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IT Resumes: Think Twice About the Advice You’ve Been Given

July 1, 2010/0 Comments/in Information Technology Field, IT Field, IT Professionals, IT Resume Writing Tips, IT Resumes, IT Workers, Resume Tips, Uncategorized/by admin

A recruiting manager with an IT staffing firm warns IT professionals to use the resume advice they get from the local employment office, outplacement firms and professional resume writers at their own risk. CIO — Recruiters, professional resume writers and other career experts give out tons of advice on how best to write a resume […]

Job Tips – Social Networking Ever More Critical to Job Search Success

July 1, 2010/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

Job seekers with robust LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles have better access to job opportunities at growing companies than candidates whose job searches don’t include active social networking profiles, according to the results of a new survey. CIO — Jobvite, a maker of recruiting software, released the results of its third-annual social recruiting survey this […]

IT Resumes: Think Twice About the Advice You’ve Been Given

July 1, 2010/0 Comments/in Information Technology Field, IT Field, IT Professionals, IT Resume Writing Tips, IT Resumes, IT Workers, Resume Tips, Uncategorized/by admin

Job Tips – Social Networking Ever More Critical to Job Search Success

July 1, 2010/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

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IT Resumes: Think Twice About the Advice You’ve Been Given

July 1, 2010/0 Comments/in Information Technology Field, IT Field, IT Professionals, IT Resume Writing Tips, IT Resumes, IT Workers, Resume Tips, Uncategorized/by admin

A recruiting manager with an IT staffing firm warns IT professionals to use the resume advice they get from the local employment office, outplacement firms and professional resume writers at their own risk.

CIO — Recruiters, professional resume writers and other career experts give out tons of advice on how best to write a resume that will stand out from the competition. Their intentions are noble—they want to help people land jobs—but the problem with their advice is that it doesn’t always apply to IT professionals and the nature of the work they do, says Shana Westerman, a recruiting manager with IT staffing firm Sapphire Technologies.

“People go to the unemployment office or they go to outplacement resume writers who don’t give advice that is applicable to the IT field,” she says.

Westerman notes that IT resumes are different from resumes for professionals in other fields because IT workers have to capture a range of skills—both technical and functional—on their resumes. Because technology changes so rapidly and because so much IT work is project-based and involves “so many moving parts,” generic resume writing advice can do a great disservice to IT professionals, says Westerman.

Westerman sees first-hand how generic resume writing tips play out on IT professionals’ resumes. She screens, on average, 300 resumes per day searching for IT workers to place with her clients, who are IT line managers and executives at large and midsize companies looking for contract and permanent employees. Westerman says many of the IT resumes she gets from job seekers are too short on specifics for her and her clients’ needs. When she finds a candidate whom she thinks would be a good match for a client, she says she often has to ask the candidate to beef up his resume with more information about his skills and experience.

“You’re not going to meet with a [hiring] manager if your resume doesn’t get you the meeting. Your resume is the one and only tool that gets you an interview,” says Westerman.

She adds that even when she advocates for a particular candidate, the client still wants to see on the candidate’s resume all of the capabilities she’s mentioned. “If they don’t see what I say on the candidate’s resume, their interest will wane,” Westerman notes.

Here, she shares the generic resume advice IT professionals should run from.

Job Tips – Social Networking Ever More Critical to Job Search Success

July 1, 2010/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

Job seekers with robust LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles have better access to job opportunities at growing companies than candidates whose job searches don’t include active social networking profiles, according to the results of a new survey.

CIO — Jobvite, a maker of recruiting software, released the results of its third-annual social recruiting survey this morning, and the findings underscore the many reasons job seekers need to incorporate online social networking into their job searches.

Jobvite asked 825 HR and recruiting professionals about the extent to which they use social networking websites in their recruiting process to find and vet candidates for jobs. Their answers indicate that they view social networks as a viable channel for sourcing high-quality candidates and that they plan to increase their use of social networking websites in their recruiting efforts this year. (Only about 3 percent of survey respondents were Jobvite customers.)

At some companies, in fact, social recruiting is beginning to eclipse traditional channels for sourcing candidates, such as job boards and third-party recruiters and search firms.

If you’re looking for a job and not active on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter (the three social networking websites most popular with employers, according to the survey), here are four reasons to join these sites and actively manage your profiles.