Category: Resumes

My first #STCSummit: the debrief #STC23 #TechComm

This article is going out a little later than I’d hoped, but better late than never, and I wanted to get this out while stuff was still fresh in my mind.

After taking some time to recover, I’ve returned home from my first STC Summit! I’ve wanted to attend this event for some time, and I’m very glad I did!

I flew down on a Sunday, checked in, and took some time to decompress from my travels. (It took two flights and stops in two different cities before I arrived in Atlanta.) Even before the two-and-a-half days of sessions began, I connected with several people and even got into some deep discussions related to my upcoming presentation later that week.

I met a lot of people at this event, including STC leaders and other attendees. As it is with any conference event, networking is a huge part of it, and I did my share. My list of LinkedIn connections expanded significantly during the week! I also brought a stack of my business cards, thinking that I would have plenty to hand out. As it turned out, I should’ve brought the entire box. By the end of the conference, I only had two cards left. Personally, I like my business cards, and they’re always a conversation piece whenever I hand them out. I love the reactions I get when I give them to people!

There were a number of things that I took away from the Summit. Among them:

  • Jack Molisani, one of the people I met, had an article he had written about beating the ATS. I make no secret of the fact that I absolutely hate ATS. But regardless of how I feel about it, ATS is reality, and job hunters need to deal with it.
  • Jack also offered to review my resume. While I thought my resume was pretty good, I also recognize that there is always room for improvement, so I took him up on it. He gave me suggestions that didn’t even occur to me. Among them: list what I do at the very top, right-justify dates on my experience and education, use san-serif fonts to save space and for better readability, don’t list proprietary systems (genericize them instead), and make my accomplishments more actionable (e.g. “saved the company millions of dollars by…[doing this]”).
  • Jack also introduced me to Dr. Craig Baehr, the editor of Intercom magazine. We spoke about possibly writing an article in which they feature STC members (like me!). I told him that I was definitely interested, and would be in touch. I hope I can live up to the standards!
  • There were a number of sessions that spoke to me. I attended Amanda Patterson’s presentation about creating a taxonomy. I have to admit that information organization is an area when I could use some brushing up, and I found her presentation to be quite informative. I also attended Swapnil Ogale’s session about building an online portfolio. I have to admit that this is an area that had not occurred to me, and it’s definitely something I want to build. I’ve put in for jobs where employers ask me for writing samples, and I would send them a link where I keep a few PDF files. This session taught me that an online portfolio can be just as critical as a resume. I intend to set aside some time to build such a portfolio. The next time I’m asked for writing samples, I’ll be able to send them here.
  • I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about my own session. My job hunt presentation has been one of my best sellers as of late. I think this is one of my better presentations, and everyone I spoke with afterward said that I gave a good presentation. I’m happy to help people out as much as I can, and hopefully, attendees will have gotten something out of my session.
  • As part of the Summit activities, a resume review session was also offered. During my presentation, I encouraged people to sign up for it and get their resumes reviewed (a point that I mention during my presentation).

Of course, Summit wasn’t just about presentations. Conferences are also about people. I’ve attended enough PASS events that I have many friends I look forward to seeing, and STC Summit gave me an opportunity not just to network, but to make new friends as well! I succeeded in doing so; over the course of the first couple of days, although I had only just met most of these people, I felt just as comfortable around them as I do with people whom I’ve known for several years! I had no problem attending social events, spending time, and sharing meals with them!

They did have some evening social events planned, but I wasn’t able to partake because of my own plans. When I told people that I was heading to Atlanta for this event, several of my friends who live in the Atlanta area contacted me about getting together. I had dinner with four different friends over three nights. It was great getting together with friends whom I either haven’t seen in many years or don’t get to see very often, and it just added to my great experiences during my trip!

I decided to take Amtrak home, rather than flying. I enjoy traveling by train, and I wanted to take my time going home. It allowed me a chance to see parts of the country that I never get to see, as well as meeting more people on the train. My journey home, which took almost exactly 24 hours, included a three hour layover at Penn Station, which allowed me a chance to get myself a decent dinner in midtown Manhattan before catching my connecting train home.

I’ve spoken four times at PASS Summit, but this was my first time speaking for an STC event. This was important to me. Although I have been heavily involved with PASS, SQL Saturday, and a number of related events for several years (including co-founding a local user group), STC is much more closely related to what I do professionally, and speaking at STC Summit is something that has been on my bucket list for a little while. That item has now been fulfilled. That doesn’t mean I’ll rest on my Summit laurels; I fully intend to apply to speak at this event again, and I very much look forward to the next time!

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Greetings from #WELocalHartford #WELocal @SWETalk #SWELocal #WELocalHartford2023

I am writing this from a workstation area in the Connecticut Convention Center, location for the WE Local Hartford conference.

I arrived in Hartford around 6:30 pm last night, managing to arrive before a snowstorm hit several states in the Northeast (I wanted to make sure I left early as I could for exactly this reason). The conference takes places over two days, although I arrived too late to take part in any Friday activities. Friday night was uneventful; I checked into my hotel, got myself dinner, and retired to my room for the night.

Today (Saturday), for me, is pretty much where all the action has happened. After checking out of the hotel, I went to the convention center, registered, found my room, and went to the main ballroom to get myself breakfast, as well as the opening keynote. I’ll admit that I went primarily for the free breakfast! The keynote was given by Dr. Jenny Gusba, a senior director at Pepsico. She mentioned a couple of things that resonated with me. She talked about taking advantage of your strengths and addressing your weaknesses (or, as she called them, “opportunities”), and also mentioned how her challenge in her work was “how to take science and be able to get the masses to relate to it.” The former addresses things that are in one of my presentations, which the latter is a good description of what I do for a living.

My two presentations went well. Both were well-attended (there were at least twenty people in each), and I had a very receptive audience. A lot of questions and comments (which I encourage) were shared at both sessions. I assume that they solicit session evaluations for these presentations, but so far, the feedback I’ve gotten has been positive!

Pepsico, one of the sponsors for this event, sponsored a “networking lounge,” where I hung out in-between my two sessions. I did strike up a conversation with a young lady from Pepsico who said to me something to the effect of “thank you for supporting (women in engineering)!” That was a nice little acknowledgement of my participation at an event that is dominated by women.

Lunch was also an interesting event as well. They billed it as a “power networking” lunch. The rule was that you were not allowed to sit at a table where you knew more than half of the people. (To facilitate this, each ID badge had a sticker on the back that designated your “assigned” table.) I sat at a table along with four young ladies, all (as far as I knew) of whom were students. One was a student at NJIT, and two (who knew each other) were from Ohio State. (I didn’t get much info from the fourth, and she didn’t stay very long.) I found out that they were chemical engineering students. (As it turned out, I happen to know chemical engineers from each of their geographic regions. Hey, more reason to network!) We had a wonderful conversation; I gave them my business card and told them to drop me a line if I could be of assistance.

I thought the networking lunch was a great idea! In my networking presentation (which, unfortunately, I didn’t do today), my attendees get an opportunity to network. When we do so, I tell them that I have one rule: you are not allowed to engage someone you know. You can’t; that defeats the entire purposes of developing networking contacts. Networking is such a huge deal in career development these days; I do have an entire presentation dedicated to it, after all, and I’ve been attending more events where they put an emphasis on networking (including this past PASS Summit). I hope more events schedule activities that facilitate and encourage networking!

I should also mention that this is the second time I have spoken at a WE Local conference (the first was in Buffalo last year), and for me, it’s a bit of an interesting experience. I’ve been speaking at various events (mostly SQL Saturdays) since 2015, but Buffalo last year was the first time that I spoke at an event where the attendees were predominantly female. STEM professions tend to be predominantly male, so there have been efforts by groups such as SWE and WIT to get more girls and women interested in pursuing STEM careers. That comment I got today in the networking lounge meant a lot to me, and I like to think I’m doing my part to contribute.

As I write this, there’s still a couple of hours left in this event. I’m going to see how the rest of the day winds up, maybe do something for dinner, then make the two-hour drive back home. Looks like the weather has cleared, the roads are clear, and I think it should be smooth sailing back home.

Upcoming speaking engagements (as of 8/30/2021) #ProfessionalDevelopment #TechCon21 #PASSDataCommunitySummit #DataSaturday #SQLSaturday #Networking #SQLFamily

Now that I have a couple of confirmed speaking engagements, I figured that this was a good time to update my upcoming speaking schedule!

Confirmed

These engagements are confirmed. I don’t have exact dates or times for either of these (and I might not for a little while); all I know is that these events are confirmed, and I am definitely speaking at them!

Note: these are both virtual events. To the best of my knowledge, they are both free to attend (well, I know PASS Data Summit is, anyway), so check the links for more information and to register.

All my presentations (so far) are professional development sessions, so feel free to register for these, regardless of whether you’re a techie or not. Don’t let the “technology” conferences scare you!

Still waiting to hear

I’ve submitted to speak here, but as of right now, I don’t yet know whether or not I’ve been picked to speak.

So, that’s my speaking schedule so far. These are all virtual conferences; I don’t yet have any in-person ones scheduled. Hope to see you at a conference sometime soon!

#PASSDataCommunitySummit — I’m speaking! #PASSSummit #SQLSaturday #DataSaturday #SQLFamily

And now that it’s been made public, I can announce this! (I’ve actually known about it for a week, but haven’t been allowed to announce it until now!)

I have been selected to speak at PASS Data Community Summit!

For those who’ve been following along, PASS Data Community Summit is the successor to PASS Summit, the worldwide conference for data professionals! It has been described as “the Super Bowl of SQL/Data Saturday” (I, personally, have described it as being “the All-Star Game of SQL Saturday“)! This is the third straight year that I will be speaking at this conference. Being selected just once is an honor. Being selected twice is amazing! Being selected three times? I suppose that makes me a star!

I will be doing my presentation about joblessness and unemployment, titled: “I lost my job! Now what?!?” This talk is geared toward people who are out of work and seeking employment; however, if you’re a student trying to break into the professional ranks, or even if you’re looking to make a change, you can get something out of this presentation as well!

PASS Data Community Summit is online, and it’s free! All you need to do is register! Go to their website to register!

I am excited to be speaking at this conference again, and I hope to see you there (virtually, of course)!

What are you proud of? Tooting your own horn on your #resume — #JobHunt

Yesterday, a good friend of mine texted me, asking me to send him my resume. This particular friend works for a major nationwide consulting firm. I won’t say which firm, but I will say that it’s a household name. In his position, he is often in a position to hire, and he is well-connected.

After reviewing my resume, he texted me back again, saying “let’s talk. I have some ideas that might make your resume even better, and I want to make sure those changes are implemented before I pass your resume along. Do you have time to talk tomorrow?”

I got off the phone with him a little while ago, and what he had to say was eye-opening — and in our conversation, I managed to improve my resume even more.

His advice (and I’m paraphrasing here): “what projects are you the most proud of? As a hiring manager, that’s something that stands out to me. Your work experience looks good, but everything you mention is general day-to-day activities. You don’t really list much in terms of a specific project you worked on. For example, something like ‘I designed such-and-such app that helped people do their work more efficiently by whatever-it-did-to-help-them, saving the company millions of dollars’ is something that would stand out to me. What are you the most proud of? Make sure you highlight that in your resume.”

I did raise a concern. I told him, yes, there is a project that immediately pops into my head, but it goes back many years; in fact, it’s a project I worked on for a company that goes outside of the past ten years. He told me, “that doesn’t matter” (he also relayed to me a project that he was proud of that took place over twenty years ago). “I’m proud of that, and I still include that in my profile.”

I had my resume file open in front of me during our conversation. While we were talking, editing ideas started forming in the back of my head.

His suggestion was to include these projects in my work experience, but I decided to leave that section alone. Instead, I decided to rewrite the Career Summary section of my resume. I wanted to do it this way for a couple of reasons: one, this appears at the top of my resume and would be the first thing that prospective employers read, and two, rewriting the Work Experience listings would have been a lot of work, and could have potentially resulted in document restructuring issues.

In terms of projects in which I take pride, I immediately wanted to mention a server inventory database that I built years ago; whenever anyone asks me about a professional project of which I am the most proud, this is the one that I always think of immediately. I also wanted to mention my involvement with recovery efforts after 9/11 (my Disaster Documents presentation is based on this experience), so I included that on the list as well. I also wanted to include a project that was much more recent, so I included a user guide that I wrote from scratch, including developing the Word template for it (additionally, I wanted to highlight that it was for a SaaS application). Finally, I also wanted to make mention of a project in which I learned about MVC concepts (unlike the other projects, this one does appear in my Work Experience section).

There were also a few other things I wanted to do with my Career Summary section. A while back, I came up with my own personal tagline, but it did not appear in my resume. I wanted to make sure it was included. Additionally, whenever I submitted my resume, I was finding that I was experiencing confusion on the part of prospective employers. I was (and still am) targeting primarily technical writer positions, and I was often questioned, “with all this technical experience, why are you targeting tech writing jobs?” I wanted to restructure it in such a way to explain that I was drawing upon tech writing as a strength, without sacrificing the fact that I had a technical background.

Before I made my edits, the Career Summary section of my resume looked like this.

(The Career Summary section of my resume — before)

When all was said and done, this is how it came out.

(The Career Summary section of my resume — after)

Additionally, I had to make changes to other sections of my resume, entirely for formatting purposes. I wanted to ensure that it would fit on two pages. I consolidated a few sections of information that, while helpful, I didn’t think would be as important.

I made the changes, updated my resume files (Word and PDF), and resent it to my friend. As of this article, I’m still waiting to get his feedback (he texted me to say he was busy, but would look when he had the chance), but personally, I like the way these changes came out.

(Edit: I heard back from my friend; his advice was to keep the accomplishments to one line each. In his words, “make it punchier.”)

You don’t necessarily have to do this within your Career Summary section; this was how I decided to approach it. If you can incorporate these highlights into your work experience listings, then by all means, do so.

I want to mention one thing when adding “proud accomplishments” to your resume. There is a fine line between talking about accomplishments you’re proud of and bragging about things to stroke your ego. Keep in mind that the purpose of a resume is to get you a job interview. Talking about projects you did that made a difference can help with that effort. Bragging about things you did (or didn’t do) will not. Nobody cares about your ego; they care about what value you can bring to their organization.

So what are your thoughts on these changes? Feel free to comment on them, especially if you’re a recruiter or a hiring manager.

Dating yourself on your #resume — #JobHunt

I’ve spoken to a number of friends about my frustration regarding the job hunt (going nine [!!!] months — and counting). I’ve wondered, at times, whether one of the reasons why I’ve been constantly rejected is my age.

Ageism — a.k.a. age discrimination — is, of course, illegal. But when it comes to the job hunt, it’s nearly impossible to prove. I’ve spoken with a number of my friends and colleagues who believe that it not only exists, but is prevalent. (Before anyone decries me for this statement, no, I don’t have any facts to back this up; this is merely what has come up in conversation. Maybe someone who knows more about human resources can explain this better than I can.)

In any case, one piece of advice I’ve received is to only include the last ten years of experience on my resume. That’s well and good, except that I have a lot of relevant experience that goes back a lot more than ten years. As a technical writer, I want to keep all my listings consistent. How do I go about keeping these experience listing on my resume without listing dates?

The solution: I divided the work experience on my resume into two sections. Under my Work Experience heading, I listed my experience going back to 2009 (slightly more than ten years, but for my own purposes, it works). The second section uses a heading labeled “Previous Work Experience (before 2009),” under which I list my positions — without dates — that I held before then.

It seems like a good solution for obfuscating older experience dates that might reveal your age. However, also be wary of other parts of your resume that might also indicate how old you might be. For me, personally, that section was my education. Before I revamped my resume, my bachelors and masters degree listings included my years of graduation. Those years were also removed as well. Prospective employers just need to know that I have those degrees; they don’t have to know when I got them.

So, if you’re a job hunter who’s older than, say, 35, hopefully this tip will help you with your job search and combat any ageism that might exist.

Reminder: I’m speaking at #SQLSaturday this weekend #SQLSat1017

This is a reminder that I will be speaking at virtual SQL Saturday #1017 (Minnesota) this Saturday, December 12.

A vast number of people, myself included, are looking for work. I will do my presentation titled “I lost my job! Now what?!?” this Saturday. I will discuss topics that include, among other things, dealing with the emotional impact, resumes, interviewing, and things you can do to hold yourself over during this period of uncertainty.

Hope to see you virtually this Saturday!

Reinventing the #resume (again) #JobHunt

I had a conversation today with a recruiter — technically, it was an interview, but the way we spoke, it was more of a conversation between an agent (her) and a client (me) — who gave me some advice regarding my resume. I came away from the conversation with a few insights, and I’d like to share those insights here. This is not the first time I’ve written about resumes. I continually learn something new about them.

We left the conversation with her giving me a homework assignment: revamp my resume to incorporate what we had discussed.

Probably the biggest takeaway was to rethink how I was presenting my resume. I shouldn’t have the mindset of a job seeker telling prospective employers to hire me. Rather, I needed to approach it as a marketer. I’m marketing a product. The product I’m marketing is me.

This mindset is important. When you’re trying to present yourself to an employer, you feel a need to impress them with your extensive experience, everything you’ve done, and the many reasons why the employer should hire you. But if you’re marketing yourself, the thought process shifts. Instead, you’re advertising yourself and your skills. “Hire me! Here’s why!” She told me that it’s okay to not put everything on your resume — not lie, mind you, but rather, not throw in the kitchen sink when putting your resume together. Just highlight the important selling points. If they want to know more, they can refer to your LinkedIn profile — and maybe even call you in for an interview (which, of course, is the purpose of a resume).

I found this to be profound, because this is a point that I espouse as a technical writer, and yet I don’t practice what I preach when it comes to my resume. I am a believer in not necessarily including everything on a document. And yet it never occurred to me to apply my own technical writing skills to my own resume. Don’t try to provide every little detail. If they’re interested, they’ll ask for more (and if they want more, they can look at my LinkedIn profile).

I mentioned ageism as a concern, and a possible reason as to why I haven’t had a job nibble in seven months. (I believe ageism exists in the job hunt; it is illegal, but is nearly impossible to prove.) In the same vein of not needing to include everything, one of the takeaways was to only list positions for the past ten or so years. One of my concerns was that my experience before 2009 would likely reveal my age, but at the same time, it was all professionally relevant, and I didn’t want to leave it off. She suggested an idea that had never occurred to me: list the jobs (employer and title), but leave off the dates. Just say “here’s where I worked before 2009.” Again, if an employer wants to know more about those positions, check out my LinkedIn.

As an afterthought, after I’d removed the dates from the older positions, I still had a potential age identifier on my resume: my educational experience included my dates of graduation. Sure enough, in my latest resume revamp, my graduation dates will be removed. Employers just need to know I have a Masters degree; they don’t have to know when I got it.

The recruiter also asked me another question: what accomplishment at each position are you proudest of? I have to admit that that was a good question. She said that it was a question that should be asked for every listed position, and the answer for each was something that should be included on the resume.

I was told, be your own client. Market yourself. When it comes to marketing yourself, you’re your own blind spot. Only when it was pointed out to me did I know that the blind spot was even there.

Your job application was rejected by a human, not a computer.

Last Saturday, at Virtual SQL Saturday #1003 (Memphis), I sat in on Christine Assaf‘s presentation about Organizational Trauma: Mental Health in a Crisis (or something like that — I don’t remember the exact title). I found her presentation interesting and relevant to my own; so much so, in fact, that I invited her to sit in on my presentation and offer any of her insights.

After this weekend, Christine wrote this ‘blog article. I haven’t yet had a chance to fully process it (as I’m writing this, I haven’t had my coffee yet, and my brain is still in a fog), but what little I did process, I found interesting.

I intend to scrutinize this more when I’m a little more awake. And I suspect I’ll be making some adjustments to my presentation.

HRTact

INTRO:
Recently I attended a presentation where a commonly held belief was repeated and I feel the need de-bunk this. The speaker stated “75% of applications are rejected by an ATS (applicant tracking system) and a human never sees them…”

First, I want to point out that recruiters will tell you this is false. As the main users of ATSs, recruiters have extensive experience and years in talent acquisition, and will tell you they hear this all the time and they cringe upon it’s utterance. But if you want to know my opinion on why this “myth” has infiltrated the job seeking world, scroll past all the research and jump to the end.

MY RESEARCH:
Secondly, let’s track down the origin of this false statistic. The speaker I heard it from cited topresume.com. So I did some digging:

From topresume.com

That topresume.com article (which includes the same false stat…

View original post 1,019 more words

I’m speaking this upcoming Saturday, October 3 #SQLSaturday #SQLSat1003 #SQLSatMemphis

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This upcoming Saturday, October 3, I will be speaking at SQL Saturday #1003, Memphis. Of course, because of pandemic restrictions, I will not actually be traveling to Memphis; SQL Saturday #1003 is virtual, and I will be presenting from my home office in Troy, NY.

(In a way, it’s too bad I won’t be in Memphis. I’ve heard good things about Memphis barbecue!)

A lot of people (myself included) have lost their jobs during the pandemic, so it’s especially apropos that I will be presenting my session titled, “I lost my job! Now what?!?“

If you want to check out my (and other great) sessions this Saturday, use the SQL Saturday #1003 link to register.

Hope to see you virtually this Saturday!