Jeff Snyder, the President of SecurityRecruiter.com, a search firm highly specialized in information security recruiting, says that security professionals who want to be at the right place at the right time from a career growth perspective should think about the quality of their security resume.
When actively searching for a new security job, it is critically important to present a resume that will immediately capture the reader’s attention. The recruiter or human resources representative who typically receives your resume before it lands on a hiring manager’s desk will seldom read your resume. Instead, the amount of data that crosses their eyes in the course of a day causes these recipients to scan resumes.
Can your resume be quickly scanned? Will the reader’s first glance entice them to want to actually go back to read your entire resume?
Follow these steps the next time you create or update your resume and you’ll increase your odds of seeing your resume float to the top of the stack.
For more ideas on making your security resume stand out and rise to the top of the stack, read Jeff’s article, “10 Key Components of a Successful Security Resume.”
Click through for helpful tips on making your resume shine.
The statement about you that should make the reader want to read further into your resume. You want this statement to market your talents, strengths, contributions and desires without saying too much or too little.
Employers generally like to see that security job candidates have completed a 4-year degree of some sort. If you started on a college education but for some reason have not completed a degree, consider placing this information at the bottom of your resume so the reader can focus on your professional accomplishments rather than your lack of college degree.
Choose the most marketable and most recognizable certifications to place near the top of the resume. Remember, displaying too many certifications at the top of the resume pushes the body of accomplishments down too far. Choose carefully and consider a supplemental section toward the end of the resume if you have many certifications.
Future employers want to know not just what you were hired to do for past employers, they want to know what you have accomplished. They want to know what value you created for past employers. Make your resume stand out by writing it from a business perspective.
If you do not currently belong to professional associations, you might want to consider joining one or more. By displaying professional associations that you actively participate in on your resume, you are demonstrating to a future employer that you are serious about your chosen career of security.
Limit this list to the most current and most meaningful training you have recently received – not every class you have taken since the beginning of time.
Security professionals who write well possess a skill that many of their peers do not. If you have strong written skills and can produce additional documentation to demonstrate your writing ability, this is a good place to let a future employer know how you stand out from the crowd.
If your background includes public speaking engagements, many employers will want to know this. Security professionals who possess exceptionally strong written and verbal communication skills do not walk through most company’s doorways on a regular basis.
