// Internet Duct Tape

ResumeDoctor

Recruiter Tip: Melissa Hope Chaplin of H.E.A.T. Resources shares this tip: "Do not separate your skills and accomplishments from each position. Your resume should be easy to read. Someone should be able to look at it and know what you did at each job, and how long you were there." Make sure to provide specific examples of how the company benefited from your performance. Accomplishments should be quantified in dollars or percentages, for example, (Increased productivity of department). From what to what…1%, 10%, 90%?

Recruiter Tip: When providing dates, work history should be in reverse chronological order, (most recent employment first). The general consensus among recruiters is to place the employer info, title and location to the left hand side of the screen. Your employment dates should be aligned to the right so that your reader can easily “skim” down the page. Make it easy on your reader! And if you have a proven track record of staying with a job for a while, absolutely make sure that your employment dates JUMP out at your reader. This is a real selling point about you as a candidate. Make sure you use it to your advantage.
Recruiter TIP … many recruiters shared with us that it is always a good idea to name your Word Attachment “Smith, John Resume”. Recruiters have no time to “guess” the author of the attachment. Many recruiters are still organizing resumes sent to them in one folder, so already providing the recruiter with your resume with an easy to follow document name will make your resume easier to find.
Recruiter Tip: With the many ISP’s changing hands everyday or going out of business, create a permanent email address. There are plenty of free services out there such as Yahoo or Hotmail. Many candidates opt to use a work email address. It is often not a good idea to do so, for two major reasons. One, what if you leave that position? How will a recruiter be able to email you a new posting? Two, many employers monitor their employee’s email boxes. This could compromise your current position.

Recruiter Tip: To see what your WORD document resume will look like as a text file, (as it will most likely appear on the major job boards), take your Word document resume and paste it into NOTEPAD. The major job boards generally do not retain font changes and complex MS WORD formatting functions. 

Recruiter Tip: At the top of your resume, always include an easy to follow general/functional summary. Use bullet-points that can be easily customized to match what the employer is seeking. Hand your reader what they are looking for on a silver platter. Find out what are the “hot buttons” of the employer and make every one hit a home run. Immediately following your summary, provide your reader with an easy to follow chronological history of where you worked and when. It is here you need to detail your accomplishments.

Recruiter Tip: For employment beyond 10 years ago, create a "Previous Employment" section. You can quickly list your older assignments by simply including title, company and dates. However, if you are applying to a position where a much older assignment is relevant and this experience is not covered by a more recent position, you can opt to elaborate further. You can also opt to include a quick bullet or two about this experience in your general summary so that the reader can see immediately this experience.

Recruiter Tip: Phil Dubois of Pride in Personnel in Markaham, Ontario offered this advice, “My initial reaction, (receiving resumes from unqualified candidates), is negative. The easiest remedy is to provide a simple introductory statement ‘while my qualifications do not match your requirements, please accept the attached for your files in anticipation of future, suitable opportunities’".

Recruiter Tip: This headline can be customized to match the job description and "hot-buttons" of the employer or recruiter.

The Top Keywords Recruiters Use to Find You - Resume Writing Services & Free Resume Advice from Monster.com

Ensight - Jeremy Wright’s Personal Blog » Resume Tips Roundup

This is a fairly good collection of deep links into some of the better articles on monster.ca

- See what keywords recruiters are searching on
- Read about recruiters’ pet peeves (to make sure your resume isn’t getting on their nerves)
- How to address a termination on your resume
- How to address unemployment or gaps in employment
- Make sure your resume is scannable
- Use keywords that are important for your industry
- Five tips to make sure your resume gets noticed

ResumeDoctor

The link expands upon the one sentence summaries. 

1. Spelling Errors, Typos and Poor Grammar
2. Too duty oriented – reads like a job description, failing to explain the job seeker's relevant accomplishments
3. Missing dates or inaccurate dates
4. Missing contact Info, inaccurate, or unprofessional email addresses
5. Poor formatting – boxes, templates, tables, use of header and footers, etc.
6. Resumes organized by job function as opposed to chronological by employer
7. Long resumes – greater than 2 pages
8. Long, dense paragraphs – no bullet-points
9. Unqualified candidates – candidates who apply to positions for which they are not qualified
10. Personal info not relevant to the job
11. Missing employer Info and/or not indicating what industry in which the candidate worked
12. Lying and misleading - especially in terms of education, dates and inflated titles
13. Objectives and meaningless introductions
14. Poor font choice or style
15. Resumes sent as PDF files, Zip files, faxes, or mailed resumes; i.e. not sent as a WORD attachment
16. Irritating Pictures, graphics or URL links
17. No easy-to-follow summary of skills and accomplishments
18. Resumes written with 1st person references, or in the 3rd person
19. Unexplained gaps in employment
20. Burying important info in the resume

DOAC: Description of a Career

This is something to keep an eye on. It is essentially a mark up language for specifying a resume to make it easier for them to be parsed and transferred into a database.

CareerLab–Results, Achievements, Accomplishments (Part 1)

This link is quite good. A key point they make is to write a table with:

Problems I Faced

Action Steps I Took

Results

 and use that to brainstorm your successes. I can't help but think those kinds of activities would be great with employee evaluations as well.

To find your accomplishments ask yourself if you have:       

•  Identified new markets      
•  Invented or improved something      
•  Achieved more with fewer resources      
•  Saved money      
•  Reduced costs      
•  Improved productivity or operations      
•  Saved time      
•  Solved a long-standing problem      
•  Achieved a technical breakthrough      
•  Improved sales      
•  Made headlines or did something newsworthy      
•  Improved staff or team morale

RecruitIreland.com Newsletter : DON’T AIM YOUR CV AT THE BIN

1. All ‘Tell’ no ‘Sell’

The reader is interested in two things: (1) What special responsibilities did you have, aside from the ‘usual suspects’? and (2) What did you make of your responsibilities?
Stick in a section titled Accomplishments or Contributions and provide details of things that changed or improved as a result of your efforts.

2. Too long

Spend 50% of your space detailing the last five to seven years or your last two jobs. Jobs from further back in your history can be reduced to a couple of lines – one or two big highlights only.

3. Irrelevance

Read the ad! Really read it. If it says “essential” or “must have” and you don’t have it, save everyone’s time and don’t apply.

4. Carelessness

Proof and proof again.

5. Hard to pull the information out

Is the must-know information easy to get to? Highlighted in some way? Clear?

6. Look & Feel

Design matters. Packaging matters.

7. Wordy rather than Worthy

Get proficient at crisp, terse business writing using bullet points wherever you can. Introductory paragraphs should be short (2-4 lines) and, if you are using multiple paragraphs, make sure there is plenty of white space breaking them up.

Ottawa Job Search - Page 1

Another job search portal.

Ottawa Talent Initiative - Networking: The Ottawa Talent Network

It has a list of several mailing lists / groups that post available high tech jobs.

Employment Insurance (EI)

Economic region code 22
Unemployment rate 5
Insured hours for regular benefits 700 (~19 weeks @ 37.5hr/w)
Minimum weeks payable for regular benefits 14
Maximum weeks payable for regular benefits 36

Need your Record of Employment (ROE) from your last employer
Delaying in filing your claim for benefits beyond 4 weeks after your last day of work may cause loss of benefits.

your payment will be issued usually within 28 days from the date of filing your claim

Earnings made, for example, vacation pay, severance pay or allocated during the 2-week waiting period will be deducted in the first 3 weeks for which benefit is otherwise payable following the waiting period

The basic benefit rate is 55% of your average insured earnings up to a maximum amount of $413 per week.

Formula for calculating weekly payout:
min(55% * Income for last 26 weeks / unemployment rate (5), $413).

I should max out at $413 a week.

While claiming regular benefits you must be actively looking for work…

EI payments are taxable income, meaning federal and provincial or territorial, where applicable, taxes are deducted when you receive them.

When you file your tax return, if your net income exceeds $48,750 you will be required to repay 30% of the lesser of:
* your net income in excess of $48,750; or
* the total regular benefits, including regular fishing benefits, paid in the taxation year.

You received EI regular benefits in tax year 2005. No EI regular benefits were paid in the 10 years prior to the tax year 2005. Therefore you are exempt from the benefit repayment.

Technical Resume Writing Guide - Introduction

This looks like a really good guide. The general format is:

Headline Statement - breakdown of career experience.
Summary - general achievements
Technical Summary - technical skills
Experience:

• AAA Corporation, Chicago, IL
  Software Engineer, June 1999 - May 2003
• Statements of responsibility - overall scope followed by further detail regarding key duties)
• Achievements - ACTION caused RESULT

limit yourself to 5-10 statements of responsibility and 2-8 statements of achievement.

De-emphasize old information:
Senior Software Engineer 2000 - Present (Should contain heavy detail)
Software Engineer, 1998 - 2000 (Should contain medium detail)
Software Developer, 1996 - 1998 (Should contain medium detail)
Programmer/Analyst, 1993 - 1996 (Should contain medium detail, but less current jobs)
Computer Technician, 1992-1993 (Consider just listing this job with no description)
Computer Technician Intern, 1990 - 1992 (Consider just listing job with no description)
Retail Store Clerk, 1988 - 1990 (Insignificant job, should be eliminated)

Getting Your Résumé Read - Joel on Software

Don'ts:

- Resume is a way to give a hiring manager and excuse to hit delete, must be strong to survive.
- Only apply if you're qualified and the position is what you want.
- Cover level included in body of email, not as an attachment. Make sure to have cover letter in body of email.
- Don't copy BS-filled cover letters from another source.
- All sentances must end in a period.
- Don't use anonymous email account.

Do's:

- Personal cover letter for each job.
- Follow companies instructions to the tee.
- Don't apply to too many jobs at each company. Don't look desperate.
- Don't apply for jobs that you don't want.
- Come across as a human being, not a list of jobs and programming languages.

whenpenguinsattack.com: tech resume tips

Technical Summary
- buzz words
- OS+unix flavours
- Programming languages + platforms
- Software

Only list degree and educational qualifications if truly relevant
Quantify figures (monetary budgets, time periods/efficiency improved, lines of code written/debugged which demonstrate progress or accomplishments due directly to your work
Start sentences with action verb in past tense

Be concise, 1 page per 5 years of experience. 3 pages is absolute limit. Minimize usage of articles (the, an, a) and never use "I"

Omit needless items. Leave all these things off your resume: social security number, marital status, health, citizenship, age, scholarships, irrelevant awards, irrelevant associations and memberships, irrelevant publications, irrelevant recreational activities, a second mailing address ("permanent address" is confusing and never used), references, reference of references ("available upon request"), travel history, previous pay rates, previous supervisor names, and components of your name which you really never use (i.e. middle names).

Formatting:

- Name and page number in footer or header
- Use one typeface such as Times New Roman, Arial, or other traditional typeface. The standard font size is 11 point. Headers may be increased to 12 point.
- margins at least one inch on all sides
- do not use formatting for emphasis
- Give or mail an interviewer your resume printed on an off-white, tan, or light gray quality bond paper. Never give them a photocopy of your resume.

Monster.ca - Resume Tips for Technology Professionals

It includes what has to be the most god-awful example resumes I've ever seen. A sidebar with quotes from your recommendations? Ugh.

General layout:
Technical Summary / Technical Expertise
- technical certifications,
- hardware,
- operating systems,
- networking/protocols,
- office productivity,
- programming/languages,
- web applications and
- database applications.

Career Summary
- interpersonal communications,
- ability to work collaboratively and
- commitment to achieving corporate goals are just as desirable

General tips
- scope of your responsibility
- how your performance benefited the company
- Focus on your most impressive technical projects/accomplishments