IT and Scientific resumes — pride vs. praise!

Because you are an It or Scientific professional who may need to write or update your resume, there are many things to consider, and we’ll talk about those in some detail, but please feel free to ask questions, and I’ll do my best to share my thoughts.

The fact that you are even thinking about writing or updating your resume means that something is going on– you are suddenly out of a job, you really don’t like your job and have decided that being temporarily unemployed is better than going back to your job again this week, you know that your job is being eliminated or “down-sized”, your spouse has gotten a better job in another city so you have to move there also, and on and on. You need to update your resume.

Regardless of whether you are starting to build your resume for the first time, or are simply updating it, you really do face some unique challenges (due to your type of work) which I believe are based primarily in the difference between “pride” and “praise”.

Too many times, I see resumes of IT and Scientific professionals that are 6-16 pages long, and that is just the resume itself! Then, I get many more pages of publications, patents, papers, presentations, etc. It is basically a very detailed accounting of every professional move that ever occurred. I completely understand how this happens, but it really hurts you in the job-hunting process, in my opinion. All of this is really disconcerting to talk about, because everything you put on your resume is a part of you….part of your pride in your work, and the desire to praise and highlight yourself in written form, so as to impress potential employers.

Pride in your work is great, but not to the point of listing everything on your resume. The whole point of the resume is to convince the HR manager or hiring manager that you are a very good candidate for their open job, and that the decision to consider you further will be made in a matter of seconds, not minutes. Therefore, use this as the chance to praise yourself for work well done! Highlight your accomplishments in terms of profits made, money saved, processes stream-lined, errors eliminated, and so forth. Don’t get into the minutia of how it was done…..just say it and move on.

I think discussing pride can get in the way of an excellent job well done if overstated. Therefore, I recommend thinking in terms of praising yourself and acknowledging your job well done. I do realize that the difference between pride and praise might be small, and only in my mind, but I simply encourage not overdoing it!