Pam and I made every excuse we could for one more errand out in this sparkling, crisp (sounds like a soft drink) day. All of that rain has resulted in flowers and green everywhere, and we could see mountain ranges to the North from Broadway that I don’t think we’d ever seen before, or at least not this well.
We got lots of odds and ends, and in general, prepared for Pam’s trip that will take her to our old haunts in Boston, her brother’s family in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and a final stop in Minneapolis for the STC (Society for Technical Communication) Convention. She’ll be on the road for nearly 3 weeks. I hope none of her Koi die while under my care.
As for me, I get to continue my job search, which has continued with help from friends and a new career management company that I’ve signed on with. The latter has involved lots of definition of career goals, compiling ‘narratives’ of my work accomplishments to date, and meetings with my assigned contact at their offices. I leave off names and companies here for a reason: The meetings, and my interactions with this person are not going as well as I would hope. Why? As it turns out, the person who is to be my advocate, coach and adviser at this company is decidedly non-technical. Really non-technical, as in not knowing much about the Internet, Computers, the Web, or anything remotely related to Technology. This has proved…challenging to me and is fairly troubling. After all, how can someone advise you on your career if they have absolutely no understanding of what you do to begin with?
Case in Point: At our last meeting, they brought up their Savings and Loan’s web page on their screen, turned it to me and asked point-blank: “Is that all you do”? I was a little taken aback. “Yes, I answered, after a moment of silence where I held back the urge to lean across their desk and punch them in the face, “But that’s not all of it. It’s like asking a Furniture Designer if all they design is chairs.”
While it’s a good thing for me to make sure that I can relate to a non-technical person (which is not something I usually have a problem with; I’m a self-admitted geek but I am a result of a Liberal Arts Education), I have to say that rewriting my resumé so that all of the technological reference are either eliminated or simplified is not something I would have done on my own, and I wonder if it’s going to serve me well. Will I have a ‘David for Dummies’ version of my resumé that I trot out for someone who I think will give me a blank look if I mention the words ‘User Interface’? Then again, how would someone like that ever be interviewing me for a job in the first place?
On Tuesday, I am to appear for my meeting in formal job interview attire. According to their rules, that’s a dark suit and tie.
Techies in Vancouver: When was the last time you appeared for a meeting in suit and dark tie? It’s not that I don’t have one, or haven’t worn one in my life, but it seems to reinforce the idea that these people have no freaking clue whatsoever what tech culture is like.
If this continues to irk me and interferes with my job search, I may request a different person to work with, which may prove a bit uncomfortable for all concerned. Nevertheless, I’m going to give that some serious thought. In the meantime, it’s back to my old resumé, which I’m trying to use to create more ‘narratives’: “Once upon a time, there was a need for a clickable HTML prototype…” (*Doh!*)
Glad you and Pam got to get outside and enjoy the weekend — It was perfect, eh?
Sounds like your career-help agency is presenting a few challenges. I sure hope it ends well for you.
Safe trails to Pam!
Following up on your about page and listing e‑mail addresses. Couple of items you could do:
One, place an image of your e‑mail address in the contact section such as I have done here:
http://cuberules.com/blog/contact-scot/
It was a free image and you can see the site by clicking on “Protect your email address, make it an image!” below my PS.
You can also get a plugin called “Obfuscate E‑mail” by Mike Smullin that takes any source code email and turns it into hex characters making it virtually unrecognizable to machines. I’d put in the second link, but spam comment software will often take the comment away. But, e‑mail me if you need the link.
And, since I hate spam.…I use both!
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The real question to ask on the resume is who they believe the hiring audience is going to be for the resume. I have technical people, but you have to get past me in order to get to the nitty gritty technical stuff. I can tell when a technologist is pulling wool over my eyes, but not all of the specifics. My people can.
So, do you need a narrative resume that outlines what you actually accomplished for your company and that’s the purpose of this resume? Or, do you have a technical resume that just shows how much you know and how you implemented what you know into projects?
The hiring manager will be interested in accomplishments. The technical people will want to make sure you know your stuff — so they won’t have to carry you along… ;>))
Nice blog…Scot
Bob ‑Pam thanks you for the best wishes.
Scot — Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve actually had to employ 2 different methods for each of my blogs in order to keep them from the Spambots.
For this one, I’ve used the site ‘Contactify’, which provides a free contact form (because the Free Web Hosting I’ve been getting from i6 doesn’t appear to let me do a form that sends mail.)
On my other blog, I’ve been trying to get the Contact Form plugin from Mike Cherim to work, but that seems to be having some ‘type mismatch’ problems (have contacted him about it, and hopefully will get some guidance).
As for the Obfuscate Email plugin, I’d like to insert the address in my content (rather than in the template itself) so that sounds promising. Don’t worry about the address — you’ve probably provided enough information for me to be able to to find it through Google. By the way, I tried to contact you, but the link on your page doesn’t appear to work, and I can’t see the email image you are referring to… Argh, what problems these SPAMbots have caused us all!
Re. the resume, I think you’ve nailed it. I believe that they are targeting upper management, rather than a technical manager to see this resumé, although I have to say that even with ‘The Peter Principle’ taken into consideration, they seem to be aiming pretty low on the know-how scale.
About the ‘narrative’, this is part of their ‘method’. I’ve had resumés which showed what I did for companies, but this company’s format is very much based on a structure that is something like: ‘For X’ (which is optional), ‘did Y’, which resulted in ‘impressive metric Z’. I can see the value in that. What I was not so hot on was changing terms like ‘Web Application’ or ‘Intranet Portal’ to ‘Web Site’, which strikes me as both vague and simplistic. But perhaps I’m being too technical here to see the forest for the logic trees.
Thanks for reading and contributing! Nice to know that I’ve got folks out there checking it out!
By all means, do the “X: Y lead-to Z” thing, but keep the “web application”, “intranet portal” etc. Those key words are going to make a difference to the hiring managers and the techies alike.
“Web site” is about as unspecific as “IT thing” these days.
Ouch! I say, next time, go for the lunge!
And until then, I wonder — is there such a thing as an ‘addendum’, a one-pager at the back of the resume that you could title, somehow, to be for the eyes only of the geeks in the dep’t? sort of a lightly-humourous acknowledgement that you’re in a specific (read: elite) cadre, but don’t want to bore/confuse the rest of the world?
An update: Got the contact plugin to work. It was just a bone-headed configuration error on my part. Good thing, too.
Jan — I agree — Web Site is a no-no and I’ll insist on that.
Nancy — That’s an interesting idea. Not sure if it’s covered by another section of the resumé, which they deem ‘skills’ (where someone might put ‘SQL Programming’ or ‘UNIX Administration’). Ironically, my ‘skills’ usually look too soft to be technical! (‘Conceptual Mapping’, ‘Information Architecture’, ‘Prototyping’, ‘Requirements Gathering & Analysis’ and ‘Usability Testing’ are not terms typically used by most IT Staff, even if that’s what I do for them). So I find myself (as often happens) in this strange gap between being undecipherable to both technical and non-technical people. An attached sheet might do the trick, although there’s a chance it could get separated and lost.
Hi Dave. I thought long and hard before commenting, because I don’t have complete info, but it doesn’t sound like the agency you’re with knows what to do with you (duh), and they’re trying to force a round peg into a very square hole. (And if you strip out all the techspeak from your resume, what does that leave you with?) Unless you really want a career in upper management, it doesn’t sound like they’re helping you much. Do you have other options? ‑Anne H.
Hi Anne, about 3 or 4 times, (including calling a ‘Web portal’ an ‘Online application’ and replacing ‘Personalization’ with ‘Customization’) we had an awkward moment and then she just pasted what we had done so far into a new document and said that she would mail it to someone else. I knew this was the way we are heading, and it’s a shame it has come to this.
I agree with you, and this issue caused things to come to of a head yesterday. I tried to frame it as ‘Let’s get another pair of eyes’ to look at this resumé. I said ‘You’re not in the Tech Industry, and I’m not exactly sure what to put here, but why don’t we go to someone who is and perhaps they can offer some insight. The strategist said ‘Well, it would be someone like me who would be looking at this resumé. I am the one here who looks at tech hires for this company.’ To which I wanted to say ‘Gee, that would explain a lot, since the company is woefully behind in application of technology (IMHO, each client should have their own Wiki/blog with a some added structure so each strategist could keep tabs on how their progress is going, the tests that they give could be internal rather than outsourced — and the results lost, as they were in my case), but I held my tongue. No point in making a direct insult when things clearly weren’t going well.
Finally, after I must have said ‘I’m not comfortable with
Part of the problem is that I am looking for more of a management position. It’s what I was heading for when I left my contract in Fidelity back in Boston (had I stayed there, I’m guessing that eventually it would have turned into a permanent position, but that wasn’t offered in 2005 so I had no tethers to keep me there). But just because I’m going to be doing more managing and less designing/architecting doesn’t mean that I can shed those words from the resumé.
It became clear, yesterday, that I had lost a lot of confidence in my strategist, which is something that I suspect happens from time to time. I’m sure I’ll be labeled as a ‘problem case’ by them, which I think is unfair. I had put my concerns into my feedback to them. I felt that this lack of understanding of what I do could end up making us miss possible target companies, could keep my collateral materials from being up to snuff, and seemed to miss the culture and expectations of Tech Industry people. I even mentioned that the resumé templates that they gave me were embarrassing and even broke some typographic rules of thumb (ALL CAPS HEADERS for all sections) and had some crude methods of keeping everything on a page (one big table for all content).
At any rate, we’ll have to see how this plays out. Thanks for your comment. I’ll let everyone know how this turns out. Certainly instructive for anyone in tech who is thinking of using a career management company to help them get a new job.
hey dave
as a former full-time and still part-time employment counsellor, i got quite antsy when i heard about the advice you got.
first of all, and correct me if i’m wrong, it looks like you have one or two resumes. in my experience, a successful resume is ALWAYS targetted to a specific job/situation. for an upper management job you apply upper management speak, for a techie job you plug in something else. if you were to look at one of my research resumes as opposed to one of my management resumes, you’d think it’s a completely different person.
(i once had a client with whom we managed to get the targetting of resumes and cover letters down to such a fine art that she would get interviews for almost every one of her applications)
i completely agree with jan. a resume that would use the word “web site” would be embarrassing. same thing with caps. geesh.
and the attire? again, what you wear needs to be appropriate to the industry. i’ve seen some employment counsellors seriously suggesting to construction workers to show up in a suit and tie for an interview. you can image the results! a good rule of thumb is to wear industry and job specific attire, with just a touch more neatness or formality. it just so happens that for a lot of jobs that ends up being suit and tie — but not for all.
ok, i’ll get off my soapbox now.
Hi Isabella -
Thanks for the advice. I think that part of the challenge that we are facing is that my role is somewhere between a team leader and an internal consultant (go-to guy) for User Interface. That’s a position that has some management (or at least, project and team management) aspects to it as well as some ‘in the trenches’ design work. The idea of doing 2 completely different resumés here might not work, since I will need to demonstrate if not equal parts tech and people skills, some degree of each of them.
Not sure that I can tailor the resumé to each job application, but there have been relatively few that are a good match for me lately, so it might be possible if there aren’t many of them.
I gritted my teeth and did the suit test for them. I doubt if I’ll wear the same dark suit for a real interview — I’ve always followed the same rule you described for interview dress (same as industry but a bit neater and more formal, and certainly not off the scale in formality, as it just makes you look silly and the hirer treat you as such).
Why do they do still do it? I suspect it’s because many of their other clients have been new immigrants who are not at all familiar with the subtleties of business dress (like one who apparently showed up for this little ‘test’ with a dark suit…and white socks.)
sounds like you should trust your gut and get a new advisor. how is a techno illiterate going to help you get a job at a tech company? most of those hiring WILL understand technology.
if you show up at an interview for a tech job with a suit and tie( unless it’s selling tech to large corporations ) you’ll probably get laughed at or have your resume tossed in the circular file.
If you’re looking for work and make it hard for potential employer to contact you like this contactify thing does, they’ll be less likely to hire you. since you’re essentially saying my need to prevent spam is more important than my need to make it easy for potential employers to contact me.
once you have a job then go nuts on the antispam stuff but what’s more important, getting a job or reducing the spam?
you could do something as simple as putting an email me line and posting a gif file of your email so people can read it and type it in but spambots can’t harvest it. you also don’t have a phone number listed.
Thanks for the feedback, Pete. I’ve done a lot of what you say. I’ve sent a very strong email to the company demanding that I be assigned to a different strategist.
As for the contact stuff, only this blog needs contactify; I’ve added a more standard contact form to my business blog. No recruiter will be visiting this blog (and I’m fine with that — not ashamed, but this is my personal live, not my business blog).
For the most part, I’ll be contacting employers, not the other way around, so I’m not too worried about the contact forms. Now, as for my online portfolio, that’s something altogether different. That is going to require a complete rework, as a talk I went to tonight at the STC made clear to me.
I just found your post about looking for work. If you’re still looking for work, we recruit for science and high tech people at our agency, but are only able to help people who’ve collected E.I. in the last three years or who are currently collecting. Have a look at our website at http://www.fwt.bc.ca if you’re interested, give me a call. As for dressing in a suit and tie?? The small and mid-size IT companies that I help recruit for expect more business casual — more like khakis and a dress shirt (nicely pressed, of course). But the bigger guys (like ActiveState or Business Objects) it may be better to go more formal.