22 Resume tips you can’t afford to ignore
This article looks at what most web developers can learn from most designers’ resumes. To justify a premium pay packet see what these 22 tips can do for your resume.
Hate updating and sharpening your resume? Who doesn’t? Ever compared programmers’ and designers’ resumes? We have. What we discovered is that developers can learn a few tricks from designers’ resumes. Follow these 22 Rules and you’ll be on track to get an offer to negotiate a premium tech salary. It’s just a matter of making yourself as valuable as possible.
Most developers possess a powerful left brain while designers possess a powerful right brain. Few of us can balance left with right in an Einstein way. This is the main reason why most designers make poor developers, and most developers make lousy designers.
Look at your resume through the lens of the left-right brain differences (Best Selling Author Daniel Pink’s Blog). Being an expert in your niche is no longer a guarantee for commanding premium rates. With more tech jobs being outsourced to the developing world, the need to prove that you possess that something extra special is growing. The good news for developers is that your creative right brain can come to the rescue of your dominant logical left. To see what we mean, download 
this resume of a developer turned entrepreneur. See how you fare:
Rule 1: Cut to the Chase
Employers and HR people are busy; they merely scan your covering letter and Resume. Yes the same letter that you’ve agonised over and crafted for 3 hours. So this means you have to get to the heart of your points from the word go. Otherwise known as the K.I.S.S principle. So just as with web pages, after you’re done, knife through your entire resume to slice out all unnecessary words. Make sentences more concise and punchy.
For each position you’ve held, include the name of the employer, your title, and the dates you started and finished working there. Below, in bullet form, include the responsibilities you were given, and the goals you achieved. Include only 1 responsibility and 1 goal per bullet. 
Example:
- Managed IT helpdesk of 12 employees for 2 years. Through teamwork and change management, service times were reduced by 40%, saving the company $60,000 per year.
Rule 2: Show me the money!
Always try to distill your accomplishments into numbers. Why? Employers look out for their company’s business. This means that they want to see results that increase their profits. The best way to do that is to show them concrete figures. Since IT roles are often supportive in nature, it’s usually not straightforward to pin a figure down. So add up how much your work has saved your previous employers (see the example above). If you’re fresh out of college, then show examples of how your initiatives in vacation and part-time jobs have made a difference.
Rule 3: No Frills!
There’s one area that developers would be wise to copy from their designer brothers. Recruiters don’t want to receive correspondence from you on fancy paper or parchment. Designers do it for branding and to prove creative credentials. It may indicate that your resume is short on substance and that you are not well qualified, and it looks like you are trying to distract them from that, with colours or special paper. If you’re sending printed resume’s, stick to plain white paper, 8 ½ by 11″, You’ll instantly be taken more seriously.
Rule 4: Power Words
Just as in the world of academia, where professors generally skim over a students work while grading, HR people don’t read your letter and resume line by line. They are looking for key words that jump out at them, and let them know that you are right for the job. Many large corporations even have software filters looking for these words in your correspondence (Snail mail or fax are 2 low tech easy ways of getting past the software, and can be a good way to get noticed). Using these so called “Power Words” can really make a difference.
Rule 5: One size does NOT fit all
There are thousands of opportunities available out there in hundreds of industries. Airlines, charities, law firms and universities all need techies working for them. But their industries are completely different. So why would you send them all the same resume? Don’t! Instead, develop a new version of your resume for each industry that interests you. Use it to illustrate your skills which best relate to the jobs in that sector. Consider this your first opportunity to show a prospective employer how you can set yourself apart from the pack.
Rule 6: Be Proactive
What if you’re lacking experience and your resume looks a bit thin? Get to work! Call around, get yourself an internship, or even volunteer if you have to. This shows employers that you are serious about working in their field, and that you have been proactive in addressing your lack of experience. They might think you’ll continue to behave that way if they hire you. This also provides potential employers with a solid reference to speak to, if they want to know how well you worked.
Rule 7: Make a Statement
If you don’t write a covering letter, then at the top of the document, include a few lines about yourself. Let the employer know your goals over the medium term, and how working for them will help you achieve them. It’s important to show them you know where you’re going in your career, as it illustrates clear thinking and long term planning skills. This is a quality that companies want in their employees. Be true to Rule 1, so make it short and punchy as we have below, or look at the downloadable Word document we’ve made available near the top of this article.
Don’t use generic terms like “Motivated”, “Good inter-personal skills”, or “Dedicated”. Companies insist all their employees have these skills; you want to tell them what’s special about you. Refer to Rule 4, and write a paragraph or some bullets about yourself, like this:
- Innovative problem solver with excellent analytical skills
- Outstanding leadership and project management expertise
- Impeccable communication and interpersonal abilities
- Instinctual ability to identify and develop new opportunities
Rule 8: Embellish (don’t Exaggerate)
There is a fine line between embellishing, and playing up all your professional experience and success. Find creative ways to describe the work you have done for past employers. Think of all your responsibilities, and the tasks associated with them. Explain how crucial your role was within the organization, and how you added value to the company. Don’t lie; just emphasize the parts of your experience which are most relevant to the job you’re applying for.
Rule 9: Modesty Can Hurt
This is especially important for young professionals. If you’ve won any awards for academic achievement, volunteering in the community, athletic excellence, or a scholarship - mention it. Companies want the best people, so take every opportunity to show HR your accomplishments. If you were able to do these things on your own, you can probably accomplish things for them too. Don’t forget Rule 1.
Rule 10: Avoid Discrimination
In this day and age, most companies have strict hiring policies regarding the hiring of women and minorities, with the ultimate goal of being an equal opportunity work place. Unfortunately for applicants, we are rarely given the luxury of knowing what those hiring policies are.
Don’t take any chances. Don’t include personal information such as your gender, religion and race. Refer to yourself as a professional or an individual instead. Besides, when you’re invited for an interview , in many cases it won’t take them long to figure out your gender and race (from your name).
Rule 11: Sentence construction
For the sake of brevity, it’s important to construct the sentences in your resume in such a way that makes the best use of every word. Comb through your resume, and examine it line-by-line, sentence-by-sentence. Improve the structure of the document by explaining your experience using the “P.A.R.” formula (Problem, Action, Result). Tell your future boss how you identified problems, solved them, and what the outcome was. By sticking with this model, you’ll take out any non-value added statements that might have crept into your resume.
Rule 12: Use the right format
Functional or Chronological, what type of resume do you have? More importantly, which one should you have?
Chronological is what most people use, it’s the basic style where an individual lists his or her professional experience in chronological order, starting from the present.
On a Functional resume, your skills and experience are classified by category. The idea being, that if a person is changing from one industry to another, they can highlight the skills which they feel are relevant to the new job being applied for.
For example: communication skills, ability to meet deadlines and bilingualism are attributes that can be transferred to almost any job.
Rule 13: Working in a foreign country
This can complicate the hiring process significantly, particularly if you’ve moved to another continent or country, where the business culture is very different from your country of origin. Make sure to explain the standards you had to meet in the places you’ve worked. For academic history, describe the significance of any degrees or awards by comparing them to the equivalent achievements in the country where you are applying for work.
Rule 14: Mind the gaps
Many people have been out of work for some length of time in their lives. In this era of downsizing and corporate mergers, even the best on the job performers can sometimes find themselves unemployed, through no fault of their own. However, it can be tricky to explain these gaps to potential future employers. Some people are vague about their starting and ending dates, leaving out the month if possible and just including the year they started and the year they left. So instead of working from “May 2000 to September 2005″, they can say they held their position from 2000 to 2005. We suggest you be ready with a brief explanation for your time between positions. If you were skilling up by reading, taking part time courses, or travelling, then state this on your resume. Don’t draw additional attention to a gap.
If there are extenuating circumstances surrounding a long period of unemployment, that you were unable to avoid, it’s best to offer an explanation in your covering letter.
Similarly, don’t dwell on seasonal jobs you took during your studies, or jobs that have little to do with the position you are now applying for. List only the dates you were there, the job title and your responsibilities. Keep it brief and devote most of your space to more relevant experiences. Consider leaving jobs which are completely irrelevant out of your resume all together.
Rule 15: Remember why you’re writing
Your resume is a marketing tool to promote yourself to employers. Go over it repeatedly and make sure it has a positive tone, and that it is an accurate representation of you.
Go through the job description of the position you’re applying for, and use some of the same adjectives in your resume, to highlight just what a great match you would be for the job in question. Make it aesthetically pleasing, not some boring looking document that’s hard to read, all the information should be easy for the reader to find. Modify characters and font sizes, to direct attention to the things you want the employer to notice most.
Rule 16: Ask for help
It’s always a good idea to talk with other people to get an outside perspective on your resume. Friends, co-workers and family from different professional backgrounds can draw upon their own work experiences. They may think of things you forgot to include, or suggest you make changes to what you’ve already written. In this way, you can send a well rounded and properly thought out resume that seems intelligent to whoever might be reading it, regardless of their background.
Rule 17: Anticipate needs
Now that you’ve portrayed yourself as a professional who is well qualified for the job, try to comb through your resume and re-write your responsibilities and duties from previous jobs. See if you can tweak your resume to bring out those parts of your responsibilities and achievements that relate best to the position you’re aiming for.
An HR person loves to see someone who can think ahead, who can anticipate problems and prevent them before they happen. This is more difficult to do in a resume if you’re changing industries, but if you go through your network and speak with people, with experience in the industry you are going into, you shouldn’t have too much trouble.
Rule 18: Keep it fresh
Even if you’re not actively looking for work, it’s still a good idea to revise your resume every few months. Modify the responsibilities you have in your current position, as they change over time. Resume writing is a long process and takes a lot of work to get it right. It’s better to have it ready to go, in case you need it, rather than be scrambling to put one together in the event of some bad news.
Keep a look out for new opportunities and be ready to pounce with a strong and impressive resume. Be ready to beat the competition to the punch by revising again and again, each time with fresh eyes.
Rule 19: How Big is an Elephant?
Many people try to limit their resume to only 1 page. If you have the discipline and can fit it all in, then well done. Many people find that by the time you format it the way you like, and include your name, address and academic background… there’s not much room left on that page to illustrate your skills.
Most experts agree two pages are fine for a resume, as long as it’s all relevant information. (Nobody wants to read about the awards you won back in the Boy Scouts for learning to tie knots) However, if you’re under a page and a half, you run the danger of looking like you couldn’t fill the second page. Play with the margins and font size if necessary, but remember that if you’re going with a two-pager, make sure that second page looks more full than empty, and of course the information is relevant to the job.
If you’re fresh out of college or only have a few years working experience, then keep it down to a page - else the employer will see you as fleshing your work experience out.
Rule 20: Manage your time
There are thousands of opportunities out there for you. Each demanding its own unique set of qualifications. Write your resume the way you want it, and tweak it for each opportunity that you apply for. Remember, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel every time… just give it a good “once over”.
Try not to spend more than an hour making revisions for each opportunity. Many people find it helpful to take a break after making revisions, and then coming back to it later on with a fresh pair of eyes. You’d be amazed how often this can help you find errors you hadn’t noticed earlier.
Rule 21: Covering Letter
Imagine for a moment that your application is like a conversation with the employer. The cover letter is the greeting (Hello, I’m John Smith…), and the reume is like the rest of the conversation. In other words, the greeting is important in the sense that if it doesn’t go well, you don’t get to have the real conversation.
Include a cover letter as a way of introducing yourself, and throw in some relevant facts that show the reader that you’ve paid attention to their organisation or the opportunity they’re offering. Give it a warm and professional tone, and keep it brief. This type of “greeting” will likely warm the employer to you, and most importantly earn you his or her attention.
Rule 22: Perception is reality
The people you are applying to generally don’t have any idea who you are. Use that to your advantage, and portray yourself the way you would like to be seen by them.
How? Don’t use a hotmail, or yahoo e-mail account. Instead, invest in a domain that is more professional looking. Register a domain and use an e-mail account incorporating your newly branded domain. Even an e-mail account from your school or academic institution is better than the generic G-mail.
Do a google search for yourself. See what’s out there. If there’s anything suspect, do what you can to get rid of it (remember those photos of you and your ex-girlfriend?). And if you can’t get rid of it, come up with a good explanation. At the very least, be ready to field any questions your interviewer may have after “googling” you.
Is it worth it?
Yes, crafting a resume is not the world’s most exciting way to spend your time. Then again, neither is watching the clock in a dead end boring job. If you’ve slaved away learning your craft, then don’t you owe it to yourself to put a little more time and energy, into writing perhaps this most important paper: your Resume? Follow these 22 steps, we hope you’ll find that after a short while, the job you deserve will be yours.
What next?
With your resume chiselled to perfection, you need somewhere to send it:
One Response to “22 Resume tips you can’t afford to ignore”
been sifting through other posts on the site, this is definitely a gold mine for lazy guys like me…however, what does an unexperienced guy do when he has a weaker resume?
By Donnie Draco on May 21, 2008