The Technical Resume Objective

If you’re looking for a technical job with a firm that has more than a thousand employees, your electronically submitted resume will almost certainly pass through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). An Applicant Tracking System helps IT recruiters parse, process and track the huge volume of technical resumes that are submitted for open positions. The ATS lies at the entrance of the black hole but it is not responsible for most resume disappearances.

Tech resumes disappear for a variety of reasons; fortunately, only a few are out of your control. Here’s an overview of how and why resumes disappear without trace:

Sometimes, the fault lies with the employer. The position was withdrawn or frozen or it never existed outside the hiring manager’s imagination; the technical recruiter dropped the ball or misunderstood the hiring manager’s requirements; or the employer’s ATS ate your resume. Even if the employer is responsible, there are strategies to minimize the negative effects.

Often, the applicant is at fault (not qualified; failed to follow the application process; built a reputation for spamming every open position, etc.) or the applicant’s resume is seriously deficient in one way or another (poorly written; improperly optimized; or contains resume mines such as viruses, inadvertent disclosures, file errors, etc.).

Many Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat resumes have anti-employment mines within the file that prevent that resume from succeeding regardless of the candidate’s technical background, cultural suitability or the content of the resume. If these mines are present, they can prevent the employer’s applicant tracking system from processing the resume or displaying it properly on a computer monitor. Some technical resumes even have flaws that confess to embarrassing details about the candidate without the candidate’s knowledge. An ASCII text resume is rarely the best solution.

You can avoid the technical resume black hole by writing a resume that meets the primary technical resume objectives and following a few essential job search strategies. An effective technical resume writer should know how recruiters, hiring managers, and ATS applications work (and think).

If you wish to succeed in today’s hypercompetitive job market, you need to craft and execute a multifaceted, highly redundant job search plan. You should strive for no single point of failure. And you must seize every advantage available.

Fortunately, even with current high levels of unemployment, the vast majority of techies ARE employed. Tech has not suffered as greatly as other areas of the economy. There are jobs for qualified candidates who are well prepared.

So, if you plan and execute well, your powerful information technology resume will lead to successful interviews which will result in rewarding job offers. Your resume comes first.