When I got the email copied below (to which I'm responding), I thought it was probably best to respond on the list, so I've removed all identifiers of the sender.
When I said "create a 'professional' looking resume", what I meant was "crisp, clean, no excess baggage, no spelling or grammatical errors, well organized, good use of white space". IOW, it *looks* like you took some time with it and "polished" it up. It's not necessary to create a Word document, and I certainly don't attach any more significance to a resume that was done in Word. And I despise HTML email, especially for resumes. :-) If you want to do your resume in HTML, put it on your website. I've gotten quite a bit of mail about my post, so let me share some more that I didn't really address yesterday. (BTW, I'm not a recruiter. I work for the University of Texas at Dallas. I've been a manager in various capacities and industries for over 25 years, and I've screened, interviewed and hired more people than I can count. My comments come from long practical experience of the hiring process.) Your resume is your marketing brochure. It's the first thing that I see when I'm screening potential candidates. Think about the marketing brochures you get at home. Which ones catch your eye? Which do you throw in the trash without so much as a glance at the material? Figure out what it is that attracts you to certain advertising, and you're a long way toward a good resume. Here's what I look for (and I like them in this order): 1) Contact info - who are you and how can I contact you? (Name, address, phone number, email address(es) 2) What is it your looking for? This should be the goal of your job search. A simple sentence, or at most a paragraph should suffice. Something like this: "Successful security professional with broad range of experience seeks opportunity with a growing firm that needs to implement a complete security plan. Ideal situations would be firms that need to develop and implement comprehensive policies designed by an accomplished security professional or build a security organization that doesn't presently exist." Or this: "Experienced network administrator with three years experience in security seeks opportunity as a security specialist, focusing on perimeter security and penetration testing." You have to decide what it is you really want to do and then define yourself as the ideal candidate for that job. I have gotten resumes for people that were looking for sysadmin work when I was hiring for tech support. But I have to wade through the entire resume to figure that out. Tell me up front. What are you looking for? What's your dream job? What would you *really* like to do? Nothing turns me off faster than a resume that screams "I'm qualified to do a lot more, but I'll settle for your job until I can find a better one." Why waste my time and yours? 3) What have you done in the past that you think qualifies you for *this* job? Tell me what you've accomplished. You don't have to tell me everything you've done. Focus on the things you've accomplished that relate directly to the goal you say you have. "Successfully conducted penetration testing resulting in significant changes in network security policy." "Made significant contributions to company policy development, including implementing a complete security training program." "Conducted a complete forensics analysis that resulted in the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator." That sort of thing. 4) Job History - this one is one people frequently screw up. Don't just list your jobs in order, unless you've been gainfully employed with no breaks in employment. If you've had a period of time where you did consulting because you hadn't found a job yet, don't say Consulting - blah to blah, say Self Employed - blah to blah. Then list some things you accomplished during that time. You also don't have to list every job you've ever had. Ten to fifteen years is sufficient (if you have it.) This business changes daily. What you did fifteen years ago is probably irrelevant today. But there may be some success story you had from that period that is worth me knowing. So tell *that*. "Earned several commendations" sounds better than "used Fortran, Cobol and Basic extensively". 5) Certs, education, special training. List the things that apply to *this* job. I really don't care if you were MVP of the State Champion football team *unless* you can relate it to the job you're seeking. In some cases, listing stuff can even hurt you. For example, if you're applying for a Unix sysadmin job, listing an MCSE (and no Unix certs) might make me wonder if you really know any Unix at all or you're just trying to break in to the field. Leaving it off wouldn't raise that concern. Don't lie. Don't EVER lie. But you also don't have to *tell* everything. Remember, no advertiser would say "2% of the users of our product were seriously injured" (unless the government forced them to.) They would say "98% of our users successfully implemented the product" or something like that. There's always two sides to every story. Tell your good side. I hope these comments help folks focus on what's important. There is no one right or one wrong way to do a resume. I certainly don't "count off" for a format that's different from what I'm used to seeing. But if it's hard to find information, if it's difficult to figure out what it is you're looking for, if your resume is disorganized and confusing, it's probably going in the rejected pile, no matter what expert told you "this is the hot resume format". I don't hire skills. I hire people. And how much time they appear to have spent on their resumes tell me a lot about them. Paul Schmehl ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Supervisor of Support Services The University of Texas at Dallas AVIEN Founding Member http://www.utdallas.edu/~pauls/ > -----Original Message----- > Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 11:16 PM > To: Schmehl, Paul L > Subject: Re: no contact > > > Hi Paul. > > Just wanted to say thanks for the recruiter's insight you > recently provided on the SecurityJobs list. I'd like to ask > one question (and it's not "Can you find me a job?" :). You said, > > > 6) Create a "professional" looking resume. > > I'm curious what you and your peers consider "professional" > when it comes to e-mail and resumes. > > Typically, when I send a resume, I'll send a plain ASCII > resume with pretty much only whitespace and tabs for > formatting, but I'll provide a URL at the end for the pretty > HTMLized version. > > Needless to say, I come from a pretty technical / > security-focused background, and so naturally, I loathe > getting huge Word or HTML attachments in e-mail, due to their > traditional security issues. To me, HTML e-mail is the > hallmark of the clueless luser. I am getting the impression, > though, that recruiters expect and encourage bloatmail. > > So, I guess my question is this: If you had your choice, what > would your daily deluge of resume e-mail look like? Please > feel free to respond on-list if you like. Just leave my name > out of it. :) >
