Getting Exposure for Your Resume

So you’ve spent weeks polishing that resume. What do you with it now? You have several options:

• Post it to Job Boards
• Reply to Job Listings
• Apply directly to Companies
• Send it to Recruiters

Posting your resume to the job boards is what people do instinctively. You’re hoping that recruiters and companies will find your resume there through targeted searches and contact you about opportunities. Basically, they do all the work for you. What could be easier?

In practice this approach really only works if you have the in-demand skills and with at least 2 years of experience in those areas. Without that companies will likely see you as too junior and refuse to consider you. So if you don’t have the qualifications, expect to get a lot more spam than job leads.

If you reply to the jobs posted on places like Monster, HotJobs, etc., you are typically replying to recruiters, and in a few cases, directly to companies. You can also go to those companies’ web sites and apply directly. In both cases you need to be reasonably sure your qualifications match their requirements, and you’ll likely be competing with many other candidates. A good cover letter may help in this situation.

Finally, you can spam recruiters directly without any particular job in mind. This approach is perhaps the least likely to be successful. You have to be lucky and hope that when your resume crosses the recruiter’s desk it happens to exactly match the job they’re trying to fill at the moment, as recruiters have a rather short attention span. Otherwise your resume might get a cursory once-over and get placed into their database, or worse, into the virtual circular file.

So if these approaches all sound dismal, you shouldn’t fret. It’s all a numbers game, and the more you circulate your resume, the higher your odds are of landing the right job. Don’t give up!

Explaining Gaps in Employment

There are constructive and creative ways to deal with gaps in your employment history. If the gaps are short you can simply list on your resume the years you were at each job, such as “2001-2002”, instead of including months as in “3/2001-6/2002”. Be aware though, some companies may want you to fill out their own application forms requiring exact dates of employment.

Another popular way to deal with gaps is to claim that you were self-employed as a ‘Consultant’. However, you may have to back this up by listing actual projects you worked on during that time. And putting together a web page for your girlfriend doesn’t count.

You could also attribute the gaps to personal problems you were dealing with (medical issues, family matters, a divorce, etc.), but that’s a gamble: the interviewer might sympathize with you, but they might also wonder why you let your personal problems get in the way of your career.

Finally, you can just come right out and explain why you were out of work. If your company was downsized or went out of business, it’s not unexpected that you would be unemployed for a while. But if you have an especially large gap -- e.g., several years -- you may have to explain why you could not or chose not to find work.

Here are some examples of creative gap accounting that I’ve come across. They may or may not fly depending on the hiring manager.

• Sabbatical
• Personal Projects
• Retooling skill set
• Volunteer Work
• World Travel
• Raised Children

Personally I might be willing to buy any of these explanations assuming you had a good story to go with it.

Do You Need a Cover Letter?

Fact is, as the hiring manager I hardly ever see cover letters; they’ve usually been stripped off by the time the resumes get to me. So if you do write a cover letter it should be targeted at the recruiter or HR manager. For the hiring manager you should focus instead on a good objective or summary on your resume.

If you do write a cover letter then, it should specifically address the qualifications listed in the job req, as that’s what the recruiter or HR person will be looking for. For instance, say the job req is as follows:

"Looking for an experienced .NET engineer with 3+ years ASP.NET, C#, and SQL Server. Knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and SQL Server required. Nice to haves include WCF /WPF, WinForms/WPF, .NET 3.5, and AJAX. Contact Joe at Joe
Schmoe Recruiting."

Then you might compose a cover letter like this:

"Dear Mr. Schmoe,

I wish to apply for the .NET Engineering position you have listed online. I feel that my nearly 4 years of ASP.NET and C# experience more than meet your requirements. I also have significant experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as part of my development responsibilities. And while my hands-on SQL Server experience is limited, I do have a strong command of database concepts.

I also possess many of your desired supplementary skills, including hands-on experience converting a WinForms application to WPF. I have also researched WCF and LINQ from .NET 3.5 for one of my projects.

Yours Truly,

John D. Applicant"

Resume Do's and Don'ts

There is a lot of information available on the web regarding goofs people make in resumes -- Do’s and Don’t’s, essentially. I’ll try not to repeat all that information here, but I do want to mention few things I consider important.

Spelling: In this day of automated spell checkers there should be no excuse for spelling errors. What I see more often though is misspellings in tech terms – e.g., ‘Ajacks’, ‘Pearl’, or ‘Sequel’ . Not only does this look silly, it also tells me that you likely have no real understanding of the technology.

Tense: Generally your summary / objectives and skills list should be written in the present tense ( ”I am…”) or neutral tense (“Skilled engineer…”). Accomplishments and work experience sections should be in the past tense (“I did…”). You should not vary from this format without good reason.

Perspective: Your resume can be presented in the first person perspective (“I am a …”), or neutral (“Experienced developer with…”), or rarely, even in the third person (“Joe Blow is a solid…”). But you should avoid mixing them up.

Sentences vs. Snippets: If you’re going to write in snippets rather than sentences, do so consistently throughout the resume. Try not to mix the two forms.

Action Verbs: These are good, but vary them. e.g., don’t start every single sentence with “Designed…” or “Developed…”

Errors in grammar: This is more common among those for whom English is a second language, but I see it also with (presumably) native English speakers. Don’t rely solely on Word’s grammar suggestions (the squiggly green lines), as they can be misleading. Pick up a copy of Strunk & White if you need to.

“Weasel Words”: A lot of adjectives are essentially meaningless and will likely be ignored (e.g., ‘Solid’, ‘Skilled’, ‘Dedicated’, ‘Professional’‘, “Goal-Oriented”). However, some invite more scrutiny as they make the candidate sound better in a way that’s difficult or impossible to back up. e.g.,

• “Proven performer” – Exactly how was this proven?
• “Integral member of…” – Just how integral were they?
• “Acclaimed as …” – Acclaimed by whom?

If you insist on using these vaguely suspicious superlatives, don’t be surprised if I challenge you to back them up.

Resume - Work History

Typically the biggest component of your resume will be your work history.

You should list your jobs in reverse chronological order, most recent position first. You should also dedicate the most space to your most recent job, unless it was a brief stint. Likewise, you can provide successively less detail about earlier jobs.

Personally I like to see details about each job in bullet form, but since some resume parsing software may not like bullets you can also use essay form. Either way, you should keep the details relatively short and easy to read. However, if you listed the details of a job earlier in your resume in an ‘Accomplishments’ section you should expand on that in this section. Try to avoid having essentially the same text in both sections.

Some people like to list out each project they worked on at each job, but I feel that takes up too much space. You need to keep your resume down to 2 pages, remember. So try to limit each project to a single bullet point or 1-2 sentences.

For each position or project you should list the technologies you used, and more importantly, what was accomplished. Avoid getting bogged down in details, and definitely avoid using any company-specific terminology or abbreviations that no one outside your company will understand.

Here are some bad examples:

• Used C#, ASP.NET, and SQL Server. (Used them to do what?)


• Utilized ASP.NET for a Web development project. (Better, but tell me more details!)


• Worked with Visual Studio 2005 as source control, wrote store procedures, business components and made UI changes. (Nice laundry list, but how does this show your competence in any of these areas?)


• Worked closely with art department to prepare new artwork for various websites. (Just what skills or achievement does this illustrate?)


• Enhanced APEX system to update TPS cover sheets. (What the heck does that mean?)

And here are some better examples:

• Used C# and ASP.NET to develop a website consisting of over 30 aspx pages. (Shows tools used and results accomplished).


• Re-engineered JavaScript code to reduce page load times by an average of 30%. (Illustrates quantifiable results).


• Optimized SQL Server 2005 database by redesigning tables in third normal form, removing unused indexes, and adding covering indexes. Reduced data errors by 10% and improved query times by approximately 20%. (Describes results and shows an understanding of the technology).

Resume - Education History

Besides the Objective / Summary / Skills / Achievements section, what else is there to put on a resume? Well, you would typically provide your education history and work history.

Your education can be listed either before or after your work history, but I would recommend you put it afterwards unless you attended a stellar school. Of course, the definition of ‘stellar’ may depend upon your particular field. And if for whatever reason you do not want to emphasize your education, you’d definitely put it towards the end of your resume.

You do not need to provide too much detail about your educational history. Generally, you should provide the following:

• Institution name
• Location, if necessary to clear up confusion (e.g., UC-Irvine, Miami University of Ohio, etc.)
• Degree & Major
• Year of graduation
• Graduation honors, if any.
• GPA , but only if you’re a new graduate and your GPA is above 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.

Here are a couple of examples:

University of Nevada, Las Vegas
B.S., Computer Science, 2006
GPA: 3.3

University of California, Los Angeles
B.S., Computer Science, 2001
Summa cum Laude

And here is an unnecessarily detailed example:

State University of New York
Binghamton, New York
Bachelor of Science with Minor in IT Management
Additional coursework in Accounting and Finance
May 1996
GPA: 3.3 / 4.0

Remember, the resume screeners will only spend between 15 and 30 seconds scanning your resume. You want to convey the important information about your education, but you don’t want to clutter up that section and cause the readers’ eyes to drag.

Resume - Objective Statements / Summaries

What makes for a good Objective Statement or Summary for your resume?

Strictly speaking, an objective statement or summary is not absolutely necessary. However, if one is present it should be located near the top, and it should succinctly describe your qualifications and the value you bring to a position. Basically it’s your “Value Proposition”, as the marketers like to say.

An objective or summary should NOT be a description of what you are looking for. This is a common mistake made by candidates. In fact your resume is not a description of what YOU need; it’s a selling tool stating what you have to offer the company. It also should not be a list of your accomplishments; you can add a separate ‘Accomplishments’ section elsewhere if you wish.

Examples of Bad Objective Statements / Summaries:

• Looking for a challenging position in software Development (This statement is essentially meaningless)
• To work as a team member in a highly motivated company with like-minded positive people, and to contribute my technical skills in a way that will further the objectives of the company I work for and fulfill my career goals (More wordy and even more meaningless)
• Experienced ASP.NET developer looking for a challenging web development position (Better, but the second half of the sentence is still unnecessary and candidate focused)
• I have 12 years of experience in a combination of skills including C, C++, Java, EJB, JDBI, .NET, ASP.NET, Ruby, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, PL/SQL, T-SQL, etc… (A summary should not be a laundry list of your skill set. Use a separate skills section to describe your technical competencies)

Examples of Good Objective Statements / Summaries:

• Experienced lead developer well versed in ASP.NET and C#.
• Senior .NET engineer with 10+ years in software development.
• Promising junior .NET developer, quick to learn, with solid educational credentials.