Building a Tech Resume

Contents

Introduction & Tips
Common Mistakes
Heading and Contact Information
Technology Heading
Education and Certification
Objective and Summary
Experience
References
Sample Resume


Introduction & Tips
Building the perfect resume: Your resume is your personal marketing tool. It is an advertisement of your skills and experiences, and wins you the opportunity to interview with a prospective employer. Without an effective resume, you often will not get the opportunity to interview. The right resume will get your foot in the door.
Resume writing is one of the most important facets of your job search. Fortunately, technology resumes have a very simple format. The key to writing an effective resume is to put yourself into the head of the prospective hiring manager or human resources recruiter.
Survey results show that the average time spent reading an individual resume is 10 to 30 seconds. Understand that this task either falls on a professional recruiter who scans hundreds of resumes in a week, or on an already overworked hiring manager who is covering for a staff shortage and trying to interview for qualified candidates at the same time.
Keeping this information in mind, try to:
Stress positives: Leave out negatives where you can.
Be concise: Balance between detail and succinct presentation.
Avoid abbreviations: Spell everything out completely.
Keep a consistent and professional format: Pick a spacing and format style and stick with it. Err on the conservative side.
Edit carefully: Screen for grammatical errors, poor punctuation and other avoidable mistakes.
Brevity: Try and keep the resume under two pages long.

Common Mistakes
What you should leave out?
Here are some things that you should not include in your resume:
Leave out salary requirements. Go in to win the job. Once you are the employer's primary candidate, you have more bargaining power than you did when you were just a piece of paper sitting in a stack of dozens of similar resumes.
Leave out personal information, such as activities, hobbies, interests and non-job related skills, that have no relevancy to your work history. This information can often be a factor in rejection, and is very rarely a deciding factor in scheduling you for an interview. If you have career-related information that you feel must be present in your resume, place it between your employment history and your references, at the end of your resume. This information usually includes professional affiliations or industry publications.

Heading and Contact Information
What's in a name?
The heading should consist of your name and your contact information.
Bold and CAPITALIZE your name.
Include your mailing address - avoid using P.O. boxes.
Include e-mail addresses and URLs.
Include day and evening phone numbers. If you are not comfortable being contacted during the day, leave a telephone number that has an answering machine or voicemail.
Avoid titles such as Mr., Mrs., PhD., and MBA. At best, these designations put distance between you and your audience. In the worst case, prospective employers might interpret these titles as snobbish or elitist. Your educational background will be readily apparent from your resume and your marital status is no one's business

Technology Heading
Not just a laundry list
In technology resumes, lists of Hardware/OS and Software/Languages should always be included. However, be careful not to just give a laundry list in your resume. For example, if you have been in the industry for ten years, you should not list a programming language or a database that you briefly studied in college.
If you list technologies that you do not have some current grasp of, then doubt will be cast on your mastery of the rest of your stated skills. Your general credibility will also be called into question.
List technologies in the order of your expertise with them. Some people have an "Exposure To" section, for example:
Hardware/OS: Tandem, MVS
Software: Cobol, Cobol II, JCL, IDMS, CICS, DB2
Exposure To: Windows 95/NT, VC++, VB, SQL SERVER
The "Exposure To" section is important as it establishes that the technologies listed in your other technology sections have been mastered.

Education and Certification
Where did you learn that?
Lead this section with the institution that awarded you the degree. Bold the institution's name.
Follow with the type of degree and the graduation date.
Baruch College, PhD. Astrophysics, May 1993.
If you have not completed a degree but are in the process of getting one, included a targeted degree date.
Pace University, B.A., Computer Engineering, targeted degree date January, 1999.
Do not include your High School Diploma.
Include CNE certifications and other professional certificates in the same format used for college and graduate degrees.

Objective and Summary
The jury is still out
A good objective includes a summary of past experience, as well as a statement of intent for future career choices. Objectives help a hiring authority understand at a glance what type of position you would be most suited for and most interested in.
The jury is still out on whether you should provide an objective - there are pros and cons to supplying one. Supplying an objective can help screen out opportunities that will not interest you, even if you are qualified for them. However, even the most carefully crafted objective statement can eliminate you from consideration for a great opportunity.
Consider the following example:
"I am a senior mainframe developer looking to work in a development environment where I will have exposure to new technology."
While this is a good objective statement, it does potentially narrow your offerings. What if an opportunity comes along which is 50% development and 50% maintenance but will train in client server development languages and segue into client server development in a year? Your stated objective has possibly ruled you out, even if you would have considered the job.
You must weigh your situation and determine how broad based your job search will be. If you want to get a general picture of what is available to you or you need to change jobs quickly, leave out an objective and only use a summary. Or, if you are satisfied with your current job, and are only interested in pursuing certain types of opportunities, include an objective.
Good objectives fall into one of these following frameworks:
Objective: I would like to use my skills as a ________ to work in an environment were I can ___________.
Objective: Experienced ________________ who seeks employment in ________________.
Remember, employers want to know what you will do for them in the future - not what you have done in your past. Keeping this in mind, your objective must line up with what the employer needs from you. Also, the body of the resume following your objective will need to be tailored to support the objective.
The alternative to an objective is a simple summary. Providing either an objective or a summary allows the burdened hiring authority to know your background quickly, and then, if interested, to concentrate on learning the details of your qualifications.
A good opening statement will implant an image of your background which should be supported by the text in the work experience section. The hiring authority might not bother to piece together your qualifications from your work experience without either a good summary or objective to set the stage.

When you are using an objective or a summary, include the following information:
Functional Title: Project Leader, Database Administrator, Entry Level
Technical Strength: C, UNIX, Sybase
Business Line: Trades Processing, Reinsurance, Risk Management, CMO's, Retail Banking, Equities

The resulting combination should look like one of these:
Objective: C, UNIX, Sybase senior developer with experience in fixed income looking to grow into a project leadership role in the front office.
Summary: C, UNIX, Sybase senior developer with experience in fixed income.
Remember to support your claims in this section with details and examples in the Professional Experience section. If you decide on using an objective, make sure that those details support not only your summarized experiences, but also the direction that you want to grow.

Experience
The heart of the matter
Your "Professional Experience" listing should be the largest section of your resume. Here are some general guidelines to consider.
Your job experience should be listed with the most recent job first. Be sure to include months as well as years when dating the length of your employment engagements. Place the date in the left hand margin alongside the company name and job title.
Use the full names of the firms that you have worked for. Do not just say "major bank." If you do not use the full name of your current firm, you increase the possibility that your resume will end up on your current boss' desk.
Supply several bullet points of information on each job. Outline the highlights of your employment there.
Each job listed should include some details about the business line you supported, the technology you used, and your contribution to the project. Details of your role should be provided, including which portions of the Full Project Life Cycle were conducted, who the end users were, and your level of contact with those users, and the success or anticipated success of the completed project.
Be specific about which technology was employed where. Do not be afraid of repetition. If you used C++ and JAVA in each of your projects, state it for each project. Otherwise, in the 10-30 seconds scan your resume gets, your technical achievements will be overlooked or marginalized.
Bold technology terms.
Focus on accomplishments not duties, and be very specific.

Consider the following two statements:
Responsible for the roll-out of 40 Sun Sparc(Solaris) workstations by 2 UNIX administrators
Rolled out 40 Sun Sparc(Solaris) workstations.
Led two junior administrators who assisted in the project.
The second example focuses on accomplishments, and by doing so, specifically defines the parameters of the position's responsibility. There is no ambiguity as to whether the project was completed successfully. Furthermore, the second phrase directly states that the author was hands-on in the roll out, whereas the first statement could imply that the author was a hands-off project leader who held a strictly supervisory role and is not the hands-on person they are looking to hire.
Use action verbs to describe your background. This will help you in focusing on accomplishments, not duties. Use "supervised" instead of "project leader of." Used "created" or "developed" instead of "responsible for development."
Beware of boastful job titles. Use your functional job title, such as senior developer or project manager. Titles such as VP or AVP vary in meaning from company to company. In some companies, senior hands-on technologists can be VP's. In other companies, only managers of large groups attain that title.

If you are a technologist coming from a small firm, be especially wary. Refrain from using CIO or Head of Technology as your title. Hiring managers seeing these types of titles will classify you as someone who would not be happy being 5 steps removed from the CIO in a big firm, even if it means overseeing twice the staff and triple the budget of the small shop. If you were a CIO in a small shop, the most equivalent, translatable title would be project manager. Remember, always put yourself in the shoes of your audience. In large firms, senior project managers may lead 20 people. CIOs are in charge of hundreds.
Benefit from redundancy. If you are a specialist in rolling out NT based trading floors, and have rolled out four of them for different business lines - list each of them as a separate bullet! Show your reader that you didn't just do something once and are now claiming expertise. Prove that you are an expert.
Avoid listing part-time consulting assignments performed simultaneously with your full-time employments. Your future employer wants to know that when you work for your new company, they will have your full attention.

If you are a consultant, list your consulting jobs under the generic title, "independent consultant." Accompany the title with the date representing the period of time in which you were a consultant, regardless of the number of individual contracts or clients. Put that all-encompassing date in the left hand margin and the sub-dates (individual contracts) on the right hand margin.
For each contract assignment, follow this simple format:
1/97 - 12/97 INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT
Database Administrator stationed at Company One 1/97 - 6/97
Duties included...
Database Administrator stationed at Company Two 7/97 - 12/97
Functions performed at Company two included...

References
Available upon request
For references, the last heading of your resume, state:

REFERENCES: Upon request.
Do not supply any additional information about the content of your reference letters or contact numbers for those who wrote them. Be sure to have those reference letters available, but reference checking should only come after you have interviewed. You want to control the manner in which the people who gave your recommendation letters are contacted.

(HEADING & CONTACT INFO)
REBECCA SMITH
76 Resume Drive
Anytown, NJ 07777
Home (201) 555-1234
Work (212) 555-9876

TECHNOLOGY

Software: Solaris 2.X, SunOS 4.x, HP UX, AIX, DNS, NFSPPP, Sybase, TCP/IP, NFS, NIS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95/NT, Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, SNA, X.25, MS Office, Sendmail, Netscape, Mosaic, Zmail, Synchronize, SNM, Firewall-l, Solstice Security Manager
Hardware: Sun Sparc/Ultra/Enterprise, RS6000, HP Workstations, IBM PCs and Compatibles, SSA, RSM, Boxhill / ECCS Raid storage solutions, solid state drives, I/O devices, 10/l00Base-T, 10Base2, Cabletron network hubs, network probes
Languages: C++, C, Visual C++, awk, borne shell, sed, tk/tcl, Perl, HTML

EDUCATION

Pace University
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, May 1989
Sun Education Services: Advanced SunOS Administration, Solaris 1.X to Solaris 2.X, Advanced Solaris Administration.

IBM: Advanced AIX Administration.

EXPERIENCE

Jan. 1994 to Present
AMERICAN CREDIT BANK CORPORATION
Systems Manager

Responsibilities:
Currently managing a staff of 95 technology professionals with responsibility for offices in NY, London, Paris and Tokyo.
Responsible for SUN System Administration, Network Management and Database Administration for the Retail Banking Division of American Credit Bank.
This area grew from 200 HP, IBM and SUN workstations on 2 Networks in one location to more than 2500 SUN workstations on over 160 networks in 275 locations world wide.
Responsible for the Sybase Database Management for more than 40 local and remote Sybase database servers, including design, benchmarking, implementation and 24x7 support.

June 1989 to Dec. 1993
BULL SECURITIES
Lead UNIX Systems Administrator, Jan. 1991 to Dec. 1993

Responsibilities:
Managed SUN/OS based trading network company wide (2,500 nodes).
Managed 13 Unix Systems Administrators.
Maintained all network file system (NFS) mounts.
Implemented and administered network information services (NIS) for multiple domains.
Installed and troubleshot trader system applications.
Educated traders to new systems and applications.
Debugged operating system problems.
Configured all servers and workstations to system requirements.
Interfaced and monitored market feeds to network domain servers.
Monitored network traffic and adjust system parameters to increase system performance.
Network Engineer, June 1989 to Jan. 1991

Responsibilities:
Supervised a rotation of computer operators in a multi-platform environment.
Interfaced local area network to the head office North American LAN.
Troubleshot Novell Netware network errors.
Responsibilities included network administration and support of a Banyan Vines/Windows NT LAN/WAN environment.
Coordinated installation of Windows NT systems for the Claims Processing department.
Administered a SNA Gateway for 3270 and 5250 emulation.
Supported users on multiple protocols including NetBIOS, NetBEUI, TCP/IP, and Vines IP.
Performed network development and evaluation on various software applications for Windows NT 3.1/3.5.
Ensured integrity of all network data through backups and scheduled systems maintenance.
Ensured compliance to established procedures with regard to operational and application documentation.
Installed all system applications.
Maintained user profiles and security standards.
Upgraded server software and hardware.

REFERENCES Upon request.

Top Tech Career Sites in India
Resume Writing Tips
Sample Resume