The IT Resume. How to Secure Interest
By Martin Buckland, Master Resume Writer, AnAmericanResume.com

From my experience, I find that IT professionals undersell themselves. Often, a resume isn’t a document they feel confident writing. Each and everyone has accomplishments; promote yourself as the best candidate in what has become, in the last few years, the most competitive profession.

It’s a misconception that people hire on years of experience in a particular software/hardware or the certifications you hold. Yes, they are important, but what is crucial is to have the “end-user” focus on technological results.

Here is some useful advice on optimizing the quality and appeal of your resume:

Identify your unique strengths.
What makes you stand out; why should they employ you? If your resume is copied from a colleague or book, it doesn’t show creativity. Why recruit anyone who hasn’t taken the time to write one of the most important documents? Differentiate yourself, be original. Identify and promote your strengths. Don’t use the cookie cutter resumes; develop an appealing document.

Stress ‘soft skills’ for maximizing interest.
Three key areas to address: utilizing technology, your interpersonal skills and potential leadership abilities. Articulating with others is important; one of your most attractive assets is to show you are a proactive team player with a desire to learn and be flexible. With the IT profession not as buoyant as it was, it’s important to show a rich mix of soft and hard skills.

Tackle the business needs of employers.
You may be an outstanding technical professional, but can you make the company money? Can you optimize their technology to reduce expenditures, increase productivity? If so, how? They need to know details; provide them with verifiable answers to these questions to portray that you are an ideal candidate.

Don’t over-emphasize technical jargon.
IT speak? What is he talking about? IT professionals have their own language; it’s often difficult for a business professional to understand, especially as new words and acronyms are developed each day! Be judicious in using IT phrases. Try to simplify the terms, the ability to break the technical barrier down is a skill in itself. If a reader is inundated by IT-speak, it may close the door to an opportunity for an interview.

Technical Environments section.
This is a major section in the resume; positioned immediately below the “pro-jective”. A key word savvy area, where you itemize your technical skill set, separated by the various specialties. To provide you with an example, see this table from a client below.

	Operating Systems:	MS Windows 95,98,NT4.0, 2000, HP-UX, MPE, Novell
	Networks:	LAN, WAN, FTP, TCP/IP
	Hardware:	HP9000, HP 3000, HP Workstations, HP/Compaq Netservers, Optical Library Systems, Tape Library Systems, IA-64 Netservers, RAID, Martahon 4000
	Applications:	MS Clustering, HP Diagnostics, Predictive Software
	Web Tools:	IIS, MTS, COM, COM+, DreamWeaver, Visual Studio

To optimize your chances, select the combination format, sometimes referred to as the chrono-functional. This format features the pro-jective, also called the executive summary or profile, describing the assets and attributes you can bring to the table. Follow the pro-jective with the technical environments table. In the next section, professional experience portrays your accomplishments; in each job they speak volumes about you! If there is room show the key responsibilities.

The advantage to this resume is that it captures the decision maker’s attention within the first two-thirds of the page; it establishes your career accomplishments and tells a prospective employer what to expect from you in terms of skills and attributes. It also dismisses any doubts in the minds of readers that tend to arise if your work experience does not appear on the first page. This powerful format first addresses the criteria for hire, promotes your assets, core competencies and technical skills supported by career accomplishments in reverse chronological order. Educational credentials follow on the second page.

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