Sunday, February 18, 2007

What a Technical Resume Should Be !!

I have been receiving several offline feedback on a post I had made last month,- about the tips for writing a resume !

Some of them -from returning Indians -were essentially asking about the ideal length of the resume, as the practice in the Western World is typically an one page brief!

And as I read a recent post by a California based Daniel Parrillo, President of Strategi , I realise he has summed it very well:

1.View the resume through the eyes of the prospective hiring manager.

2. It should speak for that technical person in their absence – speaks of the quality of that person’s abilities and business/technical abilities – being the technical person’s sales and marketing material.

3. Environment: listing technical tools – provides hiring manager a chronological history of your experience using a particular development tool. Include version numbers. The latest version shows your skills are current but older versions document your length of experience (ex: Oracle 2.x – 9i)

The irony is that the average person briefly glides over resumes – the way you peruse your credit card statement or perhaps the contract for a rental car.

And yes, as a person who reads a few hundred resumes a day, here are some requests!!

-a decent covering note on the career plans justifying the aspirations
-highlight any experience in handling onsite/offshore dynamics
-almost 60% of the attachments I receive have a very unique name (resume.doc) :-)!! As a user, it would be so nice if one instead saved the document as a slightly longer file name -say 'Name Designation company location.doc'!!?
-MS Word formats are more user friendly than PDF, text based ..
-the latest jobs are highlighted more than the achievements in the earliest jobs!
-and yes, the best time to be contacted- on phone/mobile or by email !!

Yes, first impressions are for real :-)!!

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