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Hunting for new IT jobs means you’ll find yourself submitting some of the same information over and over again. Between interactions with hiring managers, IT recruiters, and interviewers, you may be answering the same question repeatedly. Some of this repetition is necessary, though. This is particularly true within your job search materials. Below are the similarities and differences between these three items. Knowing them can help you create better job search materials—and will probably help you land the tech jobs you want.  Here are some tips from IT staffing agencies for your resume, your LinkedIn profile and your job application.

Your LinkedIn Profile – This is the most recent addition to the job search process, but it doesn’t mean it’s optional.  Especially in the tech field, not having a LinkedIn profile will be deeply detrimental to your job search.  Technical recruiters find that some hiring managers will even automatically reject a candidate for having no LinkedIn profile.  As you write your LinkedIn profile, keep a few things in mind. Firstly, condense your profile.  Your LinkedIn profile is meant to be an abbreviated version of your resume.  Since most tech resumes can be a few pages (or more) it’s all the more important for IT professionals to abide by this rule.  Secondly, your LinkedIn profile should include 2 or 3 bullets (more if you have fewer jobs to list) that discuss what you did at each job.  Some recruiters find that candidates will simply give a job title or a description of what the company does.  This is not enough.  Leave the description of the company off your profile (hiring managers can look up what the company does).  Give enough information for a hiring manager or recruiter to understand your technical experience on a basic level.

Your Resume – Your resume is arguably the most important part of your IT job search, so don’t be haphazard about it.  The best case scenario is that you constantly update your resume, even when you’re not job searching.  If you pick up a new technology or language, add it.  If you achieve something important at your current job, add it to your resume.  Then, when you’re ready to search for a new job, all you’ll need to do is polish it up.

When you are ready to polish up your resume, there are 2 important things to pay attention to.  First, the length.  Resumes are different from LinkedIn profiles because they’re usually much longer.  Tech professionals are not held to the 1 page (or 2 pages for more experienced professionals) resume rule that most fields are.  Brevity takes a back seat to making sure you give adequate descriptions of how you used the technologies you specialize in.  It’s not enough to list the technologies in your ‘Technical Proficiencies’ section at the top of your resume.  You need to include demonstrations of the work you used these technologies for within the bullet points.  While you only give 2 or 3 bullets in your LinkedIn profile under each job, you want to give at least double that on your resume.  (And don’t waste these bullets with descriptions of what the company does because again, hiring managers can look this up themselves).

The second thing to pay attention to when building your resume is to make sure it is similar to your LinkedIn profile when it comes to dates and employers.  There should be no discrepancies on the basic history of your career.  If there are, hiring managers will likely reject you immediately.  Being trustworthy is imperative, no matter how many advanced programming languages you’re an expert at.

 Your Job Application – This is the part of the job search process that candidates find the most repetitive.  You can often skip it when you’re applying with IT staffing companies for contracting positions.  When you’re applying for direct hire and permanent jobs, though, you’ll often have to complete a job application in addition to submitting a resume.  This is usually necessary for HR departments and their own hiring processes.  The good news is, more and more frequently, you’re allowed to parse your resume into job applications.  The most important thing to note with job applications is that your dates and employment history must line up with your LinkedIn profile and resume.  As noted above, a discrepancy will make you look untrustworthy to employers and potentially result in rejection.  Be patient, fill out the job application accurately, and check it over before you submit it.  Landing a job you love in the end will be worth it.