Your resume doesn't excite the prospective boss - Why?

Catherine Karena

Resume purpose

  • Gets you a phone call or interview
  • Provides evidence supporting your salary goal
  • Clarifies the value you bring to the reader

    ​Understand therefore you are the product
    and your resume,  is your product brochure

Who? How? What?

  • Who are the gate-keepers?
  • How do they screen?
  • What are the 3 key things they're looking for?

Who are the gate keepers?

Recruiters (External or Internal)

Human Resources

Team members

...making it to DECISION MAKER

       34 secs max

       90% 1st page

       200+ resumes​​

 

 

How do they screen?

 
  1. Core Relevant Skills

  2. 'Cultural' fit

  3. Ongoing Learner

3 keys to the gate

Know yourself

Have a concrete idea

of what you're looking for

and be able to articulate it.

Pitch Statement

  • A succinct statement or 2-3 sentences...
  • ...explains what your role has been
  • ...in what industry and domain
  • ...includes some pointer as to what value you can bring to an employer / team /company.

example

I combine a number of testing activities (test design, execution, reporting etc) into one multi-threaded process saving the team time and money. I can do this because I’ve studied hard and taken the craft of testing software seriously. As a result I’m able to apply critical thinking, advanced testing skills and the kind of judgement you get with lots of training and lots of experience in solving hard problems in real-world scenarios. I’m a good communicator and coach, so I can transfer these skills to other people too.

example

"When you release your new web app, the last thing you want is for it to fall over as soon as your customers actually start to use the thing, or the next time your marketing team decide to advertise a Black Friday deal in a prime-time ad break. I can help you to load, performance and failover test your application and architecture ahead of time so you know that’s not going to happen. While I’m doing it I can also check for security issues that your developers may have forgotten about. And the best thing? All the tools I use are open source – so no licensing fees." (Performance Tester)

example

"I am an experienced mechanical engineer with over 20 years expertise in Noise and Vibration and other engineering areas. My areas of expertise includes CAD, FEA and other numerical analysis and simulation used to Improve Structural Designs and Fluid Dynamics (including Aerodynamics and Plastic Injection Mouldings). I am experienced in a wide range of Noise and Vibration measurements, including Signal Processing applications for Sound & Vibration analysis.”

example

“I am a strong embedded C Developer who’s created highly reliable software for radio telescopic instrumentation for CSIRO. I am experienced with low level hardware control via device drivers to GUI and client server control applications. I have created software from requirement to completion in an unsupervised and highly demanding technical environment.”

Research

  • Who is advertising your jobs?
    site:seek.com.au "Quality Coach"

  • Who is your audience?
    site:au.linkedin.com "name of recruiter"

  • What is in demand or trending in your domain?
    (meetup.com, quora, user forums, LinkedIn...)

practical exercise

Go to Google.com do these boolean searches...

site:seek.com.au "core skill set" AND "job title"

site:au.linkedin.com "recruiter" OR "company"

? Role Profile == Environment  Profile ?

  • Team size, composition, interactions 
  • Development/Creation process to build product
  • The product.
  • The problem the software/hardware/methodology solves
  • The problem-scape of the workplace 
  • The main challenges how they were met
  • Technical stack, tools, and architecture
  • Approaches, techniques, thinking

Where are you positioned

in the market?

EXAMPLE - TEST ENGINEER:

  • Testing moved upstream in terms of unit, component and integration testing; again requiring QA to be involved much earlier than they traditionally used to be
  • Small, highly collaborative cross-functional teams
  • Stress on automation and automated testing solutions
  • Wide adoption of CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Delivery) pipeline
  • Context-Driven Testing, Heuristic and Risk-Based approaches for experiential testing.
  • A much bigger/diverse role for the tester to play in the QA or development team.
  • Involvement in software design so that appropriate tests can be identified to test the core functionality
  • Teams using mocking framework to mock out dependencies so that they can move faster in terms of software development without having to wait for upstream and downstream dependencies to be available.
 

OFF TOPIC

Explore what's in demand?

In your field what is in demand?
e.g Tester:

  • Experiential (Manual) testing skills only will not cut it.
    Do a boolean search in google ( i.e. site:seek.com.au testers) to see what I mean.

     
  • Widespread demands for skills in UI automation, API and Web Services testing and CI/CD
     
  • Solid capability in enterprise skills (communication, problem-solving, design thinking, collaboration, teamwork etc.) that allows you to develop a mindset that works for a shift-left approach to work, a highly collaborative work team, where quality is the responsibility of everyone in order to produce product faster and the focus is smarter, faster whilst not sacrificing quality.
     
  • Skills and techniques that allow for faster bug hunting and reporting.

 

OFF TOPIC

Resumes

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

Examples...

Portfolio...

E.G: Test-Ed Trainee Portfolio

Resume Sucking...

  • Talking about what you can do, not what the company is looking for.
  • Creating a long, boring autobiography nobody is going to read.
  • Not addressing gaps or red flags.
  • The resume is focused on you, not on the Hirer or gate-keepers.
  • Using Templates written by generalists, Microsoft, foreign countries etc.
  • Doesn't answer the hirer's common job history questions, fast.
  • Don't copy the last company's 'about us' page to describe your last job.
  • Not crafting the resume with the job role in mind.
  • Bad design or formatting.
  • Bad grammar, spelling and excessive use of self-flattering adjectives.
  • Length, not more than 4 pages, ideally 2-3 pages.
  • Don't do 'one size fits all' resumes. Tweak the resume for the desired role.
  • Don't pray and spray.

Resume Resources...

Resume builders

Resume basics

Standard

Resume/CV & Cover Letter

Review, edit, & rewrite your resume/CV and use it to write a customizable cover letter.

7 Days Delivery

Unlimited Revisions

  • Editable File

  • Review & Critique

  • Edit & Rewrite

  • Custom Design

  • Cover Letter

 

$250

Basic

Resume/CV Only

Review, edit, & rewrite your resume.

 

7 Days Delivery

Unlimited Revisions
 

  • Editable File

  • Review & Critique

  • Edit & Rewrite

  • Custom Design

 

$200

 

Premium

Resume/CV & Cover Letter

Review, edit, & rewrite your resume/CV and use it to write a cover letter and LinkedIn Profile.

7 Days Delivery

Unlimited Revisions

  • Editable File

  • Review & Critique

  • Edit & Rewrite

  • Custom Design

  • Cover Letter

  • Optimize LinkedIn Profile

$500

Resume Writing Service

Catherine Karena

ckarena@test-ed.com.au

0437 900 054

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By Catherine Karena

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How do you get past the gatekeepers, using your resume as a ticket to win a role that fits your skills and interests

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