Jobs | Job opportunities | Job Search Strategie – Interview Tips and writing a winning CV

“How to Make HR Dump a Programmer’s Resume,” by Esther Schindler of JavaWorld was the most fascinating post I read about HR this month and surprising it wasn’t from an HR blog at all – it was from a blog for Java developers. It serves up some extremely valuable information about the relationship between programmers and tech recruiters. The post made a huge splash on the Net… it’s been reposted in countless forums because it’s just so on-the-nose. Schindler followed up a few days later with the other side of the coin: “What HR Professionals Look For in a Programmer’s Resume.” The two pieces together create a whole, and are not-to-be-missed. For more job search advice, check out JobConcierge.com

In the article Schindler discussed the difference in audience between an HR professional and a technical manager. Most people are capable of slanting the document to cater to one or the other, but oftentimes, applicants don’t know who is reading the resume first. It’s a real problem for techies, whose resumes are often markedly different from those of other types of applicants. Have the right buzzwords, optimized for “literal” screening software. The topics discussed to make sure the resumes don’t get dumped were, using business language instead of technical jargon. Know when to leave out irrelevant or obsolete skills. Use the “in vogue” terms. Show discipline in editing the resume for length.

Schindler then penned “What HR Professionals Look For in a Programmer’s Resume” to to show her programming colleagues the DOs as well as the DO NOT Dos. The HR people she talked to said that the three things most often overlooked by programmers in their self-marketing are 1) specific achievements, 2) metrics, and 3) an introductory summary. This introductory summary idea is important: a lot of software people jump straight into a list of technologies or achievements without giving the reader a context of what kind of person they’re dealing with.

According to her one should include a self-rating of Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert for each technology. Don’t describe the organization; describe what you did there. If you are at all involved in recruiting tech personnel she recommends you read the following articles making the world a better place: covering work on open-source endeavors.

This reminds of a brilliant cartoon (pictured, in part, at the top of this post) by Steve Hanov, a software developer who also creates tech-related cartoons. Instead of taking the digs in the cartoon badly, I choose to take them as a sincere comment from a techie as to what is really important to them – which is truly worth knowing. I remain confident that organizations with open communication and a commitment to great technical recruiting can value the input of both programmers and HR when it comes to building the software team. You can find the best industry job boards and best recruiters and headhunters in each industry at JobConcierge.com

JobConcierge is the destination for automated job search – real people search 300 job boards and submit applications to take care of your entire online job search. The site is also known for its best jobs for 2010