Feb 18, 2011
A few years back my wife and I went to a newly opened restaurant. The employees didn’t have 12 pins on their shirts and you simply went to the counter to order your food.
At the counter, all items on the menu where sold a la carte. However, interestingly enough, they were grouped together like a meal when seen on the menu: Bacon BBQ Cheeseburger $2.99 you can get it with the Chili Cheese Fries for $1.99…That was displayed right next to the burger.
“Can I get that with Onion Rings, does it have to be the Chili Fries?” I asked. “Of course you can,” says the owner. “I don’t see them on the menu, how much are they?” The owner then tells me they are down next to the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich because that is what they go best with. Says you Mr. Restaurant Guy, I happen to want them with my burger.
Long story short, I didn’t mind the menu setup, but my wife hated it. When I asked her why she told me, she expects a certain kind of menu at a place where all the items are individually sold. She walks to counter, orders a sandwich, a side and a drink, and everything takes about two minutes to process. The restaurant was closed the same year. I guess my wife was right.
That brings me to resumes, I have seen some very creative and “different” formats for resumes. Not unlike our restaurateur above trying to be different and noticed. I've seen anything from a resume leading with a 500 word “hey I’m great” statement, resumes with flashy graphics and different colors, resumes with pictures of the applicant and logo’s of their certifications…Heck, we see new and more unusual resumes every day.
However, creativity can be the biggest downfall of a resumes. It's imperative, especially in the IT industry, that your resume be in a standard industry format that a recruiter or hiring manager will accept.
Putting your resume in a format other than the industry standard (especially IT) will hurt your chances of getting a job. Period.
The fact is, that just like my wife at the now closed restaurant, IT Recruiters and Hiring Managers want a format they are familiar with and can work with quickly so they can get in, get done, and move on because they want to spend their time working with what they have, rather than trying to figure out your resume.
Using the standard format for the work history is the most important part and should tell each individual technology (C#, Unix, Agile Methodology) for example, for how long (5/06-10/09), and then a short description of what you did.
Hiring managers need to be able to see the technologies and key words that the job requires quickly so they can pick three resumes out the 50 they received that may be worth reading. If your resume doesn’t follow that guideline, hiring managers are going to pass on reading it and move on to the next one.
The good news is… all is not lost, if you're not using the standard format, five minutes of a few copy and pastes, and then a little clean up and your resume will be recruiter and hiring manager ready.
A copy of the IT industry’s standard resume format can be found here at www.txmq.com/resume.doc. If you're not using it – or something that resembles it – you should be.
A frank and brutally honest conversation with that restaurant owner a few years ago about customer’s wants and needs would have saved him a lot of heartbreak; don’t get closed down, show them that you’re the best by standing out as a professional in the technology field with a resume that the people hiring want to see and not pass on.
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