I just found out today that my company could be closing its doors on Monday. I haven't looked for a job in three years, so I was wondering if I could get some tips. I know a lot of you guys are in computer related fields (I am a programmer, mostly Delphi) and may be able to help.
More to the point, I have a resume, but what is the best way to get it to employers online? Do I need a cover letter? What should I say in my email?. I have no idea how to approach this stuff and would like to avoid any turn offs if possible (the programmer market seems terrible here in Houston because Compaq and Enron just dumped a bunch of people here). Thanks in advance for any advice.

-Jeff

Three words, buddy: Dice Dot Com.

I got my present job through monster dot com. Though I didn't get a lot of offers from there. Techs aren't as easily employed as programmers. Seems these days they want you to be able to program it, fix it when it breaks and throw it up on the network. And if you can also design them a web page while you're at it you're in.

"And if you can also design them a web page while you're at it you're in."

Yeah, just looking at jobs, this seems like it could be a problem. My current job had no need for web development, so I don't have any web skills at all .

Hey! I guess I could offer my empeg for a good job. . . Nah, not worth it.

-Jeff

You can always bullshit your way into the job. "Sure, I do web development!"

That's what everyone else does. I'm constantly dealing with people in this industry who don't know squat about software development, yet they somehow manage to keep highly-paid positions.

Generally, when they find that you don't have the technical skills they require, they'll promote you into management. Or better yet, research. Don't laugh, I've watched it happen right before my eyes, Scott Adams was not kidding about "The Dilbert Principle".

I was once told a story about a relative who got a job operating a crane. He'd never done it before. When asked if he was certified on that crane, he said "yes", and got the job. Then he asked one of the other guys on the job to show him how to run the thing...

The problem is they are saturating the market with people with IT skills saying how many millions of jobs are going unfulfilled. So many companies spent so much money preparing for 2000 bugs that they just are not hiring like they used to. And the skills they expect are ridiculous.

Good luck finding a good job. I've been there and done that too many times over the past few years. Be careful getting into contract or temp work, usually you end up back out on the streets after the time is up.

And the skills they expect are ridiculous.

I have to agree with you there. If you go by their job requirements listings, these companies want people who are experts on everything, but will pay pennies for the people.

"Must have PhD or better in database management, must have a BA in computer programming, must have a BA in network administration, along with 20 years experience programming in Java, 30 years experience managing SQL server, must be able to code in C, pascal, 6502 assembly language and LISP, and must be willing to work the night shift. MCSE and Netware certification required. Salaries start at 12,000/yr."

Sometimes I wonder if they just post those listings to tease us.

I got a laugh out of that but I have read job postings just like that. I hope I keep my present job until retirement.

Jeff, don't let us discourage you or anything, just be prepared for what it's like out there.

"Three words, buddy: Dice Dot Com."

Ok, if I want to send my resume to someone, should I say anything in the email, or just attach my resume? I'm sorry to be so dumb, but the last time I did this I was in school and didn't do anything over the internet.

-Jeff

"Must have PhD or better in database management, must have a BA in computer programming, must have a BA in network administration, along with 20 years experience programming in Java, 30 years experience managing SQL server, must be able to code in C, pascal, 6502 assembly language and LISP, and must be willing to work the night shift. MCSE and Netware certification required. Salaries start at 12,000/yr."


You forgot "and be under 50" (yeah, age discrimination is illegal, but it's shocking how thin the line between 'underqualified' and 'overqualified' can get.)

but the last time I did this I was in school and didn't do anything over the internet.

Ouch. It's hard enough when you only have 2 years to forget how to write and submit a resume.

Tips.
1) Personal information is a no-no. Aside from name and contact details (email or phone), they have absolutely no need to know whether you are 20 or 60, single or married, white, black or green with purple spots etc.

2) Keep it to 2 pages or less. Studies have suggested (and my experience has agreed) that the average hiring manager/HR person etc is likely to spend under 2 minutes eliminating over 90% of resumes that land on their desk, and anything that can't be scanned in this time is likely to hit the bin.

3) Remember that a resume is a marketing tool. You are using it to market yourself to employers. As such, it should play up the positive attributes of your qualifications and experience, and gloss over or even ignore the less relevant attributes. Nobody needs to know that you flipped burgers 10 years ago if you're going for a tech job. (Of course if you decide to apply to McDonalds then they probably do!).

4) Recent experiences, qualifications and achievements are more valuable than old ones. So your last job should have the most detail. There are a couple of exceptions to this - eg, if you worked somewhere for 5 years, and then completed a 2 month contract, there should be more detail in the older job. Ditto for educational experience. If you have a degree, then high school experiences are irrelevant beyond listing the name of the school.

5) "I increased network reliability and consolidated floorspace requirements by analysing existing systems and re-designing network architecture" reads more impressively than "Replaced many hubs with a single switch and replaced big servers with rackmount servers."
The important thing to note here is that the sentence leads with the achievement, and follows with 'action' verbs, carefully chosen to point out your strengths (analysis and design in this example).

6) Never lie in a resume. Better to leave something out completely than to lie about it. If you get asked about it at interview, you will probably fail the interview.

7) Techies have a peculiar problem with resumes - communicating their skills with various software packages. Lots of experience descriptions like;"Coded the backend of an SQL database in C", hardly makes for an exciting 'Hire Me!' resume. The generally accepted way to deal with this is to include a brief skill set section at the top of the resume. You should be careful to ensure that this doesn't turn into half a page of industry buzzwords, pick out the most relevant and strongest skills only, and generalise where it makes sense to do so, eg "SQL administration", instead of "Microsoft SQL administration". "Office Applications" instead of "MS Word, MS Excel, MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, MS blah-di-blah-di-blah". Remember, the resume is intended to get you in the door for an interview - If they may want Oracle administration experience, being too specific may cut your chances, whereas at an interview, a combination of UNIX experience and MS SQL/postgres/mysql/any other SQL database you care to mention would probably allow you to talk intelligently enough to change their mind.

I can only agree with what folks have already said here. Genixia's comments regarding resume/apps I think are particularly well refined. What few other thoughts do I have?

- I guess that since you don't work for Enron, sending your snapshot to Playboy is out of the question....

- The first supposed rule of unemployment is to do anything as a "stop loss" job -- keep some income coming in. If it's burger flipping then you don't have to put it on your resume. It's probably up to you to calculate whether that will yield more than whatever unemployment comp you would be entitiled to.

- No, I wouldn't get overly euphoric about a contract job, but it's a job, and they can sometimes lead to more work whether more contract or perm; they can sometimes do a lot more to get you some visibility than a resume in a stack of resumes.

- I keep my base resume in a simply-formatted text file at about 70 columns. I want something that I can paste into an e-mail if needed and not worry about how munched it will get. I also use that to cut-n-paste into engines like Dice and Monster. Then I take the text base resume and pull it into RTF/DOC and I only add as much in the way of headers/bold as is needed to have it make sense.

- To one of genixia's points: KISS, two pages max. Fancy paper, fancy fonts? Not necessarily a plus and perhaps a negative.

- Spell-check everything. If a hiring manager is having a bad day and has a stack of resumes, an obvious typo can earn you the trash bin.

- WRT Monster, Dice, et al, be aware that the army of recruiters that mined those services during the boom is a significantly reduced army now working with fewer requisitions from employers and a larger pool of applicants. You might want to pump more key/buzzwords into your on-line resumes than your working resume as that is a lot of the recruiters work with; with luck that'll get more recruiter attention. My experience, though, if that half of the recruiters working off those services couldn't tell a database from a patch cord, so be prepared for calls from people who ask " do you know how to do X?" when that's not even close to what you emphasized in your resume. Don't let it get you down. Happens to everybody. While the Dices/Monsters don't produce as many calls as they used to, it is still worth covering as many of them as you can. They are still a high yield/effort proposition, relatively speaking.

- So long as you are actively looking, go back to Monster/Dice every few weeks and make some trivial edit to your resume. I can't confirm this, but my experience tells me that some some of their search algorthms use a "last edited" stamp to indicate new/updated resumes.

- On recruiters...I don't consider them a negative or anything, but be aware that (on average) they can have a tendency to butter you up -- tell you great you are, how much the hiring manager enjoyed speaking with you, how you are the #1 candidate for this particular job, etc -- essentially to keep you on the string. Don't let any of that go to your head or deter you from pursuing other positions until you have a solid job offer that you want to accept (and even after that!). You can't really tell what's going on on the other side of that recruiter -- is the hiring manager really as pumped? Or about to get fired him/herself?? Is a hiring freeze a day away? Keep all options open. Let every potential employer know that you continue to be interested in their position (even if some of them aren't exactly interesting).

Well, in the end I guess you know I was just kidding about Playboy, and I hope, best case, that your suspicions aren't confirmed Monday.

Best of luck.

Spell-check everything. If a hiring manager is having a bad day and has a stack of resumes, an obvious typo can earn you the trash bin.



This is SO important. I've just finished a hiring cycle here, and I can't tell you the number of resumes that got trashed immediately because of typos and poor seplling

In my hands, I look at it in one manner alone. I'm hiring someone to do a job that is going to require quality. The only way I know you is through your resume. If you have obvious errors on your resume, how can I assume that I'm not always going to be checking your work for you? No Thanks.

It's Max 2 pages. Get 5 other people to read it. Be VERY harsh on yourself about it, because if it's not perfect, then you aren't sending the best impression you can of yourself.

Now, the interview itself is yet another story....

When recruiting for software developers, if I threw out every applicant who couldn't spell we'd probably have no staff at all

Rob

Well, it's not as if spelling is my life calling....

But if you can't take the time to at least check it, on a document that could potentially make or break your career, why should I believe that you would pay any attention to detail anywhere else?

Yes, It's a nit. Maybe I'm just pissed over losing my pilot slot in the AF thanks to being farsight 20/30 in my left eye... Overall vision: 20/10. But it was enough of a nit for the AF to pas me over.

I've got enough resumes hitting my desk now a days, that if they aren't exceptional, they rarely get looked at again. And if I note something I KNOW is wrong, it's trash.

The resume game isn't Usenet, or the WWW where spellings are at best... original. I'm surprised by the number of applicants I get that don't understand that.

Talk about a MAJOR sore point with me...I just finished a 20 year career in the Military and it took me six months to finally land a decent albeit low paying job...I was very frustrated in how difficult it was to even get a call back from anyone. I don't know what anyone is looking for nowadays...I couldn't even get a $ 10 an hour truck driving job despite being experienced in things like driving a 14 ton armoured vehicle on uncleared Bosnian mountain roads in the middle of winter...I aways thought that the discipline, reliability and professionalism the Military provides one would count for something to an employer...guess not...as someone who hasn't had to seek employment since age 18, it was kinda a bummer to face reality....I'm done ranting now ha ha. Thank God for my pension!

"I hope, best case, that your suspicions aren't confirmed Monday."

Confirmed (well almost) yesterday actually. My boss told us all to look for new jobs unless a miracle happens (11 hour investment). He's not planning on any miracles, and I'm not either.

But all of this advice has been taken and is very appreciated. I was already well aware of the spelling thing, but that brings up a funny point. About nine months ago, a head-hunter friend of mine asked for my resume because I know Delphi very well and Enron uses Delphi. I made a few changes to my college resume, gave it to him, and heard not a peep from Enron. When I loaded my resume back up two days ago, I noticed a mis-spelling, red underline and all! How that happened I have no idea, but that mis-spelling may have saved me even more pain and heartach than I have right now(because believe me, the Enron people are having it worse than me: I have credible references and didn't loose all of my stock).

Oh well, if anyone needs a good programmer (C/C++ or Delphi preferred) let me know. Otherwise, thanks for all the advice; This really is a great board.

-Jeff

I'd like to offer an alternative view of contract work. I've been doing it for years (including 2 years in Houston) and enjoy it because of the variety of work and straightforwardness of hourly billing. You tend to avoid office politics and some of the career-ladder vagaries of a full time position.

Of course, you have to be prepared to accept more risk. But the rewards are there for me, not the least of which is that it tends to be very lucrative if you can keep yourself reasonably busy.

Also, if you decide you don't like the stress, you can generally take a full-time position with the client. Every contract I've ever done has resulted in a job offer at some point.

I've also noticed a marked increase in work very recently. I received several phone calls this week, which hasn't happened for months. Hopefully, you won't have too much trouble finding something.

Good luck,
Mike

We're hiring at AutoZone.

"Remember that a resume is a marketing tool. You are using it to market yourself to employers. "

Perhaps he could paste pictures of beautiful women in tiny bikinis on the front.

Yeah whatever.

Somebody posted a "Please help - I'm about to go through a major life-changing event" thread, and you show your sensitivity to their predicament by taking the piss out of the responses.

Real mature.

We're hiring at AutoZone.

"Would you like spark plugs with that?"

Actually I work at a distribution center, so there's no customers.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry. I was kinda going for laughing.