Where Technical Resumes Are Headed

 

Perhaps you can relate ... you think:

• Resumes are no big deal.
• Resumes are a VERY big deal.
• You have no idea what kind of deal resumes are anymore.

Here's the real deal:  

Resumes are one piece of the “career move” zoo. They still play a vital part out in that zoo, but other aspects are just as vital.  

95% of professionals spend so much time either over- or underestimating the job market that they end up focusing on the wrong things.

So where are technical resumes headed? (In truth, they are already there; it's just so few candidates that are actually doing it.)

Resume portfolios along with an industry-focused job search strategy are the most effective approach today.

This is not an opinion. It is proven time and again by today’s market.

 Because we are so caught up in it, we often forget that the job market runs on supply-and-demand. So when you watch what companies do as part of their hiring today (and NOT listen to what they say or what “experts” say they say), you discover two interesting things:

1. Companies respond well when information is “dripped” to them. They want to be introduced to you, get a feel for you (a summary), talk to you, learn more about you, get to know you, and finally be reassured that you “fit in.” In other words, it’s a process.

2. Companies really want to believe you are one of them. And that goes way beyond the list of credentials they stuff job descriptions full of. (Again, they often say one thing and do another!)

So what is a “resume portfolio?” And why is it so effective?

Most people see the resume as a list of credentials and experience. That’s what they are used to reading and that’s all they know. So they don’t want to give it much time. They just want to toss it together and hope it stands out from the crowd. Or, perhaps worse, they end up obsessing over every square inch of it, still missing the bigger picture. Remember, we can all produce lists of credentials (feel free to read more about mine and those of Our Team). The question is, though, “how will you leverage them to benefit the one hiring you the most?”  

Hiring is largely determined by benefits, not by features!!  

The resume portfolio gives you more room to focus on the benefits. The more you do that, the more companies want to know about you.

To do that, we start with the traditional resume as your foundation with addenda or add-on pages that serve as reinforcements to build off the positioning of the resume. We then use a form of “drip marketing” to present the material throughout your discussions with the prospective employer. When you do this, leadership begins to pay a lot more attention to what you have to say. (For more specifics on how this works, check out Move Over Resume, Hello Portfolio and Making the Most Out of Your Resume Portfolio.)  

With up to a 74% reduction in job search time over the national average, our resume portfolio stats paint a convincing picture!

So what's in a technical resume portfolio arsenal?

• Resume
• LinkedIn Profile
• Cover Letter
• Marketing Brief
• Bio
• Thank-You Template
• Infographic Resume
• Problems-Solutions-Results (PSR) Page
• Innovation Page
• Testimonials Page
• Project Highlights Page

Now, no one needs to have ALL of these materials. But you should build your portfolio based off of your goals, target market demands, and specific situation. In other words, it should be customized to you.  

Too many people are saying that "less is more," but our experience with hundreds of technical leaders each year proves that it's not less, it's information provided in smaller chunks that makes more of an impact.  

--About Stephen----

Stephen Van Vreede is not your average IT/technical résumé writer. He provides career strategy and concierge job search solutions for senior (15+ years) (ITtechExec) and up-and-coming (NoddlePlace) (5-15 years) tech and technical operations leaders. Stephen and his team focus on building simplified, targeted, and certain career move campaigns, be it an external search or an internal promotion. He is co-author of UNcommon with career development leader Brian Tracy (out June 11, 2015). Contact Stephen directly at Stephen@ittechexec.com or send him an invite at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenvanvreede. To see whether Stephen and his team are a good fit for you, take their free (and anonymous) 1-minute compatibility quiz, Is the ITtechExec Approach a Good Match for You? Also, feel free to take his complimentary resume self-assessment quiz, How Certain Can You Be About Your Technical Resume? You might be surprised by what you find out!

So Exactly How Are Your Video Interviewing Skills?

 

If you're like most professionals today, regardless of where you fall on the corporate ladder, the answer to the title question is, "I don't really know."

And why should you really? It's not like video interviewing has been around a long time or was taught in any college course you likely took. Yet, the use of video, be it via Skype or FaceTime or Google Hangout or web conferencing is increasingly be used throughout the global marketplace. And it has found its way into the interview process as well.

Slowly but surely, the video interview is starting to replace the phone interview and even some face-to-face interviewing.

This trend will only increase as time goes by and video tools become more sophisticated. Therefore, just like with any interview, preparation is paramount, only you want to make sure you understand some of the differences between video interviewing and face to face. It might surprise you, but the way you appear on camera and the nuances of body language, surrounding environment, and tone of voice are all more pronounced on video, so you need to understand what someone else is going to see and hear. Unfortunately, far too many people spend their time obsessing over resumes and LinkedIn profiles only to bomb the interview because they won't invest in mock interviewing. But truthfully, the mock interview just might be the most valuable of all.  

It takes a little swallowing of pride perhaps, but a mock interview with expert feedback can make the difference.

Last year, my team and I realized that too many professionals were out there going it alone. So we decided to do something about it. We launched our concierge job search solutions that now include "crash courses." One of them is our Video Interviewing crash course. It's designed for those who want to improve their video interviewing skills, and who want something 1-1 and customized to them. So if that is you, check it out!

--About Stephen----

Stephen Van Vreede is not your average IT/technical résumé writer. He provides career strategy and concierge job search solutions for senior (15+ years) (ITtechExec) and up-and-coming (NoddlePlace) (5-15 years) tech and technical operations leaders. Stephen and his team focus on building simplified, targeted, and certain career move campaigns, be it an external search or an internal promotion. He is co-author of UNcommon with career development leader Brian Tracy (out June 11, 2015). Contact Stephen directly at Stephen@ittechexec.com or send him an invite at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenvanvreede. To see whether Stephen and his team are a good fit for you, take their free (and anonymous) 1-minute compatibility quiz, Is the ITtechExec Approach a Good Match for You? Also, feel free to take his complimentary resume self-assessment quiz, How Certain Can You Be About Your Technical Resume? You might be surprised by what you find out!

IT Resumes: How to Stick to the Pertinent Facts

 

Once again, Sharon Florentine of CIO.com asked me to participate in its "IT Resume Makeover Series." This time I had the privilege of working with David Thornurb-Gundlach, a leader in enterprise architecture, who was having a hard time sifting through the wealth of experience he had accumulated to slim his resume down to one that showcased his most marketable qualities in today's market.

In the end, David remarked, "What surprised me most was how unexpectedly excited and motivated I was when I saw the revised version for the first time. Now, I have a great marketing platform that will do a much better job of presenting me, highlighting my strengths, and delivering my message to potential employers. A resume is a living document, and now I've made it past the 'resurrection' and am in a great position to be able to tweak and fine-tune it for different opportunities and markets." To see the end result of my work with David, and to learn more about the process we went through to tailor the resume to the "pertinent" facts, check out the full CIO article:

IT Resume Makeover: Just the facts (and only the pertinent ones)

--About Stephen----

Stephen Van Vreede is not your average IT/technical résumé writer. He provides career strategy and concierge job search solutions for senior (15+ years) (ITtechExec) and up-and-coming (NoddlePlace) (5-15 years) tech and technical operations leaders. Stephen and his team focus on building simplified, targeted, and certain career move campaigns, be it an external search or an internal promotion. He is co-author of UNcommon with career development leader Brian Tracy (out June 11, 2015). Contact Stephen directly at Stephen@ittechexec.com or send him an invite at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenvanvreede. To see whether Stephen and his team are a good fit for you, take their free (and anonymous) 1-minute compatibility quiz, Is the ITtechExec Approach a Good Match for You? Also, feel free to take his complimentary resume self-assessment quiz, How Certain Can You Be About Your Technical Resume? You might be surprised by what you find out!

Still Struggling to Make LinkedIn Effective for You?

 
If you are, trust me when I say that you are not alone.

LinkedIn has been, and most likely will continue to be, an ineffective albeit "neat" Rolodex tool for most professionals. For awhile, it was the "thing" just to have an LI profile and to connect with all your colleagues past and former. Then it was the "thing" to join groups and find some like-minded souls. And now it seems to be the "thing" to turn LI into this career branding tool, where you are assessed based on the strength of your LinkedIn finesse.

But like so many of these "things," it all takes time to cultivate, learn, and sift through the hype and misinformation to get at what really matters.

(Nevertheless, if LinkedIn has its way, pretty soon careers will be launched or doomed all within the confines of its network.)

Here's the deal: LinkedIn is becoming increasingly more important not just during a job search but as part of your employee brand "ambassadorship." We network through it, we read up on one another, and we size each other up through it. (Maybe you don't...but many others do...that's the point.)  

So it is worth the effort to make sure you present well and are optimized on LinkedIn.

Despite all that, however, it doesn't mean you must become a LinkedIn guru or spend countless hours on it to make it effective for you. Instead, you need to understand a few things:

1. What your short-term and long-term career strategies are (yikes...I bet that scares many of you)
2. You need to stay in control of your branding (don't let your company write your LI profile for you or tell you what it must say outside of confidentiality info)
3. You don't have time to stay on top of it all, and that's OK

It's impossible in today's job market to be an expert at the modern-day job search. It doesn't matter what level you get to or how many years you have in. Things like LinkedIn, internal corporate hiring practices, and recruiting oddities all make for a job market "zoo" that seems to be in some constant state of flux.

Last year, my team and I realized that too many professionals were out there going it alone. So we decided to do something about it. We launched our concierge job search solutions that now include "crash courses." One of them is our LinkedIn crash course. It's designed for those who want to improve their effectiveness on LinkedIn, whether or not they are in job search mode, and who want something 1-1 and customized to them. So if that is you, check it out!    

--About Stephen----

Stephen Van Vreede is not your average IT/technical résumé writer. He provides career strategy and concierge job search solutions for senior (15+ years) (ITtechExec) and up-and-coming (NoddlePlace) (5-15 years) tech and technical operations leaders. Stephen and his team focus on building simplified, targeted, and certain career move campaigns, be it an external search or an internal promotion. He is co-author of UNcommon with career development leader Brian Tracy (out June 11, 2015). Contact Stephen directly at Stephen@ittechexec.com or send him an invite at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenvanvreede. To see whether Stephen and his team are a good fit for you, take their free (and anonymous) 1-minute compatibility quiz, Is the ITtechExec Approach a Good Match for You? Also, feel free to take his complimentary resume self-assessment quiz, How Certain Can You Be About Your Technical Resume? You might be surprised by what you find out!

   

Why Testimonials Matter in Your Next Career Move

In my book, Uncommon, with business development guru Brian Tracy (released June 2015), my contribution has to do with what I call "becoming a corporate entrepreneur." My premise is that in today's world of work, tech included, with professionals likely to change jobs every 3 to 4 years, with job "security" at an all time low, and with contract work on a steady rise, there are a lot of important elements from entrepreneurship that today's corporate professional should (really, "must") adopt.

One of them has to do with making more of testimonials. Every good small business owner learns this, and fast. You have to know what the market is saying about you because it is a powerful thing to have someone else promote you. It's one reason LinkedIn added its recommendations and endorsements feature, and employers are increasingly looking for strong references.

But often we receive other testimonials that go untapped, such as via email, and we don't do anything with them. I strongly encourage you to start storing these emails if you haven't already. Then I encourage you to convert them into a testimonials page.

This page can be used during your next career move as part of your portfolio approach. It can be brought out at promotion and review time as a reminder to leadership of the value you have brought (believe it or not, but we as humans are forgetful and need such reminders). It can be used as an add-on to your LinkedIn profile recommendations. You can copy and paste portions of it onto your resume or cover letter. You can send it along with your follow-up thank-you note after the interview as a form of "drip" marketing.  

In other words, the Testimonials page adds so much more than the resume alone could.

Things like the Testimonials page, the Innovation page, the Problem-Solutions-Results page, and the Marketing Brief are why we strongly encourage our technical leaders here at ITtechExec to focus on resume portfolios instead of putting so much pressure on the resume alone to "sell" you like 95% of candidates do. When executed properly, the portfolio approach speaks much louder about the type of value you bring, not just list of credentials or features.  

And the Testimonials page is a great way to let your network of co-workers, corporate leaders, end users, and so forth showcase your value.

So either start saving these types of kudos now or go dig them up, and let your world of work do the talking.
(By the way, in case you think this is something just for a job search, it is wise to have one for review time, promotion options, and to go alongside a bio or introduction that you might use during the course of your day-to-day work [I'm thinking about all of you who are brought in to lead diverse project teams across several locations or must collaborate with global divisions of your company].)  

--About Stephen----

Stephen Van Vreede is not your average IT/technical résumé writer. He provides career strategy and concierge job search solutions for senior (15+ years) (ITtechExec) and up-and-coming (NoddlePlace) (5-15 years) tech and technical operations leaders. Stephen and his team focus on building simplified, targeted, and certain career move campaigns, be it an external search or an internal promotion. He is co-author of UNcommon with career development leader Brian Tracy (out June 11, 2015). Contact Stephen directly at Stephen@ittechexec.com or send him an invite at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenvanvreede. To see whether Stephen and his team are a good fit for you, take their free (and anonymous) 1-minute compatibility quiz, Is the ITtechExec Approach a Good Match for You? Also, feel free to take his complimentary resume self-assessment quiz, How Certain Can You Be About Your Technical Resume? You might be surprised by what you find out!