Just a few months ago I had to filter through a bunch of resumes and select those who showed some promise. Out of those (about 100), 30 were selected for the next step. Of those, only 5 moved on to the interview stage. Of those 5, we hired two. So Jason is right - it's a numbers game. We only interviewed approx 5% of the resumes we received.
My observations from this is that a large number of people of basic computer skills. However, when a company has an opening, they will pick the strongest candidates with the pertinent skills. The thing that caught my eye in the group of resumes was 1) if the person had the capabilities to do the job we needed, 2) if they had experience other than pure education, and 3) If they were strong in newer technologies that we may need in the future. Specifically for us, in the last hiring round, we needed Cold Fusion programming skills, or at least enough programming skills that picking up Cold Fusion wouldn't be too much of a learning curve. Out of the 100+ resumes, only 3 mentioned the specific skills we were looking for. So, the suggestions I would make are to search for companies using the technologies you are familiar or have experience with. Make sure these technologies somehow stand out on your resume, and in your cover letter. If your background is primarily educational (a general statement, not aimed at anyone specifically), then you need to find ways to get the experience - maybe via volunteering. In today's market, companies have the option of hiring trained and experienced techs/developers over those just out of school, for roughly the same wages. Getting the experience will help get you noticed. I personally disagree with certifications - they might help you get noticed, but if you got the certification from book learning rather than experience, your skills will likely be a little weak. This will tend to show in subtle ways, either on the resume, in the interview, or within the first week or two of the probation period. (These are my own thoughts - some companies do value the certifications). Hopefully something in my ramblings will help someone out.... Shawn (PS. We do not have any openings right now, or in the near future... sorry). -----Original Message----- From: Alex [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 2:06 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: (clug-talk) I can't understand ... Hi guys, May be this is off-topic but... Is the situation with employment in IT area so bad as it is seems to be? I can't understand why during 3 month sending really good and personalized for each position resume and cover letter to more than 200 positions there was no answer at all! Why? I immigrated from Russia 6 month ago and I have 12 years of programming experience in various areas, advanced knowledge of most useful hardware platforms and OS's ... May be somebody knows this little secret that will allow me to find any kind of computer related job. -- Best regards, Alex mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
