For this entry I thought I’d take a break from the typical SaaS performance/delivery/design entries to something a little different:  resume styles for IT / Sys Admins.  In the 10+ years I’ve been in the industry I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of interviewing something along the lines of 150-200 potential sys admin candidates, along with having to read something like 500 resumes.  I fully concede that there are others who have read/interviewed way more than I have, but since my resume gets complimented and imitated fairly often by my friends and colleagues, I thought I’d share how mine is structured.

My approach was to keep it simple, with (what I feel to be) the more relevant things up top, and scaling down to the less relevant things.  (Note: my resume is at www.eliminated.org/resume.php, feel free to provide any comments or feedback.)

—– Resume Layout —–

NAME (bigger font than anything else on the page, but not distastefully so)
contact info (in smaller font than anything else on the page)

Profile
I know a lot of people hate these “this is who I am in a nutshell” sections but I feel like this is a good place to give your audience an idea of who you are and where you see yourself going.  Anything more than a 2 or 3 sentences becomes a bit much to digest, and if you find yourself needing more than 2 or 3 sentences then maybe it’s time to re-think what it is you’d like to get across first.

Skills / Knowledge
Next to your name and how to get ahold of you, this is the next most important section for a tech resume.  By the time a company gets around to interviewing someone for a position they usually have a decent idea of which skills would be required.  Providing a brief and easy to read summary of what you know will allow someone to gather this information about you in a very little amount of time.  A little sub-categorization is nice here, depending on your focus.  For example, don’t put “Office 2000/2003″ in the same category as “Apache 2.x”- these are significantly different technologies and realistically anyone who cares about one isn’t going to care as much about the other.  On my resume, you will find the following sections: Operating Systems, Programming Languages, Software, and Services. 

Recent Experience
This section is what most people think of when they think resume.  Here, list your -relevant- job experiences, with 2-3 highlights from each job that you believe are indicative of your best/most employable qualities.  I would say that 2 or 3 of your most recent relevant jobs should be more than enough for a clear indication of what you are capable of.  A lot of times people have way too many jobs in this section, and list way too much about the specifics of what they do.  I tend to speak broadly enough that 1) someone with a non-technical background could accurately convey what I do, and 2) shows the scope of what I’ve done.  A good rule of thumb seems to be that if you can’t describe it in one sentence, then you need to re-consider what you’re trying to say.

Education, References, etc.
These sections are more there for formality than anything else.  If you have college degree, list which college, the year you graduated in, and which degree you have.  I’ve seen resumes that listed the fraternities/clubs that that someone belonged to, and frankly, it’s just not all that important in the decision making process. 

For references, a simple “References available upon request.” is more than enough.  If a company wants you bad enough they will call you and ask for the data.  This is also a good control loop to put around access to your references.  These people are (hopefully) people with whom you’ve made a positive impression; you don’t want to lose that because they are now getting spammed because of you.

If you need more space to fill, then you could put in anything else you feel might be relevant.  For example, I put down that I’m fluent in Mandarin Chinese.  This skill isn’t something I hope to have to count on for a job, but it shouldn’t hurt and really can only help.

I think one of the main problems with Sys Admin resumes that I’ve seen is that SA’s typically (or stereotypically) aren’t the kind of people who are all that great with marketing themselves.  The problem is that in order to get better jobs and to climb that proverbial ladder, you have to convince people who ARE good at marketing themselves that you too are worth it.  There are lots of ways most people could market themselves better, but at the end of the day, the first thing a prospective employer will see is your resume, and you should make that a top priority to get in order.

I welcome any feedback and suggestions that anyone reading this may have, since I don’t work in HR and don’t claim to have all the knowledge in their arena.  I do believe, however, that you should keep your resume up to date and accurate even while not searching for a new job.

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