Resume question.

I have a question about writing a resume, and if anybody can help, I would be grateful!! I dont know if I am wording it right, but...

My question is: if you are changing careers, doing a total 180 on a career path, and seeking an entry level position for the new career, from like a senior level from your previous career, would you include your previous years of career skills and duties on your entry level resume?

I am trying to get into the IT industry, from owning my own business. My previous experience has nothing to do with the new position, I am seeking. How would I about this. Do I include all my work experience? Is it relevant to list stuff I did most of my career, when it does not apply to the new position.

Any programmers out there, how did you start your careers, if you dont mind me asking.

Thank you

It would be relevant to me if I were looking to hiring you. I haven't changed careers, as in my employer. I have changed jobs within my employer often, ever 2 - 4 years. I look for jobs that offer new opportunities to learn new thingies and skills and challenges; so I would understand that in you. If you didn't show your previous work, I would be wondering what you were doing all that time... For me, people who apply to our jobs that come from within the same work responsibility, pretty much the only way to have the EXACT experience, often don't bring any new thinking...

Yes, include it.

Avoid big employment gaps.

Also, while the field is different, describe what you did. Did you make/evaluate proposals? Did you establish time or financial plans? Did you establish and meet schedules? Did you solicit and meet customers? Were you responsible for meeting customer needs? Did you have to learn new technologies?

You want to market your skills at meeting challenges. You're applying those skills to a new field. Cover that in the objective portion, as in "Apply planning and technology skills learned in 'farming' to an IT support role."

We're pulling for you!

I agree. Tailor experience to your new career. I'm sure you analyzed, problem solved, gathered information, etc...

Always highlight your skill sets on a resume despite changing career fields. you would be amazed how often non-technical skills are valued in the IT world. Specifically if you are able to understand the technical aspects but then have the people and communication skills to translate all that info for non-technical folks.

Include it. Agree with what hodge says above about avoiding employment gaps. Your skills and experiences gained from owning your own business no doubt has attributed to your growth as an individual. That's what's most important in my opinion.

Thanks for the input. Googling now so I can reword some skills and duties to more fit for "corporate" terms.

Couple more questions:

Do I need a cover letter?
Do I need to tweak my resume for each position applied for, bc they require some different requirements for different companies.
What are the best websites to look for employment? So far using indeed, dice, monster. Any others? My wife says Craigslist.

"Portable skills" are critical across the board...any job.

How you articulate them is key.

Cover letter never bad. That said, in the info age, they're less and less effective. They tend to get "torn off" and discarded in company HR shops.

I can and will provide advice if you want it. I was a headhunter for several years...long ago but I've kept my finger in it since then.

PM me...or not.

pleasant1911 said:

I have a question about writing a resume, and if anybody can help, I would be grateful!! I dont know if I am wording it right, but...

My question is: if you are changing careers, doing a total 180 on a career path, and seeking an entry level position for the new career, from like a senior level from your previous career, would you include your previous years of career skills and duties on your entry level resume?

I am trying to get into the IT industry, from owning my own business. My previous experience has nothing to do with the new position, I am seeking. How would I about this. Do I include all my work experience? Is it relevant to list stuff I did most of my career, when it does not apply to the new position.

Any programmers out there, how did you start your careers, if you dont mind me asking.

Thank you

Click to expand...

First, regarding your resume:

Start by writing down every little thing you did that could possibly be related to computers or programming. Ever set up an Access database? Then put that down. Also, if you ran your own company then how did you manage that company's IT business? Even a 1, or few, person operation has to have some kind of strategy. Capitalize on that experience and be able to share what you did.

Study and pass certifications. The certifications will get you into an interview and there they only care if you really know what your talking about. Some certifications, like for desktop or systems admin, are easy to get. The interviewer only cares if you know what your talking about, not extensive experience. It might be good to start there, rather than programming. As a desktop or systems person for a large organization there might be room to laterally move into an entry-level programmer position. What I'm trying to say is that it might be easier to get in on a more technical position, like systems admin, and then migrate from there. To do this you have to be very likeable and develop a great relationship with managers and other programmers.

Second, my career:

I started out building PC's and doing network/systems admin stuff. I worked for small companies which couldn't afford separate programmers, systems admin, network and desktop guys. I became the "yes" man for everything, even if I couldn't do it--I figured it out. There is a certain hunger for wanting to solve problems that you can't teach or learn. You gotta want it!

Here is my story:

Prior to 1997 I built PC's and then peppered the major city I was in with resumes and phone calls. Calling just about every company, big and small, to talk to the HR person to send them my resume. I started studying for my Novell certification, which at the time was desirable. I could get an interview because people saw that I was working towards what they needed. I was also cheap. My first IT gig I made $7/hr. It was enough for me at the time with a $300/mo rent so I was happy. My first serious IT gig was with a small company that only had 2 IT people. The boss was a super nice guy who taught me about working hard. He was relentless in solving problems. He believed you just had to look hard enough and try enough things to fix it. I learned that his interaction with his customers is the key to success. He approached each of his customers as if they were his friend and remembered something about them. I tried to emulate that and when he moved on that left me in charge of a 100+ node network with 1 year of experience. I worked a lot of unpaid time but learned so much. Not just the technical skills but also about interaction with management and customers.

My experience there led me to another network/sys admin position at Duke Hospital. Coolest f'ing job I've ever had. I think I made $11/hr. My take away there was a great relationship with my boss and always trying to improve things. The nature of the job, 24/7 support for operating room computers, helped me to understand that to be successful you always needed to be available. Sometimes I would get paged out of bed at 2AM to put paper in a printer because that was a job beneath an intern doctor at the best hospital in the world. But I did, and it got me an "at-a-boy" which my boss then became a great reference when my wife and I moved back to MD.

In MD I landed a job with an awful company and boss. I was desperate for a job so I took it. Pay was ok. They fired me unjustly. State of MD labor board sided with me so not only did I get unemployment insurance benefit but also MD was running a $10k grant at the time for re-education. This was another milestone in my career. MD didn't just give me the money but made me sit through a series of classes which taught me about my career. One of the segments was about the book "What Color is your Parachute?" That taught me that I am responsible for my career so that I can't depend on my employer to help me grow. With the grant money I took, and passed, a local college's software developer certificate program. I probably did about 3x as much work as anyone else in that course. I spent a lot of nights learning cool new stuff.

From there I landed a job with a very small insurance company that only had a budget for 2 IT people. What got me that job was mainly being able to recite the answers to the interview questions that the software developer certificate program taught me. The one guy they already had was the sysadmin and senior programmer. For the first few months I worked my tail off trying to impress them. Again, applying the things I learned in my previous job about being very nice, sociable and the yes-man in the company. After 3 months working there they gave me a $3000 bonus. My second year was a $10,000 bonus. They ended up firing the other IT guy because he was running his own business on company time.

They sold that company and I went to work in a more systems admin role for a small government contractor. I did everything I could there to pad my resume with things related to programming. So all the scripting and internal web site design. All the Access and Excell VBA stuff looked like I was a real programmer there.

I then got a call from another insurance company that was looking for the exact skillset I had while working at my former insurance company. Something about that specific file format for the insurance claims data. He said he found my resume on Monster.com after a restless night of not being able to sleep. At this job I was able to really focus on my programming skills. I googled the latest programming techniques for the type of business problem I was trying to solve. I bought a book, studied it on my own time and then wrote design documentation of the solution. I sold it to my boss (again, the people skills were key here) who let me program the way I wanted to. I learned so much about the new technologies (.net, XSLT, XML and web services) at the time. Again, I spent A LOT of my own un-paid time learning this stuff to accell. I finished the project they hired me for then the owners of the first programming company wanted me to come back to work for them. (this is the company they sold and started another doing virtually the same thing after the non-compete ran out).

I went back to work for them because they liked me. Again, the key to a successful career in any field is: do the decision makers like you? You not only have to be their friend but be able to explain technical things in a language they understand. That is how trust is developed. At this firm they didn't really care how I did things, just that I got them done. Again, a lot of late nights with unpaid over-time. I taught myself Java there with a couple good books. From that I developed a solid understanding of Object Oriented principles. I also learned about data transformation and loading. To me, this is the heart of most of what I deal with as a programmer now. That is, taking data from a source you don't have control over and putting it to a place that your user wants. Also, dealing with sudden, unexpected, changes in source data formats. This was huge, in that, it helped me see the bigger picture to enterprise data problems.

The problem with this job was that it was a small shop. Everything I did was because of what I learned from googling. I needed to learn how to do things in a team, with other programmers, Database Administrators, Project Managers, etc.

I finally applied for, and received, an offer with a government agency which promised those things I recognized I needed in order to advance my career. It's been a struggle here but I've learned as much as I am willing to put into the position. Now I am a section leader of 5 other programmers helping to make them successful at their job. I am also learning, and still doing, a lot of new coding. Because this agency has no idea what they are doing the technology required to do the job is left entirely up to me. So I spent a lot of unpaid time learning stuff on my own. I now make over $100k because senior management sees the value I am able to contribute to the organization.

My few key points:

* Be the nicest guy your customer ever met. Learn to empathize with them, assure them it will be ok, and then fix their problem.

* you will need to spend your own time, unpaid, to learn stuff. In short: you are responsible for your own growth.

* hunger for your own goals and growth. Do this within the context of point # 1 of being nice. I've met plenty of IT people who were right, but complete pricks. I can't want to work with them.


This has been my experience. I wish you luck, feel free to you, or anyone else, to contact me and I'll do my best to point you in the right direction. Part of a successful IT career is luck but I've found just being nice and hard working will get you most of the way there.

yes on cover letter. do a little research on your prospective employer and show you did that on the cover letter (i'd like to work for a $500mm company such as XYZ, or a company with 25% annualized growth such as xyz, etc). also highlight a few job requirements and address your experience and expertise regarding them. just remember people aren't going to read a book, so keep it short and to the point.

F-Stop said:

I agree. Tailor experience to your new career. I'm sure you analyzed, problem solved, gathered information, etc...

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Bingo. Don't expound; be concise but include specific examples if you can. Focus on problem solving abilities and self-direction; these are prized in IT. More good advice above.

Best of luck to you!

Thanks guy! Lots of useful information. I am going to work on a cover letter this weekend. Its hard switching careers. I guess I was always used to being in my shop, in my own little world, and just never understood, how hard it is trying to work for somebody.

Absolutely right, gamer_jim, that its a lot of studying and doing stuff on your own. Might be PMing some of you for more advice, so thanks a million for the offer of help.

Don't be surprised if the first look your resume and application get is from an automated system. You may need to adjust key words or skills to what the posting states. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Soft skills are also important. I've seen several times a person hired that was a good fit for the team and could be trained over someone else with straight tech skills. It's tough. Don't get discouraged. Interview as much as you can also. Even if it's not a job your completely sold on. The interview experience is very valuable.

I've been in your shoes several times, and it always turned out well. I have been told that a lot of tech companies now use something called a word cloud to filter incoming resumes. Apparently it is programmed to look for a high concentration of buzz words to try to narrow down the field of applicants. I imagine bigger companies use them more than smaller ones.

As others have said, we all wish you the best!

Curious as to what prompted your decision to change careers? What do you do now?

Ive often thought about changing things up.

pleasant1911 said:

What are the best websites to look for employment? So far using indeed, dice, monster. Any others? My wife says Craigslist.

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Check usajobs, county and state listings. Working for the government on some level isn't a bad thing and they employ every skill set under the sun.

Thanks all for advice guys! Will be looking at usajobs, I have not heard of that website. I currently own a liquor store in the hood in PG county. If you look at the DC map, I own/operate a liquor store where, the first base on the baseball diamond would be. Literally on that corner but on MD side.

Been operating it since my late twenties, and been doing it for 14 years, and went back to school for computer science degree, having three boys oldest 11 this year, and youngest 2, and working 6 days a week, I figure sometimes you have decide between family or money. I want to be there on Saturdays and enjoy Friday nights, with the family and not just Sunday's. Many other reasons, but mainly seeking new opportunities bc I am able to. I also have a possible buyer for my business, so hopefully I will never look back, God bless.

rgramrat, if you want to change things up, go for it. It might be like having two jobs and might not have any fun times for awhile, but if you have a goal you want it's possible. it might be the hardest thing and a huge gamble and investment, but betting on oneself is the best bet,especially if it's regarding your own self and family.

gamer_jim said:

...helped me to understand that to be successful you always needed to be available.

* Be the nicest guy your customer ever met. Learn to empathize with them, assure them it will be ok, and then fix their problem.

* you will need to spend your own time, unpaid, to learn stuff. In short: you are responsible for your own growth.

Click to expand...

Very neat post. After reading it four times I picked out the above three main points and noticed they parallel the most successful times in my career. I will be talking about these points in a meeting I'm having with my teams on Monday as these points fit right in to my industry (24/7 support industry).

Excellent post, Jim.

Check out linkedin for the company CEO's etc. See what you have in common with them. Sometimes it's school, sometimes hobbies. I got a position with a company because the guy who was doing the hiring is a shooter. I included my NRA certs and love of Sport shooting on my cover letter (just for this one company). We talked about the job for 15-20 minutes and about shooting for an hour. When I was leaving, I thanked him for his time and asked politely if I could call back to see if they had made a decision. He said" Why? Can't you start next week?"