Career Talk JDR

When I started twenty years ago as a programmer, I read every book and article I could find on resume writing.  Over the past five years, I’ve had the privilege to recruit hundreds of IT professionals, reviewing no less than 65 resumes a day.  I look back at some of the advice I read and have only one word: nonsense!  

Resume experts have leveled forests with how-to books.  They have many different theories on resume writing, most subjective, some contrary to others, but all designed to sell books.  To be sure, no single book fits all when you consider the different professions, industries, and employee grade levels from clerk to CEO.  What’s good for one profession might not apply to another.  

Here’s an example.  Many books and articles stress the idea that you must quantify the impact of your prior jobs in terms all companies understand: dollars!  Increased sales 30% by implementing this and that…  Reduced shipping costs 25% with a revolutionary system I designed…  Dollar quantification is great advice if that is what your position is all about.  But if I am an IT manager looking to hire a programmer, I don’t necessarily care if the candidate’s last program saved the company a half billion dollars.  I only care that he or she has the technical skills to work on my systems and the ability to take our business requirements and translate them into technical solutions in a timely manner.  My company has a management team that decides what programs will financially benefit the company.  The programmer’s job is to develop them.  If you want to quantify the impact of your prior jobs, do so in terms the hiring official can appreciate and in a way it relates to the role you’re going to fill (i.e. developed new programming standards that reduced development time for new applications and improved maintainability on existing programs, etc.).

Tip:  Do not accept all resume advice as the gospel; make sure your gut tells you the advice is relevant to you and your needs.  This includes the advice I give here and in future segments of this article.