Resume Guidelines
PLEASE READ THIS “RESUME GUIDELINES” VERY
CAREFULLY.
1. THEN ENSURE THAT YOUR RESUME IS COMPLETE IN ALL RESPECTS BY EXACTLY FOLLOWING THESE GUIDELINES.
2. IF WE RECEIVE AN INCOMPLETE RESUME, IT WILL BE SENT BACK TO YOU.
3. IF YOU DO NOT TAKE YOUR OWN RESUME WRITING SERIOUSLY, THEN YOUR CANDIDATURE MAY BE CANCELLED.
The purpose of your resume is to give a truthful and accurate picture of your work experience and your knowledge. Your resume must give a crystal clear idea to a project manager regarding (a) what you have done in the past (b) what your technical abilities are and (c) what you can do for the project team.
Your resume is your first communication from you to the project manager. Besides your technical abilities, the project manager also evaluates your written communication skills. So, it is very important that you take serious interest in writing your own resume. Make sure that you write your resume very carefully – paying close attention to each word and each sentence that you use in your resume. You must ensure that you use correct grammar and that your resume is free of any typographic errors. Your resume should highlight your strengths in such a manner that most project managers who see your resume will select you for the technical interview.
Some project managers are highly technical and some are highly non-technical. You must write you resume such that your resume is appealing to both ends of this spectrum. Most highly technical managers are going to scrutinize your resume with a microscope and understand exactly what you did and what you really know. Most non-technical managers are going to look for the presence of the keywords and the length of experience you have with those keywords. So, it is very important to write resume contents in such a way that your resume is selected.
This is the most important part of your resume. You must be explicity clear about what your “current skillset” is. What is your most relevant past experience for which a project manager should take you on board the project? What matters most to the Project Manager is what your “current skillset” is. The Project Manager is not really bothered about your accurate chronological log of all irrelevant tools/platforms you have worked on since the beginning of your career.
As a software consultant, you are a specialist and not a general practitioner. Ask yourself the question “What software work can I do?” If your answer is “whatever comes my way” then you are a general practitioner and no project manager will want you. If your answer is something like “I have worked for 2 years in Win32/VC++/MFC and I have expertise in developing GUI front ends for ODBC databases. I can do Win32/VC++/MFC/ODBC work” then you are a specialist. Remember, your resume must clearly indicate that you are a specialist and not a generalist.
First, write down your current skillset and up to fifteen keywords that completely describe your expertise. Remember, it is only for this expertise that a Project Manager may want to get you on board. Here are the possible examples current skillset and keywords:
|
Current Skillset |
Keywords |
|
Win32 (NT/ Windows9x) Application Programmer |
Platform: Win32, Language: VC++ Tools: MFC, ODBC, GUI, OLE, ActiveX Controls, COM, DCOM, Platform SDK |
|
NT Systems Programmer |
Platform: NT Language: VC++ Tools: NT Kernel mode Device Drivers, DDK , SCSI, NT Internals, NT Kernel Debugging |
|
Win32 (NT/ Windows9x) Networking Programmer |
Platform: NT/Windows9x Language: VC++ Tools: Win32, WinSock, WinInet, TCP/IP, MAPI, Exchange Server |
|
JAVA Application Programmer |
Platform: Java OS Language: Java Tools: JDK 1.1, RMI, JDBC, JNI, Symantec Café, Visual Age |
|
Network Administrator |
Platforms: NT, UNIX, Tools: Cisco Routers, NT Servers, Unix Servers, Trouble Shooting |
|
Oracle Developer |
Platforms: NT, Solaris Languages: PL/SQL, ProC Tools: Oracle 7.x server, Developer 2000, Forms 4.5, |
|
Oracle DBA |
Platforms: Solaris Languages: Pl/Sql, ProC Tools: S-Designer, Designer 2000, Oracle 7.x servers |
|
Win32/Java Programmer |
Platform: NT/Java OS Languages: VC++, Java Tools: JDK 1.1, VC++ 5.0, JDBC, ODBC, RMI, COM |
Remember, your current skillset is like your religion. One stays loyal and faithful to one’s religion. One does not change religions – at least not very often. Make sure your resume clearly indicates that (a) you know your religion and (b) you have been loyal to your religion.
1. Please realize that your resume is not a legal document that lists chronological work related events in your life. Your resume is a written communication from you to a project manager. It highlights your current skillset – it explains what you can do for the new project by clearly explaining your past relevant experience. So, if you are currently a Win32/VC++ programmer, then your past experience in those areas must be explained properly and highlighted.
2. Your current skillset should be highlighted as much as possible. If you are currently a NT VC++ programmer and want to continue working on NT/Win32 platform, then your current and most recent projects should deserve most of the space in your resume. Your old projects that are not so relevant (such as UNIX/C or DOC/C or VB) should be mentioned but not allocated disproportionate space in your resume.
3. You are a Software professional and not a banker, stock broker, production manager, inventory control specialist. It is your knowledge of software development that your resume must elaborate and explain. Your resume should not elaborate on your knowledge of functional areas of your applications (stock trading, how share certificates are to be handled, etc). Your functional area knowledge for past projects is not really relevant to your career as a software professional. The programming languages used, the platforms used, the debugging tools used, etc are more important.
4. Make sure you mention the exact versions of the software/tools/compilers you worked on. For example, JDK 1.1.4 or VC++ 4.2
5. Write your projects in reverse chronological order. List your last employer and the last project first. For each project mentioned in your resume, clearly state the from and to date, and the total number of people in the team.
6. Development or maintenance or QA? Do not try to be evasive. If you worked mostly in maintenance of a software, state so clearly. Do not try to be evasive about it. It does not matter if the project was new development or maintenance. It is what you learnt that matters the most. If it was QA, then state so.
7. Be truthful about your work. It is OK to boast a little if you are confident that you will be able to carry it off. For example, if you have not used JAVA RMI on a project but have done enough tweaking of JDK sample code to know it well, then go for it. Remember, you must be able to answer interviewer’s questions on those topics.
8. State the obvious – do not take it for granted. For example if the project was development of GUI in Windows platform with Oracle as database, it is implicit that you would have used MFC and ODBC. But state that MFC and ODBC was used. Some project managers who are non-technical will be looking for presence of keyword like MFC/ODBC in your resume.
9. Projects that you worked at the start of your career but that are totally irrelevant to your current skillset should not be highlighted. You can either make a brief mention of those projects or even omit them all together – do not spend paragraphs and paragraphs describing something that is totally irrelevant to your current skillset.
10. Per the format of SAMPLERESUME.DOC, your resume should be at least 3 pages. Then add one page for every 2 years of experience you have. For example, if you have total of 2 years industry experience your resume should total 3 pages, 6 years then 5 pages, etc.
11. Do not state too many small assignments of 1 or 2 months each as separate projects – your resume will become too long. You can club them all as one project and make sure that the Project Environment table is updated to reflect the tools for each assignment.
12. Do not include your college thesis or academic projects completed as a part of your degree work. Also, do not include summer training or internship work under experience.
13. Remember, these are all guidelines and not precise rules. You will have to make your own judgments in deciding how best you should write your resume.
Please obtain the sample resume (file SAMPLERESUME.DOC) and carefully study the sample resume. Please ensure that your resume is as per the sample resume and has all the following sections.
If you have a long name, please abbreviate. For example, if your name is Kannan Venkatasubramanian, you may want to use KVS Manian. This gives the Project Manager a chance to pronounce and refer to you by your name. Use the same name all the time and consistently.
This summary indicates areas in which your overall experience has been. State your total experience in years and also state how many years in which areas. This section should be restricted to 3 to 4 sentences. Do not go into the technical details of your project here.
Please list all the operating systems, hardware, software and special tools you have expertise in. Please also note down the software/tools you are very familiar with. Please do not write down anything that you used only in college such as Pascal or FoxPro or Basic – particularly if that is not at all relevant to your current skillset. You should be able to talk about how you used it in a industry project if asked any questions by the interviewer. Do not follow – THE MORE THE MERRIER RULE; write the keywords that are relevant to your current skillset.
Please state the highest degree that you obtained and professional qualifications such as MCSE, if any. Please indicate if you had any outstanding rank in the university or graduated with exceptional honors. Do not state any non relevant diplomas or high school passing information. Do not state appearing for MCSE or have to intent to become MCSE.
This is the most important part of the resume. Please look at the sample resume carefully and write your experience section accordingly. The experience section should be as follows:
Employer Name (From – to dates)
Project Name (From – to dates )
Brief description of the project (max 6 lines)
Your responsibilities and contribution (max 10/12 lines)
Project Environment and tools you used:
Project Name (From – to Dates)
Brief description of the project (max 6 lines)
Your responsibilities and contribution (max 10/12 lines)
Project Environment and tools you used:
Employer Name (From-To Dates)
Project Name (From-To Dates)
Brief description of the project (max 6 lines)
Your responsibilities and contribution (max 10/12 lines)
Project Environment and tools you used:
… and so on
Please note:
1. Company Name: Do not go in-depth about the company and what it does, the sales turnover and web site address, etc.
2. Project Description: Please state if project was a new development or maintenance of the existing software. Give a brief description of project from a technical point of view. Do not state the business aspects of the application but state the technological architecture and salient technologies involved. As a software developer, it is your experience and knowledge of technologies used that is going to be relevant to the project manager. Your knowledge of that business application in that particularly company is not really relevant to any new project.
3. Your Responsibilities: Detail your responsibilities on the project and what your contribution was. Give as much details of your work as possible. Do not be cryptic and say “did all design and coding” – elaborate on the same. Here, if possible, give an idea of the volume of work you did. For example, if you were on a maintenance project then state the total number of lines of code in the software that you supported. For a new development project, state approximate number of lines of code you developed or the number of screens you developed and so on.
4. Project Environment: This section is really important. It tells the reader all the OS platforms, languages, tools , technolgies that you used for this project. Please do not forget to state the obvious. Please state the following:
(a) OS platforms (Win32/Unix/Tandem NSK)that you worked during this project and
(b) List ALL the languages/tools/technologies you used for the project. In this list, include languages (Java, C, C++, Javascript, Perl) or software development packages (VC++, VJ++, JDK, Visual Age, Platform SDK, WinInet SDK), all technologies or keywords (MFC, ODBC, MAPI, COM, ActiveX, OLE, RMI, JNI, JDBC, ISAPI) that you used. Please do not take for granted that the reader knows the obvious.
Besides conveying information about you, the resume also creates an image. After considerable research and effort, we have decided on a format that has proven to work. We want all Formula Systems’ consultants’ resumes to be in this format and this format alone. All the resumes must have same look and feel - even the fonts, sizes and document styles should be the same.
The way you write the DOC file of your resume is very important. Many times your resume DOC file is e-mailed to prospective project managers. A project manager may draw inferences about you based on your resume DOC file. So, although you are a software professional and not a Word97 expert, please take this seriously. And if you really want to succeed in your career any discipline in today’s world - you must have mastery over most popular word processing software. So, make sure you take enough time to ensure your DOC file is as perfect as it can be. A project manager can easily infer about your zeal for perfection by simply turning on the Word97’s Show/Hide Control characters/paragraph markers.
Make sure you follow these guidelines:
· Do not align using spaces.
· Do not create new styles
· Do not add new headings or sub titles
· Do not use any new fonts – understand how styles are used and make use of “Normal” for most part.
Please follow these exact steps:
1. Please obtain the sample resume (file SAMPLERESUME.DOC) and open with Word for Windows. Please do not create a new DOC file and write your resume – you must modify the SAMPLERESUME.DOC file and update it.
2. After you Open SAMPLERESUME.DOC file then directly modify it to prepare your resume. Ensure that you have carefully read and are following all the guidelines discussed earlier.
3. Run the spell check to ensure that your resume is free of any typographical errors.
4. After you are done, then save it using your own name as YourNameResume.Doc.