Measuring Results in an IT Consulting Resume

Measuring Results in an IT Consulting ResumeMeasuring Results in an IT Consulting ResumeHow do you balance an IT resume that must capture the subjects progress from technical jobs to a professional-services role?How do you balance an IT resume that must capture the subjects progress from technical jobs to a professional-services role?For Richard McDonald, a 22-year veteran of IT resume writing, its a matter of measuring the job seekers accomplishments in every job, no matter how technical.You have to estimate results and talk about specific improvement goals and details of the specific technology challenges in a project and youre approach to meeting those challenges, said McDonald, a certified professional resume writer who works with Ladders. It also doesnt hurt to have references ready to talk about the results of your work.McDonalds job becomes more difficult when the job seeker is a consultant whose work involved pieces of larger, complex projects with clients. The job seeker may elend be around the client long enough to see the ultimate savings or efficiencies generated by his work, and he may find it difficult to glean results and accomplishments from their work history.Chad, who chose not to use his real name for this article, works on just ansicht types of projects. He is a professional technology consultant for a small professional-services firm in New England while he likes his current job, he wants to ensure hes prepared if the need for a job search arises. Chad wants to keep doing the same kind of work but struggled to describe it in his own resume.In my early career, I was a programmer and coder in Texas and in Maryland, Chad said. As things progressed, I became more involved as a consultant. Since most of his work came by word of mouth and project by project, Chad had never changed the resume format since he was a heads-down coder.Not only was Chads resume dense, it failed to sell his strengths.The way I was brought up, you were told that you dont brag about yourself, Chad said. Im just not any good at talking about myself and what Ive done. And while I can write, I find the resume to be its own kind of format and style.Eight pages of detailChad struggled so much documenting his projects that he could not even fill out the career assessment McDonald offered him to start the process. Instead, McDonald worked with him on the phone, to list in detail what he did in the last 30 projects spanning 15 years.McDonald ended up with eight pages of detail, and it didnt stop there. McDonald also needed Chad to describe his goals more clearly.This can be a really difficult thing to do for technology folks, McDonald said. There are so many different directions an individual can go, especially with a history in software development and programming. It can be overwhelming to take on in a resume.After some gentle prodding, Chad zeroed in on four potential job titles - ones he knows are always in demand with IT recruiters. They are senior co nsultant, professional-service manager, sales engineer and professional services director - all job targets Chad would consider for the right company.Armed with these ideal titles, McDonald could concentrate on describing how Chads project work supported them. Yes, his recent work had focused on professional services, but Chads programming experience got its own dedicated paragraph section highlighting his earlier background. The emphasis of the new resume was putting technology in a business context.The art of name-droppingMore specifically, McDonald was keen to show the client roster in the bullet points of Chads new resume. In a professional services resume, name-dropping is key. Showing that youve consistently worked with Fortune 500-level companies is a subtle way of saying, The big boys of corporate America chose us.It was an amazing transformation in the new resume, Chad said. I was really afraid of the new one not showing enough balance between my more technical experience and my consulting roles. It was not the case. What I got was a very accurate, honest portrayal of my background.Many of my technology-career clients over the years have a really hard time tooting their own horn, McDonald said. In Chads case, he struggled mightily with it, so getting him to sit down and just tell me what he worked on, the intimate details of the projects, and projected goal and results of each of them allowed us to break through.Its perfectly framed for today and the future, Chad said. Its a really nice picture of what Ive done and set up for lateral and even higher job positions.

How to Add Symbols to Your LinkedIn Profile (and Why You Shouldnt!)

How to Add Symbols to Your LinkedIn Profile (and Why You Shouldnt)How to Add Symbols to Your LinkedIn Profile (and Why You Shouldnt)LinkedIn breathed some life into its stale interface with a recent Facebook-esque redesign. While some users have taken this as a cue to flood your feed with tired memes, LinkedIn has retained its reputation as the straight-laced, corporate social network.Thats not a bad thing. LinkedIn is the place for professionals. For the same reasons wed beg you not to use a whacky font on your resume, were glad LinkedIn has held onto its minimalist approach when it comes to profile content.LinkedIns profile editor is no frills. You can enter unformatted text, add line breaks, and thats about it for fruchtwein users.For years, there has been a contingent of LinkedIn users emblazoning their profiles with special Unicode characters, unusual symbols, and even emoji.How do you get noticed among half a billion LinkedIn users? Bedazzling your profile like this will certai nly turn a few heads. Whether it is attracting the right kind of attention depends on your goals.? How to insert symbols into your LinkedIn profile?The letters, numbers, and punctuation you use every day are part of the Unicode character set, a standard used to properly render characters across most browsers, websites, and applications. There are many characters included that you dont see everyday. The letterR is part of the set alongside? or?. Emoji have also been integrated into the Unicode character set?. LinkedIns text editor is basic, but it knows how to render behauptung symbols if you know how to type them in.The easiest way to insert special characters and symbols into your LinkedIn profile is to copy and paste from another webpage. You can search for the symbol you want on the Unicode Character Table or seek out an article that has a curated list of symbols. This post from Brynne Tillman features many symbols frequently used on LinkedIn profiles. When you find the symbol yo u want, highlight it, copy it, and paste it into your LinkedIn profile editor.You can also add LinkedIn symbols by using the emoji tastatur on Mac or PC.?Why you SHOULDNT overuse special charactersFor some, a profile loaded with flashy symbols serves a purpose. If youre using LinkedIn to sell a product or service, special characters can draw attention and drum up some business. For strategic networkers and job seekers, this technique can do more harm than good.Frankly, its tackySimple bullet points ? can help you succinctly list top skills and accomplishments, but going overboard with other wingdings and emoji can weaken your professional image. The last thing you want is for your profile to remind someone of a14-year-olds bedazzled cell phone.Unicode symbols can breakIts not just a matter of taste. Unicode standardization is meant to solve compatibility issues yet symbols and special characters frequently corrupt code, cause errors, or display incorrectly.Some users will see them d ifferently and some wont see them at allSymbols might not look right for everyone. Due to someones web browser, device, and/or settings, the sharp black symbol you pasted into your profile might render as a bubbly, colorful emoji on another device. Or worse, it might not display at all, replaced by a generic box?.For instance, even in Cathy Yerges article on the topic, some of her example symbols are showing up incorrectly as boxes (for us, anyway).Screenshot from Cathy Yerges article.This could happen on your LinkedIn profile.They can mess up your job applicationUsing these characters on your resume is known to cause parsing errors in some applicant tracking systems.The same thing can happen with your LinkedIn profile content withinLinkedIns Easy Apply system. In a job hunt, you cant afford to lose data or have your application rejected due to an avoidable parsing error.Your messages might land in the spam folderWhen you send a message or InMail to another LinkedIn user, they recei ve an email notification. For non-habitual LinkedIn users, this is the only way they know to look for a message. Any special characters placed in your name fields will go into the subject line of the email.Emoji and special characters can trigger an email to go into the spam folder. According toTracy Sestili at SparkPost, Not all email clients accept the use of emojis in email subject lines and sometimes emojis can trigger spam filters or worse, look like ?this.Get attention on LinkedIn without gimmicksAdd links to your projectsThere are better ways to show your creativity than with clunky pictographs. Use the Media section under Experience to link projects that that show off your ingenuity. Add your personal or portfolio website to your Contact and Personal Info section.Become a thought leaderDrum up interest in your LinkedIn profile is by embracing the social aspects of the platform. Put yourself out there.Post thoughtful status updates about your industry or companyWrite articles and post videosShare links your connections will want to seeComment on other peoples postsParticipate in groupsOptimize your profile for LinkedIns searchEnsuring that your profile shows up at the top of someones LinkedIn searchis our preferred way to stand out. Jobscans LinkedIn Optimization tool provides customized tips and tricks to push your profile up the rankings. Thats how you prove youre a LinkedIn expert not with ? whatever ?these ? are.

Get advice from an expert whos seen more than 300,000 resumes

Get advice from an expert who’s seen more than 300,000 resumes Get advice from an expert who’s seen more than 300,000 resumes Bringing computer smarts in resume writing with real-time content analysisYou can always make your resume better, no matter how much time you spend on it, or how many friends you ask for feedback. Even with the greatest care and effort, there are some things you’ll miss, simply because you’re not creating resumes every day, all day. But our smart Content Analyzer does in fact, it has “seen” more than 300,000 resumes users have created to date. And it can now help you craft a better one with real-time suggestions how to improve your wording.Technology to the rescueMachines are getting smarter every day, and according to many researchers, the singularity is fast approaching. So it probably comes as no surprise that we wanted to employ the platform in helping you correct mistakes, focus your resume content and stand out from other applicants.For a long time, we have been working on a content improvement feature that is scalable and can help all users. In fact, it has been par t of our vision from day one. Now, we have gathered enough data and double checked with recruiters to identify some of the most common mistakes people make when creating their resumes. Those have laid down the base of our very own automated content analysis feature.What the Content Analyzer can help you withThe Content Analyzer helps you get more value out of every word that is written down. The feature works with a state-of-the-art extensive library that ensures it delivers suggestions on par with a human reader. In developing it, we looked into different kinds of common mistakes, like:experience that is not performance-oriented,readability issues,repetition of phrases,inconsistencies in writing style,cliches,filler, weak or vague wording,visual improvements like repeating icons and more.The list is getting longer by the day, as we learn more on how users are interacting with the feature and what common writing issues they face. We will not only point out the mistakes, but give yo u solution ideas.How it works?Using the Content Analyzer is easy as 1-2-3.Log into .Open your resume.Turn on the Show Mistakes toggle in the left-hand-side panel.And done! The Content Analyzer has gone through your resume content and marked in red all parts that need improvement. You will see not only the mistakes, but also some helpful tips on how to solve them.Try it now it’s free!The Content Analyzer can help improve sentence quality, remove clutter and overall provide better and more focused content on a resume. Our aim is to bring the experience as close as possible to interacting with an experienced human reader, while having the scalability needed to bring this brand new feature to all users.Looking for more inspiration? Check out our resume examples section that got people hired at their dream jobs.When youre ready,  build your resume now.