Hot Tech Skills Bend Resume-Writing Rules

Hot Tech Skills Bend Resume-Writing RulesHot Tech Skills Bend Resume-Writing RulesWhat grabbed the recruiters eye welches the security pros certification, on top of his resume and smack dab in front of zu sich face.CISSP Hows that for a resume title?The acronym stands for Certified Information Systems Security Professional. Listing just the acronym without spelling it out, let alone using a more generic term such as Security Engineer, might put off the uninitiated. But to recruiters and hiring managers in the know, CISSP says it all Its one of hottest tech qualifications on the market.Make no mistake Most resumes need to be tailored to an HR generalist. But for a few specialized roles, such as this area of security technology, recruiters steeped in the discipline are trained to look for specific jargon like CISSP, and putting it front and center makes sense.Before you bend resume rules to lead with a term like CISSP, do market research to find out if your qualification is really a go lden ticket to a new job. That means talking to recruiters familiar with your field as well as peers in the same role and former bosses.The CISSP certification is very sought after, very hard to get, said Elizabeth Lions, an author and career coach who was headhunting recently for just that type of professional. In 10 seconds, the candidate made me know he had that credential. Its to engineering as CPA is to accounting. Its a credential thats sought after, that takes time and energy, and that separates him out from other candidates.The hiring process is far from transparent, so its always enlightening when a recruiter pulls back the curtain on the mysterious decision-making process - the one that makes them pluck a resume out of the applicant pile. This time around, Lions shared some specifics about what it was in this professionals resume that scored him the job. Read on for a peek into her impressions of a winning resume.Revising Resume Rules for Special CasesMost of the time, re sume-writing protocol mandates that resumes start off with name and contact information, followed immediately by a title. An executive summary most often follows the title.In this case, the candidate, Nate, started with his name and contact information. But then, in place of a job title such as Security Engineer, he instead listed the title Certifications, under which he put the sole acronym CISSP.Nate then replaced the Executive Summary with a Skills section that contained a slew of bullet points, including * Checkpoint * Juniper * Cisco * Bluecoat * Nortel * Crossbeam * Nokia * SourceFire * RSA * TippingPoint * Qradar * Qualys * Solaris * Tufin * Firemon * ASA * Citrix * Netscaler * DLPIf youre as hot as a CISSP, the rules are clearly a little different, Lions said. Nates certification is his title. His list of skills is his executive summary.His title is Security Engineer, she said. If you did a Google search on the top most sought-after IT skills, thats in the top 5. I already k now hes in high demand.A title like Security Engineer can mean a lot of different things and include duties that dont necessarily get into the nitty-gritty skills her client was seeking, she said. By inserting the specific certificate title, Nate got across the fact that he had met the certificates rigorous requirements a minimum of five years of direct full-time security work experience in two or more of 10 information security domains. (A four-year college degree, a masters degree in Information Security, or a number of other certifications can substitute for one of those years.)Catching the Recruiters EyeIn a nutshell, heres why Nates resume jumped out of the pile for Lions, in her own wordsHe outlined all his skills at the top, so they are easy to find for any recruiter, HR partie or manager.His skills are in top demand, and he knows it.He put his recent credential at the top, knowing that this credential is hard to find in the market.He has worked for top companies that are wel l-known.In addition, Nate had his act together when Lions interviewed him. Here are factors that impressed her beyond the printed page, again in her own wordsHe was very clear in his career moves, which were well thought out when I spoke to him.He had a profile of where he wanted to work and where he did not want to work.He could clearly tell me why he is all that and a bag of chips. He has his sell.He knows who/what/where he wants to be when he grows up.