If you're just describing what you were expected to do that's not very impressive and it doesn't tell a whole lot to the hiring manager. That tells them is oh. This is what they told. You to do and apparently. You did it well enough to not get fired that's all the information. That provides. Whereas you say. I accomplished. This this and this. You have the opportunity to do. That that actually shows. That you know. You did something specific and it kind of tells a little bit of a story in their head. That makes you look better and it creates. More specificity around. You as a person the other thing is if. You can quantify achievements do.
You can quantify really. Anything about the job. That again crystallizes the picture of it in their head so for example I've got help desk analyst level two on my work experience. This was you know. I was a level to support monkey and my first item here is I. Provided first tier support to a campus wide base of over 30000 users so. I put the word number 30000 in there. Because I wanted to show. That this was a very big base of users. I was working for a very big university yeah. That shows that oh. This isn't just. Some like rinky-dink little support thing that never gets. Any customers. That gets a pretty big deal and maybe. It doesn't actually mean.
That the job was harder. It were for a small university but big numbers still imply greater responsibility yeah. I did the same thing for when. I was an RA. That I was an RA of a hall with 62 students so there was 62 people. I was managing it wasn't like four people. That kind of thing do. You have examples of like achievement based descriptions in your work experience here. Both of these. Because they're for webdev are saying basically. I developed the college info geek responsive free design using here's all the languages. That I used in technologies and then the second. One is debugged improved and redesigned the school nutrition survey website using a bunch of stuff. Either of those examples have numbers but in the past my other things have always been like hundreds of printers yeah I've managed hundreds of servers.
That we're all basically under my management eyerly andI've always included. That computer networking stuff is a great place for big numbers. It really is yeah there were like four hundred thousand miles of cat6 cable under my purvey yeah. How much time did. You spend working with those absolutely zero but you know. I was theoretically managing them yeah. I watched over a harddrive with lots of gigabytes yeah there's like hey. I checked the C Drive had 800. It would buy. It was basically full weight. That makes me look bad why did. You let it get full did. Many redundant backups did. You have I just remembered well that's the stove on sorry yeah. I will note. That you don't have to have numbers in every single.
One of your achievements here just. That numbers make. It very easy to have. More specialized. Everything enough. That you write digits yes but the ones. You just said like created the responsive redesign up the college info geek website using XY and Z technology I'm guessing like PHP CSS yeah XHTML. You know jQuery and frameworks and yeah ASP for one of them it's but it wasn't just like. I was supposed to web develop exactly Duff yeah showing your accomplishments like. You image the opportunity X that's why I wrote them it shows.
You finish things. It often it might actually give them something they can go look at as an example of your work but it also gives a level of specificity. That just describing the duties doesn't give. I will note. That you're not always going to be able to do. These things sometimes. You literally did a job. You just had a duty and the only thing you did at that job was carry. It out yeah. You know sometimes. You got to do. That so I definitely have. Some of that kind of stuff on my resume like is you IT services web developer. I have developed and maintained university websites using PHP X HTML CSS and then.
I documented development procedures and updated the wiki yeah but you have got enough of a description. It you gotta be a little bit of a wordsmith yeah like. I remember I wrote a updated resume description for Quinton's Burger King job listed as Burger technician and I wrote things like interface with coupler with customers over a Kemper account or something like. That I don't know what it was yeah it's not a good. Though the one thing I will note about these these more Duty based descriptions. Than accomplishment based descriptions is I did mention the technologies. I worked with yeah so. This is important. Because a hiring manager is going to be scanning your resume for the skills. You have and if your industry has.
Any sort of you know specific tools. That are often used or specific systems. That are often used. You to be able to have those easily visible on your resume and in fact a lot of IT and programmer kind of people will have a specific skills section. They will put like yeah react je s no DJ s Django. You know Ruby on Rails stuff like. That so it's very easy to find but I will note. That skill sections are on resumes a lot and a lot of people use. That as an opportunity to put things like good communicator or hard worker don't put those on your resume I'm really skilled at being a hard worker again. This is the resume is a really quickly scannable thing that gets your foot in the door and you don't want. It raising questions in the head of the hiring manager about your qualifications or lack thereof so. You have something like hard worker or good communicator in our skill section Hawaiian idiot. That was special yeah my immediate thought is why why do.
You have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find skills for yourself like there should be. Something else and if you're in a field. Where it's not super easy to list specific skills like maybe you're a social worker and your skill is you're literally you're literal skill is sitting and talking with senior citizens and making them feel better like that's fine you're probably going to be able to talk about that in the interview but it doesn't need to be on a resume. You shouldn't put things. That should be assumed it's like the money thing well. We hope you're a hard worker exactly at least. You know enough. That shouldn't be a question demonstrate you're a hard worker through the work experience on your resume and so. This is a big question. I get from freshmen from high school students. I get work experience on my resume. I don't have.
Any work experience right now oh no - catch-22 right it's like chicken and egg. I don't have the resume to go get the work experience so. I get the work experience to put on the resume and the answer to that is your work experience section does not. It doesn't have to be limited to paid experience. It could be volunteer opportunities. It could be. It could honestly be a class project. You had a class project. You had a lot of responsibilities and you put in a lot of effort. You could have. That or experience yeah. I mean the thing is like again. You are giving this resume to a human being and we have the ability to think contextually so. I know that you're a 17 year old and you haven't had the you know life experience. Yet to have a big resume I'm gonna look at a class project on a work experience section and be like oh.
This is great yeah. You know you're looking for opportunities. You can find them. You are a 40 year old person who will put who's putting like a college class project from the 70s I'm gonna be like um. How much gta5 have. You been playing for the last five years bro so always think about the context of what you're putting on your resume but don't don't shortchange yourself you know. You have put in a lot of effort into. Something even. It isn't paid experience put. It on that work experience section. All right do. You have technical skills on yours I do. I have an information technology section. That lists that stuff. I have a languages section and I have a current projects section oh. It was a labor project section yeah at the time. I was running the polyglot my language blog that's right. I was doing web development with. You and I was doing some stuff with mine snacks. They had a little language learning app and yeah.
I used those I also have a leadership experience thing that mentions like the cyber defense competition like a little extracurricular activities okay so my skills are laid out entirely on the right-half in various sections gotcha I've got my technical skills here so I've got the operating systems. I was comfortable working in I put those there. Because I was a support technician so. It wasn't like oh. Where the star button is in Windows so I'm gonna list. It it's like no. I can go into the registry and actually tweak things to make. It work better and I can actually go into the command-line on Linux so. I felt comfortable putting those there. I know a good rule of thumb is given the job. You are applying for if the hiring manager were to ask.
You technical questions about the skill. You are listing would. You be able to talk about it yeah there shouldn't be. Anything on here. That you wouldn't be happy to talk to them about exactly yeah don't misrepresent yourself you do need to sell yourself a little bit. Because you are trying to stand out in a very competitive. You know numbers heavy process but if. You lie it will come back to bite. You most likely so and then I've also got leadership and honors and awards so. These are two separate sections for me on leadership. I do have college info geek down here as a leadership item yeah. That was basically just like things I'm involved in I just mentioned. It as leadership. Because I also have like House treasurer webmaster for the Business Council computer Advisory Committee. That kind of stuff and then. I think I think after. I worked with Adobe and Sony which were. I think was about a year after. I started college info geek. I then moved college info geek up to the work experience section. Because at that point. I was like okay I've got. You know 50 articles I've written I've worked with companies I've been paid. This is now work experience. If it's you know fun little side project and I've made like $50 total I've.
Now worked with brands. All this writing experience. I have by lines and other sites it's work. Now yeah so it's kind of like a fuzzy area. You know you should move. Something from like a little side project to work experience but if. You can justify. It in an interview then. It could go there yeah and then. I also have honors and awards so. This is where you've just list scholarships maybe. Any honor societies you're a part of if you're on the honor roll. Anything like. That basically. These are just things. That differentiate. You all that kind of stuff so a couple of things. I want to mention before. We move on to cover letters.
One thing that you're probably going to be dealing with. You submit your resume to any company. These days especially a big company is applicant tracking systems or what are called ATS systems actually probably not called ATS systems and somewhere in there and is really mad at me right now there are ATM machines Aaron basically. These are programs. That scan the content of your resume and basically filter resumes so the humans have far fewer to go through and these are pretty necessary. These days I think like. I read the statistics back in 2013 Google was getting two million resumes a year like imagine imagine.
You had 10 people like 200 thousand resumes per year. Each that's like a full-time job just looking at resumes and I wouldn't quit. That job yeah yeah I'm pretty efficient. That that would be so exactly yeah. I don't a education or my work experience. I don't care anyway. All basically say the same thing at this point. I can't really oh look. Another Stanford graduate I'll put. That in my you know 15 foot high pile so. What you need to know about these things. That they are scanning the content of your resume looking for keywords so number. If the industry. That you're trying to get into has specific keywords. If the job description mentioned specific keywords and you have experience with those put them on your resume yeah don't just say I'm a web developer say I'm a web developer who works with PHP. I work with Ruby. I work with reactant node and Django and those kinds of things see. What technology they're websites using if. Nothing is specified for the position just be like that's a good idea. You know just yeah.
This looks like. It was built on WordPress or or it's an ASP let. Me tell them I know how to use. That still I think there's a website out there maybe our show notes guy can find it. You can put a URL into. It and it will find the stack. That it's using it'll just scan the code and figure out okay. This is me and run into. That a Linux server it's using WordPress it's using PHP my sequel version. Whatever I can't remember the URL for it so hopefully.
You can find it we'll see but yeah that's a good tip find the stack they're using but definitely pay attention to the job description. They put out and maybe. You could use other job descriptions put out in similar positions. You know and again. You don't want to lie but don't be too general especially with. These kinds of systems. You need to put the keywords on your resume. That they're looking for otherwise. You might get filtered out before you're ever selected for interview or ever. Even cross the desk of a hiring manager the other thing is you want to keep the design clean so. You know that you're in an industry. They value a really creative graphic heavy resume and like graphic design and you're applying at a company. Where your resume is going to go directly to a human probably. Because it's a tiny little startup then keep your resume simple and clean like the Kingdom Hearts song yeah otherwise the ATS is probably going to scan your resumes see the cute picture of a dragon. You put in the corner and be like. I can't read.
This and throw. It away yeah so. You mean you have experience. We went through. What 256 applications which is a pretty small number and it didn't feel small Tom. It felt huge and like with. That many people you're just looking for the tiniest reason to disqualify. Because yeah please make. This easier to sort yeah not. Because you wanted. Us qualify people. Because you don't want. You know you don't want to consider them but it's just like no it's so hard to because I'm just like I'm but I'm so nice and understanding this could be a reason. I can't I can't there are already top contenders and I can yeah. It makes it really tough so that's what I wanted to say about resumes. I don't think. Anything else on here. That are it's really important. I will say that keep. It to one page well yeah. Unless you're like a distinguished professor of emeritus with thousands of PhDs and you have a CV that's like 18 pages long okay. I feel like at that point maybe you're famous and your resume could just say I'm Martin and then they're like there.
You go yeah I've heard of him Veon yeah Martin yeah. You left the last name off it's not. Even necessary. Everybody knows so let's talk about the cover letter here and due to time constraints. I think we're gonna have to breathe. This one a little bit quicker that's okay. Because this is less detail-oriented anyway yeah so the point of a cover letter is not to RESA mirai's your resume and I think. This is this is the the pitfall. That most students find themselves in where. They just write their cover letter as a restatement of everything on the resume hi my name is Mark day. You want this in sentence form. I am currently a sophomore at Iowa State University majoring in Mis and I would like to work for your company. I saw your position blah blah blah like that's so boring and when.
I interviewed Brad Karsch who was a guy who read like 10000 resumes as a advertising agencies hiring director back in the day. He told that yes. I write about 10000 resumes and I read about a hundred cover letters every single other one went to the trash. Because you you take a glance at the first sentence and you see. You I can see. This is going and then. You just throw. It away yeah so. You want to use the cover letter as a way to again take the interest of the hiring manager it's another opportunity to do. It and you got to realize.
That no matter. What you write it's likely. That they're not going to look. It just because they've kind of been conditioned to ignore cover letters which means you're gonna want to be doing other things. You really want. This job like. You know networking or asking somebody who works there out to coffee doing informal interviews things like. That but with your cover letter use. It as an opportunity to maybe tell a story tell them about yourself tell them why you first got interested in this field and what you've done in it so far or maybe tell.
One specific story about a really cool accomplishment. That really ties. Everything back together and has relevance to the position you're applying for yeah. You know you were applying for an IT security position maybe. You would write a cover letter. That literally told the story about when we'll put the password in the general chat and then said lul just kidding lots of lots of life lessons yeah. Because yeah it's like a fun story that's really memorable. I will never forget. That story cuz it's hilarious to me and you could probably parlay.
It into something about how. You have information security experience and you know that really stoked your interest in the field and now. You want to work in it and this company yeah well. You know it we got crushed in that and that thing because of like. One thing that I overlooked near the end and I was still like but that was intense and I learned a lot of stuff so there's a perfect experiment for a cover letter tell the story about will putting the the password in the chat. Because it's funny and it's a good hook and then say but the reason. We actually lost was. Because this mistake and over the past two years I've been learning steadily.
More and more about information security I've learned from my mistakes and now I'm to the point. Where maybe. You came back and you won. It the second year in a row yeah. Something like. That and now. I really want to you know breaking this industry and working for Cisco has been my dream for two years yeah. I feel like. If you're not aware of a mistake. You made with Internet Security or something like. That the answer is that you've made them and you're just not aware like yes. You don't you don't start out incredibly good at that it's too technical yeah. I think secured like the way to get good at security is kind of just like a process of figuring out. You messed up and then fixing it yeah. Whether by you catching it hopefully or by. Somebody hacking you you know and then. You realize. You learn from the school of hard knocks yeah let's see here. What else did. I have on here. I think that was.
That was like the main thing about cover letters is you want to number. One not just summarize your resume and number two use. It as an opportunity to hopefully tell a story but to do. Something that just gets the attention of the recruiting manager yeah it's more it's a little. More personal and then. One thing that ransom does mention in the post. He wrote on how to write a cover letter. Because we do have a whole post on this again is you want to match the tone of the res or the cover letter to the company you're applying with so the example. He gives is slack versus McKinsey Consulting if. You look at selects website.
You can kind of tell. That their culture is very whimsical and fun. I believe that slack used to be a game development company until they've made slack and realize. That that was far. More successful in their games so. You were writing a cover letter for slack. You might take a more fun tone. Whereas you look at Mackenzie's consulting website they're like projecting this very professional powerful image. You might want to be a little bit.
More reserved in your tone and not tell a bunch of jokes yeah so consider the culture of the company. That you're applying for because. They are going to be considering whether or not. You are fit for that culture for better or for worse yeah so. I think that that probably covers. It for resumes and cover letters. I do want to mention at the end here. I think this here is one thing boy. I just can't work today can't words today. I probably didn't get enough caffeine. Because it's caffeinated you're not coffee native tea don't just rely on the cover letter and on the resume. You also have networking at your disposal. You also have your personal brand at your disposal so. That means your online portfolio and your personal website your social media presence.
That kind of stuff your business cards go to events. You know the person who is out there being everywhere meeting people doing all. That kind of stuff is always going to be the person who just shot guns their resume out and calls a day so number. One look at all the avenues. You have for making connections and getting on that short list. Than on they the huge just. Everyone applied here list yeah and then also take. What is called a sniper approach instead of a shotgun approach to applying for jobs much like. You literally made a website for why you wanted to work at flying hippo yep. You didn't just apply with a resume and then move on to the next ever the only place. I applied because yeah.
That and I was like I'm not gonna build the same website for two people at once so. That would feel really dumb yeah. You know and maybe. They didn't hire. You you know but that was still a more compelling way to apply. Than the normal way of just making a resume and a cover letter and it would have been good experience and I can guarantee. If they didn't hire. You they would have been considering you more closely. They would have otherwise yeah so yes it's more effort and yes. It is a pain but I think. That you should take. You know put. More effort into the application process. Than the average person would and you're eventually gonna get hired probably at the company. You want to work at cool so. This is episode two zero nine so.
You can find the show notes for it at CI G podcastcom slash 2:09 or if you're watching this on youtube the link will be in the description below as always as. We mentioned. We have full articles on how to write a resume. How to write a cover letter and we also have articles and like networking there's actually a pretty good suite of career development articles on the site. Now mostly due to ransom he's been doing a very good job making career articles so we'll have. Some of those linked up in the show notes definitely the resume and cover letter.
One as well as. Some other ones. That I think are relevant so check those out thank you so much for listening if. You want to find our favorite apps and gear and tools book recommendations things. That you should bring to college. You are moving to college move into a dorm or an apartment. You can find all. That good stuff over at college info geek comm slash resources so check. That out thanks for listening and we'll see. You in next week's episode thank you.
You can quantify really. Anything about the job. That again crystallizes the picture of it in their head so for example I've got help desk analyst level two on my work experience. This was you know. I was a level to support monkey and my first item here is I. Provided first tier support to a campus wide base of over 30000 users so. I put the word number 30000 in there. Because I wanted to show. That this was a very big base of users. I was working for a very big university yeah. That shows that oh. This isn't just. Some like rinky-dink little support thing that never gets. Any customers. That gets a pretty big deal and maybe. It doesn't actually mean.
That the job was harder. It were for a small university but big numbers still imply greater responsibility yeah. I did the same thing for when. I was an RA. That I was an RA of a hall with 62 students so there was 62 people. I was managing it wasn't like four people. That kind of thing do. You have examples of like achievement based descriptions in your work experience here. Both of these. Because they're for webdev are saying basically. I developed the college info geek responsive free design using here's all the languages. That I used in technologies and then the second. One is debugged improved and redesigned the school nutrition survey website using a bunch of stuff. Either of those examples have numbers but in the past my other things have always been like hundreds of printers yeah I've managed hundreds of servers.
That we're all basically under my management eyerly andI've always included. That computer networking stuff is a great place for big numbers. It really is yeah there were like four hundred thousand miles of cat6 cable under my purvey yeah. How much time did. You spend working with those absolutely zero but you know. I was theoretically managing them yeah. I watched over a harddrive with lots of gigabytes yeah there's like hey. I checked the C Drive had 800. It would buy. It was basically full weight. That makes me look bad why did. You let it get full did. Many redundant backups did. You have I just remembered well that's the stove on sorry yeah. I will note. That you don't have to have numbers in every single.
One of your achievements here just. That numbers make. It very easy to have. More specialized. Everything enough. That you write digits yes but the ones. You just said like created the responsive redesign up the college info geek website using XY and Z technology I'm guessing like PHP CSS yeah XHTML. You know jQuery and frameworks and yeah ASP for one of them it's but it wasn't just like. I was supposed to web develop exactly Duff yeah showing your accomplishments like. You image the opportunity X that's why I wrote them it shows.
You finish things. It often it might actually give them something they can go look at as an example of your work but it also gives a level of specificity. That just describing the duties doesn't give. I will note. That you're not always going to be able to do. These things sometimes. You literally did a job. You just had a duty and the only thing you did at that job was carry. It out yeah. You know sometimes. You got to do. That so I definitely have. Some of that kind of stuff on my resume like is you IT services web developer. I have developed and maintained university websites using PHP X HTML CSS and then.
I documented development procedures and updated the wiki yeah but you have got enough of a description. It you gotta be a little bit of a wordsmith yeah like. I remember I wrote a updated resume description for Quinton's Burger King job listed as Burger technician and I wrote things like interface with coupler with customers over a Kemper account or something like. That I don't know what it was yeah it's not a good. Though the one thing I will note about these these more Duty based descriptions. Than accomplishment based descriptions is I did mention the technologies. I worked with yeah so. This is important. Because a hiring manager is going to be scanning your resume for the skills. You have and if your industry has.
Any sort of you know specific tools. That are often used or specific systems. That are often used. You to be able to have those easily visible on your resume and in fact a lot of IT and programmer kind of people will have a specific skills section. They will put like yeah react je s no DJ s Django. You know Ruby on Rails stuff like. That so it's very easy to find but I will note. That skill sections are on resumes a lot and a lot of people use. That as an opportunity to put things like good communicator or hard worker don't put those on your resume I'm really skilled at being a hard worker again. This is the resume is a really quickly scannable thing that gets your foot in the door and you don't want. It raising questions in the head of the hiring manager about your qualifications or lack thereof so. You have something like hard worker or good communicator in our skill section Hawaiian idiot. That was special yeah my immediate thought is why why do.
You have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find skills for yourself like there should be. Something else and if you're in a field. Where it's not super easy to list specific skills like maybe you're a social worker and your skill is you're literally you're literal skill is sitting and talking with senior citizens and making them feel better like that's fine you're probably going to be able to talk about that in the interview but it doesn't need to be on a resume. You shouldn't put things. That should be assumed it's like the money thing well. We hope you're a hard worker exactly at least. You know enough. That shouldn't be a question demonstrate you're a hard worker through the work experience on your resume and so. This is a big question. I get from freshmen from high school students. I get work experience on my resume. I don't have.
Any work experience right now oh no - catch-22 right it's like chicken and egg. I don't have the resume to go get the work experience so. I get the work experience to put on the resume and the answer to that is your work experience section does not. It doesn't have to be limited to paid experience. It could be volunteer opportunities. It could be. It could honestly be a class project. You had a class project. You had a lot of responsibilities and you put in a lot of effort. You could have. That or experience yeah. I mean the thing is like again. You are giving this resume to a human being and we have the ability to think contextually so. I know that you're a 17 year old and you haven't had the you know life experience. Yet to have a big resume I'm gonna look at a class project on a work experience section and be like oh.
This is great yeah. You know you're looking for opportunities. You can find them. You are a 40 year old person who will put who's putting like a college class project from the 70s I'm gonna be like um. How much gta5 have. You been playing for the last five years bro so always think about the context of what you're putting on your resume but don't don't shortchange yourself you know. You have put in a lot of effort into. Something even. It isn't paid experience put. It on that work experience section. All right do. You have technical skills on yours I do. I have an information technology section. That lists that stuff. I have a languages section and I have a current projects section oh. It was a labor project section yeah at the time. I was running the polyglot my language blog that's right. I was doing web development with. You and I was doing some stuff with mine snacks. They had a little language learning app and yeah.
I used those I also have a leadership experience thing that mentions like the cyber defense competition like a little extracurricular activities okay so my skills are laid out entirely on the right-half in various sections gotcha I've got my technical skills here so I've got the operating systems. I was comfortable working in I put those there. Because I was a support technician so. It wasn't like oh. Where the star button is in Windows so I'm gonna list. It it's like no. I can go into the registry and actually tweak things to make. It work better and I can actually go into the command-line on Linux so. I felt comfortable putting those there. I know a good rule of thumb is given the job. You are applying for if the hiring manager were to ask.
You technical questions about the skill. You are listing would. You be able to talk about it yeah there shouldn't be. Anything on here. That you wouldn't be happy to talk to them about exactly yeah don't misrepresent yourself you do need to sell yourself a little bit. Because you are trying to stand out in a very competitive. You know numbers heavy process but if. You lie it will come back to bite. You most likely so and then I've also got leadership and honors and awards so. These are two separate sections for me on leadership. I do have college info geek down here as a leadership item yeah. That was basically just like things I'm involved in I just mentioned. It as leadership. Because I also have like House treasurer webmaster for the Business Council computer Advisory Committee. That kind of stuff and then. I think I think after. I worked with Adobe and Sony which were. I think was about a year after. I started college info geek. I then moved college info geek up to the work experience section. Because at that point. I was like okay I've got. You know 50 articles I've written I've worked with companies I've been paid. This is now work experience. If it's you know fun little side project and I've made like $50 total I've.
Now worked with brands. All this writing experience. I have by lines and other sites it's work. Now yeah so it's kind of like a fuzzy area. You know you should move. Something from like a little side project to work experience but if. You can justify. It in an interview then. It could go there yeah and then. I also have honors and awards so. This is where you've just list scholarships maybe. Any honor societies you're a part of if you're on the honor roll. Anything like. That basically. These are just things. That differentiate. You all that kind of stuff so a couple of things. I want to mention before. We move on to cover letters.
One thing that you're probably going to be dealing with. You submit your resume to any company. These days especially a big company is applicant tracking systems or what are called ATS systems actually probably not called ATS systems and somewhere in there and is really mad at me right now there are ATM machines Aaron basically. These are programs. That scan the content of your resume and basically filter resumes so the humans have far fewer to go through and these are pretty necessary. These days I think like. I read the statistics back in 2013 Google was getting two million resumes a year like imagine imagine.
You had 10 people like 200 thousand resumes per year. Each that's like a full-time job just looking at resumes and I wouldn't quit. That job yeah yeah I'm pretty efficient. That that would be so exactly yeah. I don't a education or my work experience. I don't care anyway. All basically say the same thing at this point. I can't really oh look. Another Stanford graduate I'll put. That in my you know 15 foot high pile so. What you need to know about these things. That they are scanning the content of your resume looking for keywords so number. If the industry. That you're trying to get into has specific keywords. If the job description mentioned specific keywords and you have experience with those put them on your resume yeah don't just say I'm a web developer say I'm a web developer who works with PHP. I work with Ruby. I work with reactant node and Django and those kinds of things see. What technology they're websites using if. Nothing is specified for the position just be like that's a good idea. You know just yeah.
This looks like. It was built on WordPress or or it's an ASP let. Me tell them I know how to use. That still I think there's a website out there maybe our show notes guy can find it. You can put a URL into. It and it will find the stack. That it's using it'll just scan the code and figure out okay. This is me and run into. That a Linux server it's using WordPress it's using PHP my sequel version. Whatever I can't remember the URL for it so hopefully.
You can find it we'll see but yeah that's a good tip find the stack they're using but definitely pay attention to the job description. They put out and maybe. You could use other job descriptions put out in similar positions. You know and again. You don't want to lie but don't be too general especially with. These kinds of systems. You need to put the keywords on your resume. That they're looking for otherwise. You might get filtered out before you're ever selected for interview or ever. Even cross the desk of a hiring manager the other thing is you want to keep the design clean so. You know that you're in an industry. They value a really creative graphic heavy resume and like graphic design and you're applying at a company. Where your resume is going to go directly to a human probably. Because it's a tiny little startup then keep your resume simple and clean like the Kingdom Hearts song yeah otherwise the ATS is probably going to scan your resumes see the cute picture of a dragon. You put in the corner and be like. I can't read.
This and throw. It away yeah so. You mean you have experience. We went through. What 256 applications which is a pretty small number and it didn't feel small Tom. It felt huge and like with. That many people you're just looking for the tiniest reason to disqualify. Because yeah please make. This easier to sort yeah not. Because you wanted. Us qualify people. Because you don't want. You know you don't want to consider them but it's just like no it's so hard to because I'm just like I'm but I'm so nice and understanding this could be a reason. I can't I can't there are already top contenders and I can yeah. It makes it really tough so that's what I wanted to say about resumes. I don't think. Anything else on here. That are it's really important. I will say that keep. It to one page well yeah. Unless you're like a distinguished professor of emeritus with thousands of PhDs and you have a CV that's like 18 pages long okay. I feel like at that point maybe you're famous and your resume could just say I'm Martin and then they're like there.
You go yeah I've heard of him Veon yeah Martin yeah. You left the last name off it's not. Even necessary. Everybody knows so let's talk about the cover letter here and due to time constraints. I think we're gonna have to breathe. This one a little bit quicker that's okay. Because this is less detail-oriented anyway yeah so the point of a cover letter is not to RESA mirai's your resume and I think. This is this is the the pitfall. That most students find themselves in where. They just write their cover letter as a restatement of everything on the resume hi my name is Mark day. You want this in sentence form. I am currently a sophomore at Iowa State University majoring in Mis and I would like to work for your company. I saw your position blah blah blah like that's so boring and when.
I interviewed Brad Karsch who was a guy who read like 10000 resumes as a advertising agencies hiring director back in the day. He told that yes. I write about 10000 resumes and I read about a hundred cover letters every single other one went to the trash. Because you you take a glance at the first sentence and you see. You I can see. This is going and then. You just throw. It away yeah so. You want to use the cover letter as a way to again take the interest of the hiring manager it's another opportunity to do. It and you got to realize.
That no matter. What you write it's likely. That they're not going to look. It just because they've kind of been conditioned to ignore cover letters which means you're gonna want to be doing other things. You really want. This job like. You know networking or asking somebody who works there out to coffee doing informal interviews things like. That but with your cover letter use. It as an opportunity to maybe tell a story tell them about yourself tell them why you first got interested in this field and what you've done in it so far or maybe tell.
One specific story about a really cool accomplishment. That really ties. Everything back together and has relevance to the position you're applying for yeah. You know you were applying for an IT security position maybe. You would write a cover letter. That literally told the story about when we'll put the password in the general chat and then said lul just kidding lots of lots of life lessons yeah. Because yeah it's like a fun story that's really memorable. I will never forget. That story cuz it's hilarious to me and you could probably parlay.
It into something about how. You have information security experience and you know that really stoked your interest in the field and now. You want to work in it and this company yeah well. You know it we got crushed in that and that thing because of like. One thing that I overlooked near the end and I was still like but that was intense and I learned a lot of stuff so there's a perfect experiment for a cover letter tell the story about will putting the the password in the chat. Because it's funny and it's a good hook and then say but the reason. We actually lost was. Because this mistake and over the past two years I've been learning steadily.
More and more about information security I've learned from my mistakes and now I'm to the point. Where maybe. You came back and you won. It the second year in a row yeah. Something like. That and now. I really want to you know breaking this industry and working for Cisco has been my dream for two years yeah. I feel like. If you're not aware of a mistake. You made with Internet Security or something like. That the answer is that you've made them and you're just not aware like yes. You don't you don't start out incredibly good at that it's too technical yeah. I think secured like the way to get good at security is kind of just like a process of figuring out. You messed up and then fixing it yeah. Whether by you catching it hopefully or by. Somebody hacking you you know and then. You realize. You learn from the school of hard knocks yeah let's see here. What else did. I have on here. I think that was.
That was like the main thing about cover letters is you want to number. One not just summarize your resume and number two use. It as an opportunity to hopefully tell a story but to do. Something that just gets the attention of the recruiting manager yeah it's more it's a little. More personal and then. One thing that ransom does mention in the post. He wrote on how to write a cover letter. Because we do have a whole post on this again is you want to match the tone of the res or the cover letter to the company you're applying with so the example. He gives is slack versus McKinsey Consulting if. You look at selects website.
You can kind of tell. That their culture is very whimsical and fun. I believe that slack used to be a game development company until they've made slack and realize. That that was far. More successful in their games so. You were writing a cover letter for slack. You might take a more fun tone. Whereas you look at Mackenzie's consulting website they're like projecting this very professional powerful image. You might want to be a little bit.
More reserved in your tone and not tell a bunch of jokes yeah so consider the culture of the company. That you're applying for because. They are going to be considering whether or not. You are fit for that culture for better or for worse yeah so. I think that that probably covers. It for resumes and cover letters. I do want to mention at the end here. I think this here is one thing boy. I just can't work today can't words today. I probably didn't get enough caffeine. Because it's caffeinated you're not coffee native tea don't just rely on the cover letter and on the resume. You also have networking at your disposal. You also have your personal brand at your disposal so. That means your online portfolio and your personal website your social media presence.
That kind of stuff your business cards go to events. You know the person who is out there being everywhere meeting people doing all. That kind of stuff is always going to be the person who just shot guns their resume out and calls a day so number. One look at all the avenues. You have for making connections and getting on that short list. Than on they the huge just. Everyone applied here list yeah and then also take. What is called a sniper approach instead of a shotgun approach to applying for jobs much like. You literally made a website for why you wanted to work at flying hippo yep. You didn't just apply with a resume and then move on to the next ever the only place. I applied because yeah.
That and I was like I'm not gonna build the same website for two people at once so. That would feel really dumb yeah. You know and maybe. They didn't hire. You you know but that was still a more compelling way to apply. Than the normal way of just making a resume and a cover letter and it would have been good experience and I can guarantee. If they didn't hire. You they would have been considering you more closely. They would have otherwise yeah so yes it's more effort and yes. It is a pain but I think. That you should take. You know put. More effort into the application process. Than the average person would and you're eventually gonna get hired probably at the company. You want to work at cool so. This is episode two zero nine so.
You can find the show notes for it at CI G podcastcom slash 2:09 or if you're watching this on youtube the link will be in the description below as always as. We mentioned. We have full articles on how to write a resume. How to write a cover letter and we also have articles and like networking there's actually a pretty good suite of career development articles on the site. Now mostly due to ransom he's been doing a very good job making career articles so we'll have. Some of those linked up in the show notes definitely the resume and cover letter.
One as well as. Some other ones. That I think are relevant so check those out thank you so much for listening if. You want to find our favorite apps and gear and tools book recommendations things. That you should bring to college. You are moving to college move into a dorm or an apartment. You can find all. That good stuff over at college info geek comm slash resources so check. That out thanks for listening and we'll see. You in next week's episode thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment