Skip to main content

In 200 words or less...

"First impressions last a lifetime," it is said. When a potential employer reads your resume, what impression does your Summary section leave behind?*

* I'm assuming that you aren't seeking your first job, which would mean that your Summary section would instead be entitled Objective and would describe what you're looking for. Everyone else should omit the Objective section and instead summarize what they have accomplished professionally.

Here's my 30 minute resume makeover.
  1. In 30 seconds, choose as many one word nouns that describe yourself. Don't try to overthink this: the first words that pop into your head will be the ones that you feel most comfortable describing yourself as. (Example: strategist)

  2. In 1 minute, choose a single one word adjectives for each of the top 5 nouns. Do not use the same adjective twice. (Example: excellent strategist)

  3. In 5 minutes for each pair of words, write a single sentence that justifies the adjective-noun pair based on your work history. (Example: Excellent strategist. Defined, developed and implemented a 12-24 month strategic plan that resulted in a 12% OpEx savings for the entire IT division.)
Add a prefacing paragraph and you have an excellent starting point for your starting point. Just like bait on a fishing hook attracts the fish to investigate further, this starting point will literally pull the reader into the rest of your resume to discover what other treasures lie within.

Popular posts from this blog

"Ni jiang yi yang de hua ma?"

Last week, I wrote about the necessity of having a clear message . Because this topic is so important I decided to follow-up with another entry on this general subject. This week we will approach it from another angle. (For the curious, the title says " Do you speak the same language? " in pinyin, which is a transliterated Mandarin Chinese.) Recently, a good friend of mine (who is Chinese, ironically) and I were playing pool. He had to bank the 8-ball in the pocket to win the game, and since it was an informal game and bank shots are my area of expertise, he asked me for advice. I told him, "you just need to strike the cue ball with medium speed so that it hits the 8-ball right in the middle." He didn't believe me so we marked the positions of the balls, and then he took his shot only to watch the 8-ball sail past the pocket. "A-ha!" he exclaimed. "I told you it wasn't that easy." But when we reset the positions and I made an attemp
Read more

It's Easier to Fail at DevOps than it is to Succeed

Slippery when wet Since the term DevOps was coined in Belgium back in 2009, it is impossible to avoid the term whether in discussions with colleagues or in professional trade magazines.  And during the years while this movement has gained momentum, many things have been written to describe what elements of a DevOps strategy are required for it to be successful. Yet in spite of this, there is an interesting data point worth noting: not many organizations feel there is a need for DevOps.  In a Gartner report entitled DevOps Adoption Survey Results (published in September 2015),  40%  of respondents said they had no plans to implement DevOps and 31% of respondents said they hadn't implemented it but planned to start in the 12 months after the survey was conducted. That left only 29% who had implemented DevOps in a pilot project or in production systems, which isn't a lot. "Maybe it's because there truly isn't a need for DevOps," you say.  While that
Read more

Is No/Low-Code the Key to IT Nirvana?

 Unless you've had your head in the sand for the past year or so, you've seen the phrases low-code  and no-code  bandied about quite frequently everywhere you look.  You've probably wondered if this is something new that's here to stay or just a "flash in the pan."  Although the terms have been in the fore of the IT trade publications recently, Low Code Development Platforms (LCDP) (and the corresponding No Code Development Platforms) have been in existence since 2011.  Their roots can be traced to the 90's with 4th generation programming languages and GUI-assisted programming paradigms, e.g. IBM VisualAge for Basic, which was discontinued in 1998. For those of you who aren't familiar with either, the premise is that these platforms allow someone to quickly build applications using a WYSIWYG interface and a "click and configure" paradigm to Isn't this the source code to Roblox? rapidly build full applications with little or no coding requ
Read more