Certification Magazine - October 2007 - (Page 18)

VIRTUAL VILLAGE Resume Red Flag? DANIEL MARGOLIS It’s happened to most professionals in any field — you send a resume to a company or companies, expecting to hear back and never do. In searching for employment, you can’t help but wonder what’s happening on the other end that caused your resume to be cast into the void. Over on our CertMag.com Career Development discussion board, we heard from an IT professional with a very specific guess about such a situation. Junior member bfman posted: “I have an entry on my resume that I think could be preventing me from getting any calls. I need your opinion on this. The latest entry is for a consulting company I work for on weekends. So, I have made that experience from last year until present with my full-time IT job, which is since 2005 until present. Do you think this weekend consulting is the culprit? If you were a hiring manager, would you consider a person who does IT consulting on weekends and works full time on weekdays?” Forum member cpattersonv1 voiced doubt that this element of bfman’s resume was the problem. “That’s probably not it. If there are tasks you perform on a regular basis that are industry-specific, and you have them listed, they might be the culprit. For instance, if you are on an IT help desk and you list ‘answer phone calls,’ that sort of thing. The best resumes are short. “Also list things you’ve done to better your workplace or to make things run more smoothly. For ITrelated positions, companies want to know that you have a good understanding of their business needs, as well as the technical aspects of IT. Unless the places you’re applying have a policy against weekend IT work, they will more than likely count it as experience.” Bfman responded, further speculating on his problem. “My friend was telling me some companies are wary — thinking that a part-time consulting job could interfere with a person’s full-time work because they could be getting calls during their regular job. I get called on weekends (but not every weekend) to do some installation, configuration or troubleshooting. If that’s not the culprit, I wonder what is.” Longtime forum contributor wagnerk attempted to answer that question. “From my point of view (I sit on an interview panel when it comes to hiring IT personnel), extra work, especially IT related, is more experience and does count as a plus. The only time when it doesn’t is when it produces a conflict of interest between the two jobs. Research the companies that you’re applying to, as you may find that you have to adjust your CV on an application-by-application basis.” Bfman requested further clarification. “So, the hiring managers do not say to themselves, ‘This guy is already working as an IT consultant on weekends on disparate technologies, perhaps he is overqualified for an admin role?’” Wagnerk responded, “It really depends on the individual hiring manager. The title ‘IT consultant’ carries a different weight from company to company/ job to job, just like any title. This is why, in your cover letter, you should describe your duties, tasks, jobs, etc., to show what you actually do. Then, it’s down to the individual hiring manager to see if you are the right person for the job.” General Discussion We’ve never intended for our CertMag.com forum discussions boards to be strictly limited to talk about certifications. Although the focus is on certification, certainly, we feel providing IT professionals with a 18 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE October 2007 http://CertMag.com http://CertMag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Certification Magazine - October 2007

Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Tech Careers Dear Techie Academic Connection Virtual Village Rebooting Your Career Development Inside Certification Forensics Investigators: Cybercrime Fighters Interface Building Your Skills Through Security Tools Ad Index Endtag

Certification Magazine - October 2007

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