A Few Things about a Technical ResumeÖ

By Daniel Parrillo, President ñ Sr. Technical Recruiter, Strategi LLC

In almost fifteen years of experience in technical recruiting, you would not believe the technical resumes I have seen from even some very senior members in our technology community. Thought Iíd remind folks of a few things that a technical resume should be.
What A Technical Resume Needs To Be:

- An example of the personís technical & business functionality documentation abilities, reflecting the business aspect/purpose of the position ñ as well as the technical environment.

- The only objective the resume needs to address is the objective of the hiring management. View the resume through the eyes of the prospective hiring manager.

- Be Precise and Concise!

- It should speak for that technical person in their absence ñ speaks of the quality of that personís abilities and business/technical abilities ñ being the technical personís sales and marketing material. It ìsellsî the candidate.

- Environment: listing technical tools ñ provides hiring manager a chronological history of your experience using a particular development tool. Include version numbers. The latest version shows your skills are current but older versions document your length of experience (ex: Oracle 2.x ñ 9i)

The average person briefly glides over resumes ñ the way you peruse your credit card statement or perhaps the contract for a rental car. Each technical position or project had to have some type of business justification. Companies just donít hire ìtechiesî without some type of business reason and purpose.

A technical resume must exemplify the prospective new employeeís technical documentation abilities. Each technical position requires some type of documentation (both technical as well as business functionality). A technical resume must find a happy medium between business analyst and technical expert. All business and technical aspects needs to be documented and detailed for each position listed in the employment history section of the chronological resume ñ without getting verbose. Be precise and concise!

If youíre a hiring manager implementing a new architecture for your software development team ñ donít you think it would make sense to hire someone who can do the JAVA programming or the infrastructure implementation ñ but also find someone who can document that work in a precise and concise way? Isnít that truly what your resume should be stating?

Beware of ìmade-up wordsî or terms that may have been created on the job and used in that specific organization and environment. Acronyms at one company donít always mean anything to another ñ or could mean something complete different. The author of a technical resume needs to consider the person who will be reading the resume, quickly scrutinizing it and hopefully deducing that youíre the ideal match for their needs.

Director level and higher candidate resumes should definitely have the first few bullets of each position documenting both technical and business aspects:

- Size of the staff ñ and what type of positions it included, multiple locations, offshore, etc.

- Size of budget (regional, district, etc.), sales quotas (budgeted, accomplished, etc.) ñ and make sure that you clearly state that budgets were met, sales quotas exceeded and that projects were brought in on-time, etc.

- Be Precise and Concise ñ without being verbose. If not, thereís probably a 99% change that the reader will presume something incorrectly.

A technical resume IS the marketing and sales material for that technical person. Itís what is going to be representing that candidate ñ when that candidate is not there to speak for him or herself. If the candidate is a well-educated, successful, productive professional ñ why shouldnít that personís resume reflect that? If the candidate is a QUALITY person, present a QUALITY resume! (Öand Iím not talking about putting it on pretty letterhead or an extremely expensive bond of paper).

This may seems all to obvious when you read it ñ but how many people actually have a ìworkableî resume that can be quickly tailored to represent their candidacy and qualifications for their ìideal opportunity

View the technical resume as if youíre using the eyes of the hiring manager. You just might see the technical resume in a completely different wayÖ - the way thatís going to lead to the hiring manager quickly deducing this personís qualifications are ìidealî and lead to an interview.

Whether youíre a recruiter, internal HR person or a technical professional reading this article ñ a technical resume should be more than just a resume or an e-mail note received. By including both the business as well as the technical aspects of past employment history ñ demonstrating the technical documentation abilities ñ and the ability to document the technical business perspective of past projects ñ you will be demonstrating to prospective employers that this technical professional has the vital skills necessary to achieve the business objective or deliverable.

Your partner in placement,
Danny!