Ace the IT Resume
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Ace the IT Résumé About the Author Paula Moreira is currently the global IT training manager at a large financial services organization. She and her team support an IT team of about 2,000. She began her career as a techie and has spent the last 15 years working in IT education and career development. About the Technical Editor Tim Sosbe is an editorial and events director at Brandon Hall Research. Prior to joining Brandon Hall Research, Tim was the editorial director at MediaTec Publishing where he created editorial plans for Certification Magazine, Chief Learning Officer magazine, and Talent Management magazine. Earlier in his career, Tim was a newspaper journalist covering education and a magazine columnist covering human resources. Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Click here for terms of use. Ace the IT Résumé Second Edition Paula Moreira New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 0-07-159502-3 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-149274-7. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. 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Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise. DOI: 10.1036/0071492747 Professional Want to learn more? We hope you enjoy this McGraw-Hill eBook! If you’d like more information about this book, its author, or related books and websites, please click here. To Maryann Lucania, Rosemary Botelho, and Paul M. Forbes— great teachers and great human beings! This page intentionally left blank For more information about this title, click here Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction xiii Part I Creating a Winning IT Résumé Chapter 1 Standing Out from the Crowd 3 The Basics of Getting Noticed 4 Marketing the Ten Hottest Skills 10 Getting Past the HR Recruiter to the Hiring Manager 13 Reading the Hiring Manager’s Mind 16 The Hidden Challenges for IT Managers 19 Summing It Up 21 Chapter 2 The Anatomy of a Technical Résumé 23 The Sections of Your Résumé 24 The Layout of Your Information 33 Other Information You Think You Want to Include 36 The Technicalities 37 Summing It Up 41 Chapter 3 The Online Résumé World 43 Finding IT Jobs Online 44 Job Sites that Don’t Waste Your Time 44 Creating an ASCII Résumé 45 Online Résumé Forms 46 Scannable Résumés 47 Optimizing Your Online Résumé 48 Summing It Up 52 Chapter 4 Uncovering Your Hidden Talents 53 Discovering Yourself 54 Summing It All Up 72 Tailoring Your Résumé 74 Using the Right Words 88 Summing It Up 92 viii Contents Chapter 5 The Cover Letter 93 The Purpose of Your Cover Letter 94 The Content of Your Message 95 Fatal Mistakes of a Cover Letter 97 E-mailing Cover Letters 98 Types of Cover Letters and How to Write Them 98 Sample IT Cover Letters 102 Summing It Up 110 Chapter 6 Common Résumé Dilemmas 111 Recent College Graduates 112 Paper Certifications 121 Career Changer 123 Problem History 130 Summing It Up 134 Chapter 7 Creative Ways to Get Hands-On Experience 135 Getting Experience at Your Training Center 136 On the (Unpaid) Job Training 136 Blogging and RSS Feeds 137 Hands-On Experience at Home 137 Online Labs 139 Beyond Hands-On Experience 139 Summing It Up 141 Chapter 8 How to Network When You Don’t Know Anyone 143 Tell Everyone You’re Looking for a Job 144 The Networking Interview 145 IT Professional Groups 147 Online Networking 147 Summing It Up 147 Chapter 9 Résumé Faux Pas: Why You Are Not Getting Any Phone Calls 149 The Résumé Faux Pas Checklist 150 How Did You Do? 156 Summing It Up 157 Chapter 10 The Interview 159 What Really Happens in the Interview Process? 160 Skills to Demonstrate 161 How to Prepare 162 Contents ix Common Questions for Different Areas of IT 164 Questions to Ask the Interviewer 168 Other Situations 168 Following Up after the Interview 171 Summing It Up 172 Part II Résumé Encyclopedia Chapter 11 A Résumé Encyclopedia 175 Application Developer 176 Architect 181 Business Analyst 184 Consultant 188 CIO 188 Database Administrator (DBA) 193 Helpdesk/Desktop Support Specialist 193 IT Manager 196 Infrastructure Specialist/Network Engineer 201 Multimedia Specialist 210 Project Manager 211 Quality Assurance Specialist 216 Security Analyst 220 Technical Writer 223 Telecommunications Specialist 223 Index 231 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I’d like to thank the publishing and editorial team at McGraw-Hill and International Typesetting and Composition; and my family and friends for the encouragement and support. Special thanks to my husband, Pete, for his patience in answering all my techie questions and most of all, for being a great listener and my biggest fan. This book is for all the talented IT professionals out there who are so talented but need a little help to put their experience and knowledge on paper. Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Click here for terms of use. This page intentionally left blank Introduction Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Buy This Book 1. You still list MS-DOS as a technology on your résumé. 2. You’ve sent out 100 résumés and haven’t received a single call back. 3. Your résumé is four pages long. 4. Your résumé still includes your high school GPA. 5. You have no experience but you are trying to get a $60K+ job. 6. You are a career changer and realize that getting an IT job is not as easy as all those adver- tisements say. 7. You have been at the same job for so long that you have no résumé. 8. Your résumé begins with the line “I want to get a job in IT . .” 9. You have been to all the career sites on the Web and they haven’t helped you improve your résumé at all. 10. You want to get your dream job and make the big bucks. Who This book Is For All kidding aside, the IT job market has evolved over the last five years. Getting a career in IT isn’t as easy as it once was. The market is more competitive, the jobs more demanding, and hiring managers more picky about the people they want on their teams. This is true for entry level positions as well as those positions at the top. This book is about helping you differentiate yourself. It includes the topics specifically rele- vant to IT professionals—things like paper certification, lack of hands-on experience, how to present technical skills and qualifications. It also provides relevant examples for today’s jobs including web programming, security specialists, and helpdesk technicians.