to be able to trust that you’re reliable and resilient, even if you’re faced with a tough project, team, end-user, etc.
- Quitting a job without having another lined up will make it easier for hiring managers to assume you were fired or about to be fired. While your IT recruiting firms can try to explain these things, it’s better to have nothing for your IT recruiting agencies to explain for you. Do your best to keep your resume as pristine as possible, because you never know what other candidates you might be up against.
Using The Right Tone in IT Job Interviews
When you’re searching for IT jobs, job interviews can be intimidating. Some candidates deal with nervousness by practicing with friends, family, and their IT recruiters and IT staffing firms. Especially for IT interviews (in which technical recruiters and IT staffing agencies may need you to brush up on particular technologies) practicing, doing your research, and studying are all important for success. However, there’s a line you don’t want to cross.
Though it’s not common, sometimes IT staffing companies and IT recruiting agencies will be told by an interviewer what a candidate sounded too rehearsed. This problem is very easy to avoid. Go ahead and practice with your IT recruiting companies. Study and role play with your friends and family. Try to stop short of memorizing answers word for word to particular questions. You want to keep the feeling of conversation in the interview.
Why is this important? Firstly, the interviewer needs to feel like they’re having a genuine conversation with you so they can see if you are truly a good fit for the job. Secondly, if you’re interviewing for a role that interacts with customers or end-users, then this is particularly important. The interviewer needs to be able to see you have an easy, professional rapport with somebody. Keep these things in mind and you’ll do well in your next IT job interviews.
