Simply Hired Blog

7 Ways IT Job Seekers Can Stand Out From the Crowd

While many areas are still struggling, the IT sector has seen some healthy growth recently. And that means that even though unemployment remains high overall, there is a lot of competition to hire IT professionals.

In fact, the majority (65%) of IT leaders say they’re currently having a hard time finding the right IT employees, according to a recent survey from staffing firm Robert Half.

However, while competition among employers is high, IT job seekers are seeing a lot of competition of their own. A survey from Randstad Technologies shows that although many tech employees are somewhat satisfied in their jobs, more than half (53%) plan to look for new opportunities in the near future.

The bottom line: There are a lot of IT jobs available, and a lot of IT professionals competing over those jobs.

That’s good and bad news for job seekers. There are many opportunities out there, but now its more important than ever for IT pros to separate themselves from the pack. Here are some steps IT job seekers can take to stand out from their competition:

1.) Show off the right skills

While there’s a lot of hiring happening in the IT sector overall, IT pros with skills and experience in some areas are in higher demand than others. For instance, many organizations are looking for IT employees skilled in emerging technologies such as cloud computing, virtualization, and mobile app development and mobile device support.

IT job seekers should be sure to highlight their skills and experience in those and other key areas, as well as find ways to keep their skills up to date.

2.) Get certified

IT certifications are one tool organizations use to guarantee that tech employees possess those skills. These are the top IT certifications employers are looking for now, according to NetworkWorld.com:

• Microsoft (MCSE, MCITP, MCTS)
• CompTIA (A+, Network+, Security+, Linux+)
• Cisco (CCNP, CCNA, CCiE) Apple (ACSP, ACTC)
• Apple (ACSP, ACTC)
• International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (CISSP)
• Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA)
• Project Management Professional (PMP)

3.) Spice up your resume

Of course, all the skills, experience and certifications in the world won’t do any good if they aren’t showcased in a way to grabs employers’ attention. That’s why a well-written resume is critical for any job seeker.

For IT professionals, it’s important to tailor a resume to the specific job at hand, focus on accomplishments in addition to experience, and avoid cliché buzzwords.

4.) Use social networks

These days, many employers use social networks to find their next hires – and that’s especially the case for technology-centric positions. Therefore, many experts recommend job seekers treat their social media profiles as resumes and use them to highlight career accomplishments.

5.) Try a new industry

Demand for IT professionals varies depending on the industry a company is in. One industry that needs more IT employees: health care.

Many health organizations are adopting electronic medical records and other technology. As a result, providers, software vendors and other organizations are creating a big demand for IT professionals. Job seekers may find a lot of new opportunities by looking for work in that industry.

6.) Understand the business

With the economy struggling and budgets remaining tight, it’s become more important than ever for IT departments to align themselves with the rest of the business and only focus on projects that cut costs or boost revenue.

That means companies need IT employees that understand how their business works. You can help your cause during interviews by doing a lot of research about the potential employer’s business and demonstrate that understanding. Also, use the interview and your resume to highlight your business skills and situations in which you’ve had to apply them.

7.) Consider contracting or consulting

Lately, many companies have struggled to perform all the necessary IT work on their limited budgets. As a result, many organizations are turning to consultants, independent contractors, temporary workers, and other types of flexible IT workers.

A recent report from IT job board Dice.com found that the number of IT professionals employed as consultants is increasing quickly. And those professionals are often higher paid and more satisfied than their counterparts working in traditional, full-time employment situations.

Sam Narisi is a technology editor for Progressive Business Publications where he covers mobile, security, cloud computing, and more. 

The Most Effective Way to Target Your Resume-Part III

By the end of this post you should have a killer targeted resume that is ready to go out.  If you’re joining us now, be sure to catch up on Part I and Part II.

Back to writing your resume.  You should have the headline, sub-headline, and first bullet point of each experience complete at this point. All you do to finish up is align your second bullets with the second most important thing in the job description and so on. Now, of course you won’t be able to perfectly align everything but a) it will do you good to try and, b) HR probably isn’t reading that far down anyway.

Here’s a really critical piece though: don’t fall into the trap of using your old sentences or old stories just because you are proud of them.  If the information is not relevant, don’t include it. For example, if our hypothetical CPA candidate had six months of a side project managing IT that he was really successful with, he still should not include it on his resume because a hiring manager is unlikely to care.

Once you’re done with all the bullets there’s one more thing you have to do. That’s your Skills and Tools section. Something I find a lot of people forget is there’s not just the concern of “what will someone think when they’re reading my resume,” but “how will they find my resume in the first place.”

This is where a great Skill and Tools section will work magic. It is simply a listing of essential industry keywords that you can derive from the job description. For example, for our buddy with the C.P.A, if the targeted job description has Sarbanes Oxley on it, then you need to have Sarbanes Oxley on your resume.

Finding the right industry keywords is easy. Think , “if I was going to use Google to find someone to fit this job description, what keywords would I use,” because the person who is vetting the resumes probably isn’t seeing the resumes as they come in, rather he or she is running searches through some sort of database.

Once you’ve done all that, get your resume analyzed for weaknesses for free by RezScore, and then apply. Let me know any success or failure stories in your comments below. As always, you’re also welcome to email me directly.

Happy hunting!

Sean Weinberg is the COO and co-founder of RezScore, a free web application that reads, analyzes, and grades resumes – instantly. Also the founder of Freedom Resumes, Sean has dedicated his career to helping job seekers write the best possible resumes.

The Most Effective Way to Target Your Resume - Part II

Hopefully you completed the last assignment. If not, hop back and read The Most Effective Way to Target Your Resume-Part I, before continuing below:

 Now that you have your professional headline completed, you’re going to do your sub-headline. It goes right below your professional headline, slightly smaller font but still larger than the main body. It’s a 6 -10 word sentence that effectively encapsulates what you’ve figured out as the most important skill the hiring manager is looking for. Continuing the C.P.A example, it may become clear to you that cost savings are the most important thing to this employer. So your sub headline will say, “Successfully reducing costs by eliminating redundant expenditures and renegotiating existing contracts.” Your sub-headline needs to have some basis in reality, but even if the priority skill they’re looking for is something you’ve spent minimal time on it is still the skill you want to lead with.

Once you’ve done that you are ready to go into the bulk of the resume.

Layout your job history (names, dates, job title, and location) as you normally would, but for now just put one bullet beneath each experience (and always use bullets not paragraphs).

Write just one first bullet from each job experience going backward in time. Each bullet should be a progression towards that sub-headline. Think “what is the logical precedent to this experience, what did I need to do or know at my previous job in order to be successful at the next job?”

Studies have shown that the vast majority of HR people and recruiters only read the first bullet of each experience, if they read anything at all. Studies have also shown that recruiters will look at your most recent experience first and then go to the bottom of your resume and read up. Recruiters want to see a logical progression from your first job to where you are today, so give them what they want. 

I’ll take a moment here for the naysayers. I can hear some of you muttering, “But I wasn’t successful at every job, or I’ve changed careers, or I’m not very good at xyz…” It’s for you naysayers that I recommend starting this blank document; to force yourself to rewrite your sense of your job history. It’s not actually about what you’ve done; it’s about how you describe what you’ve done. For example, let’s say at your first job you managed 10 bank accounts, and every other C.P.A. in the firm was managing 30. You’ve always thought of that job as a failure because you didn’t do as well the others; however the HR people don’t know that 10 wasn’t a terrific number. So if you’re first bullet for that job experience starts off as “effectively managed 10 accounts…” it sounds like you did well, while still being honest.

Let’s say your next job you managed less accounts but they were higher value or had more transactions. All you do is switch the emphasis to the better quantifier. So your first bullet for your next job might be “Consistently oversaw $500,000 in weekly transactions….”

You see both these sentences are strong and make you appear successful but are only giving out selective pieces of information that make you sound good without giving the reader enough information to make a negative judgment despite the fact that you may consider those experiences failures.

 Give this a whirl tonight and come back tomorrow when I help you finish up your re-worked, excellently targeted resume.

Think you have an awesome bullet point in your resume?

Sean Weinberg is the COO and co-founder of RezScore, a free web application that reads, analyzes, and grades resumes – instantly. Also the founder of Freedom Resumes, Sean has dedicated his career to helping job seekers write the best possible resumes.

Mobile Job Search with Simply Hired

Mobile is here, and it’s here to stay. As mobile technology becomes more sophisticated and user friendly, many online activities are moving from PCs to mobile devices, and that includes job search. With Simply Hired’s mobile solutions, you can search for jobs from just about anywhere... in a park, on a beach, or even during your morning train commute. And with Simply Apply, applying to jobs on-the-go has never been easier.

According to our recent job seeker survey, 70 percent of job seekers search for employment on mobile devices. And it makes sense--we always have our smartphones on us, and if you can conduct the same job search from anywhere as you can from home, then why not track down that dream job from the beach?

Here's how:

First, check out m.simplyhired.com, Simply Hired's mobile site. Just like on SimplyHired.com, you can search over 5 million jobs across the U.S. based on keyword (for ex: sales manager) and location (ex. Chicago).

When you find a job of interest labeled with a "Simply Apply" button in the results, you can apply to it directly from your phone or tablet. You can reach over 10,000 employers who have already enabled Simply Apply on their jobs, and the number continues to grow.

To apply to a Simply Apply enabled job, click on the Simply Apply button, attach your resume and cover letter, and submit your application. If you don't have a Simply Hired account with an uploaded resume, you can import your resume from LinkedIn on the spot. For more on using Simply Apply check out our tutorial video.

If you’re not quite ready to apply or want to save a job for later, you can also send the job listing from the mobile site to your email Inbox for reference.

Happy mobile searching!

The Most Effective Way to Target Your Resume - Part I

The most critical thing when writing a resume is to write the resume the HR person wants to read. Every person who has ever posted a job or ever written a job description has an idea of the perfect resume for that role. The problem, as I’m sure you’re aware for the job seekers, is that the hiring managers get so many applications that they need to know that this is the right resume within 30 seconds. I’ve written before many times about the black hole of resume submissions and I have no doubt if you’re reading this blog you’re familiar with that experience; sending out countless resumes but getting no response.

I’m going to give you the best way to get the hiring manager to say yes the second they see your resume. But I warn you it’s very time consuming and of course won’t always work. It’s four simple words: Reverse Write Your Resume.

Here’s what you do:

On half your screen put up a blank word document, and on the other side of the screen pop open a job description. You’re going to write your resume over from scratch forgetting everything you’ve ever done before; you’re going to ignore all the rules of resume writing you’ve learned; You’re going to delete from your memory bank all your favorite sentences from your resume; you’re going to stop and truly read this job description.

Think about it! How often do you really read a job description? How often do you take the time to analyze the mindset of the person writing the job description? Do they use long sentences or short sentences? Do they use a lot of adjectives or are they terse? Do they emphasize culture, performance, past experience, or future goals?

Don’t get bogged down in the psychobabble but start making assumptions about the person who wrote this job description. Now be a sales person and write your resume in a similar tone. If they use long sentences, use long sentences. If they use short sentences, use short sentences. Pick up on the cues.

Once you have a sense of the mindset of your targeted reader, you are going to do something very simple and it is going to take you 50% of the way there. Put down your first line of your professional headline in big bold font and make it the job title of the job you’re applying for. If the job is a certified public accountant, you want “Certified Public Accountant” to be the most prominent line on your resume. Just by doing that you’ve made it so easy for the hiring manager to decide that your resume is worth reading.

You’re well on your way now!  I understand this first step is time consuming so I’ll give you some time to complete it before we move on to attack the oh so sneaky ‘sub-headline.’ Be sure to post some killer headlines below in the comment section.

Sean Weinberg is the COO and co-founder of RezScore, a free web application that reads, analyzes, and grades resumes – instantly. Also the founder of Freedom Resumes, Sean has dedicated his career to helping job seekers write the best possible resumes.