​Your target IT role is in high demand. You possess the right technical skills and experience, but you still are not hearing back from recruiters and hiring managers?
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More than ever before, companies are looking for the right soft skills when hiring IT professionals. Your resume and LinkedIn profile should be optimized to highlight your soft skills and clearly communicate how you fit in to the hiring company’s culture and work environment. In this post we share the top soft skills companies are looking for when hiring IT professionals.

​Companies are progressively shifting to do more work remotely. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly been a key driver for investment in cloud / SaaS based tools designed to improve team collaboration, project delivery and operation management. This shift in the work environment introduces a change in desired skill sets IT professional candidates should possess to work effectively in a remote work setup.
While certain soft skills have always been a key requirement for senior management, technology leaders and other management positions (such as project manager, product manager / owner, and business analyst), more and more companies are looking for soft skills in candidates for all types of IT roles, including technical roles that used to be considered self-contained / task oriented roles.

​The list below is IT Career Transformation’s analysis for the top soft skills hiring companies are looking for in technical IT roles, such as network engineer, security analyst, data engineer, software developer and technical support just to name a few.

​In which sections of your resume should you include soft skills?
Soft skills should be integrated into your introduction, professional experience, and areas of expertise / key competencies sections. You can check out our previous post on how to build a strong introduction to your resume and your LinkedIn section.

​The following is an example of how to integrate soft skills into a professional experience statement:

“Effectively collaborated with diverse infrastructure support groups including network engineering, provisioning, security operations and telecom vendors to analyze and resolve critical issues, maintaining strict service level agreements (SLAs).”
This example communicates at least five soft skills about the candidate including being a team player, interpersonal skills, time management, problem solving and working efficiently under pressure.

In the Area of Expertise (or Key Competencies) section, you can list your key soft skills such as “Creative Problem Solving” along with other professional areas of expertise such as “Network Security”.  
 
Do you possess any of these soft skills? Does your resume showcase your relevant soft skills that hiring companies are looking for? 

​Do you or someone you know need help with optimizing your resume and LinkedIn profile with relevant soft skills and keywords to effectively communicate your professional brand?
 
Please visit www.itcareertransformation.com for more information and to schedule a free initial consultation to discuss your career goals and how best we can help!

www.itcareertransformation.com | 678.224.8715 | info@itcareertransformation.com

First, it helps you stand out from other candidates who do not bother to send a thank you email.
Secondly, it is your opportunity to show appreciation for the time spent during the interview, and for the opportunity to learn more about the company, the position and being considered for it.
Lastly, it is always important to follow-up. It provides an easy way for the interviewer to simply hit reply and let you know about the position, either way. Hopefully, they will let you know you are moving forward in the recruiting process and providing you with next steps.
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​​When should you send a thank you email?
After the interview (phone interview, in-person or via video conference), ideally by end of day. Hiring decisions can be made fast, you want to show that you are interested in the position as early as possible.  
  
What to include?

• Thank the hiring manager for their time.
• Keep the message short and make it personalized.
• Highlight one thing that you have learned or that excites you about the position.
• Include a short summary of experiences / accomplishments mentioned in the interview that are most relevant and can create value to the hiring company.  
• Close the email with reiterating your appreciation, your interest in the position and that you are looking forward to next steps.

 
Need help crafting a thank-you email? Here is a thank you email template that you can download and customize for your use:

A week went by and still no reply?
Do not give up, send a short follow-up email. Hiring managers can be busy.

​Example for a follow up email:  

“Dear <Name>,
In case you are still considering candidates, I am following-up to let you know of my sincere interest in this exciting position. I hope to hear from you soon with next steps.
 
Best Regards,
<Your Name>
<Your Phone #>”

​Do you or someone you know need help advancing your IT career?
 
Please visit www.itcareertransformation.com for more information and to schedule a free initial consultation to discuss your career goals and how best we can help!

www.itcareertransformation.com | 678.224.8715 | info@itcareertransformation.com
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​Can your resume tell your story in less than 10 seconds? Recruiters glance through many resumes until they find the one that draws their attention. Your resume and LinkedIn profile introduction should standout and be crafted effectively to catch their eye quickly and convince them you are the optimal candidate.
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Here are 7 leading questions that can help you determine what to highlight in your introduction:

1. What is the target role that you are ready to move into?
2. What is your unique value proposition that you can bring to the organization that will hire you?
3. What are your most significant recent career accomplishments that are aligned with your target position?
4. What are your key areas of expertise relevant to your target position?
5. What are your top 3 personal qualities that can help support your target companies’ objectives?
6. Are you able to connect the dots from statements made in your introduction to accomplishments and responsibilities listed in your professional experience that support these statements?
7. Is your introduction optimized with keywords that show your professional expertise and are relevant to your target position? 

Here is an introduction example, crafted for a Senior Enterprise Architect resume:

"Visionary and results driven senior enterprise architect, specialized in large-scale cloud deployment and migration projects (Azure, AWS, Google). Executive presentation skills, strong communication and leadership skills. Proven record of success in collaborating with business and leading engineering teams to design and implement innovative, scalable and reliable enterprise solutions that improve user experience and drive business growth."
 
Following the introduction, you can add 2-3 recent accomplishments, preferably with tangible results. Here is an example:

"Led development of next generation service management solution, based on Google cloud-native enterprise services, enabling improved performance and operational cost savings of $2.5M/year."

Another thing you can consider adding as part of your introduction is a list of key areas of expertise which can be visually organized by a) soft/interpersonal skills, for example “Cross-Functional Team Leadership”, b) technology expertise, for example “Google Cloud Platform” and c) process expertise, for example “SDLC (Waterfall/Agile/Scrum)”

Your resume and your LinkedIn introduction are your opportunity to effectively present yourself, showcase your specialties and how you can create value. It is the most important section of your resume and LinkedIn profile, it should quickly convince hiring managers and recruiters that you are uniquely qualified for the position.

​Do you or someone you know need help with effectively communicating your professional brand?

​​Please visit www.itcareertransformation.com for more information and to schedule a free initial consultation to discuss your career goals and how best we can help!

www.itcareertransformation.com | 678.224.8715 | info@itcareertransformation.com

Are you maximizing your career potential? Make it a goal for the new year and we are here to help! 
Done right, resume or LinkedIn profile keyword optimization generates opportunities for your target role and delivers a competitive edge. Is your resume and LinkedIn profile optimized with the right keywords and skills?
In this post, we share a list of the top 15 keywords used in resumes of IT Career Transformation’s customers in 2019. 
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​IT roles of customers we worked with in 2019:
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Cloud Architect | Network Engineer | Enterprise Architecture Lead | Software Engineer | Full Stack Software Developer | Software Development Lead | Database Developer / DBA | Product Manager / Product Owner | Business Analyst | Project Manager | Senior Project Manager | Technical Project Manager | IT Leader - Enterprise Applications | IT Leader - Infrastructure | IT Manager / Director of Application Delivery | Senior Client Partner | DevOps Specialist | IT Infrastructure Manager | QA Analyst | QA Lead | Director of QA and Testing | Support Specialist | O365 Consultant | System Analyst | Senior Program Manager | Software Engineering Manager | Networking Solution Engineer | Networking Support Analyst | Security Support Specialist | Technical Support Manager | Pre-sale / Solution Engineer | Solution Architect

​Download a copy of IT Career Transformation 2020 Calendar for your use:

​​The IT Career Transformation team is wishing you a prosperous New Year!  

Considering a career transition to the IT industry but your existing resume has nothing to do with IT and you feel stuck? IT Career Transformation has helped many customers transform their resume to IT industry to achieve their career goals. In this post, we share 10 tips and leading questions that can help you transform your resume and LinkedIn profile to your new target IT role.

1. First, define your new career roadmap and specific target role(s). It will allow you to find and highlight those skills (technical or soft skills) that are most relevant to your target IT role.
2. Identify areas aligned with your new target IT role from your professional experience that can help position you as an IT professional. Did you have any technical / IT related responsibilities and accomplishments? Focus on tangible accomplishments (providing numbers if possible), and what was the benefit to the organization or the customer / end user.
3. Have you worked directly or indirectly on IT projects? Your involvement can be, for example, defining business requirements or testing a new IT system.  What was the benefit of the project?
4. Have you worked with technical teams or with IT vendors?
5. Identify existing soft skills that are relevant and have prepared you to your target IT role. For example, are you a fast learner? Find specific points in your existing resume that can be rephrased to highlight these skills.
6. What types of technologies or IT systems have you used to perform your previous roles? Did you gain an expertise using a certain technology or IT system?
7. Have you provided training involving use of technology / IT systems that can be highlighted?
8. Include any relevant professional training and certifications you have completed in areas related to your new target IT role. If you are a recent graduate, include coursework project experience. For each project, summarize project goals / challenges, your contribution and benefit (which problem you were able to solve for the potential customer / user).  
9. Review job descriptions of potential opportunities aligned with your target IT role and identify 3-5 job requirements that you can find specific accomplishments from your previous roles that demonstrate your ability to take on the required responsibilities.
10. Most importantly, are you comfortable with doing whatever it takes to be successful in your new IT role? You need to believe in yourself and be confident that you can do it!

Do you or someone you know need help with a career transition to IT or improving your existing IT resume? Learn more about our services. Call 678.224.8715 or email us at info@itcareertransformation.com to schedule a free initial consultation to discuss your career goals and how best we can help!

​Optimizing your resume and LinkedIn profile with the right keywords is critical for ranking high in Applicant Tracking System (ATS) search results, and for evaluation done by recruiters and hiring managers to identify top candidates for the job. 

​As part of IT Career Transformation methodology, we consistently analyze relevant job descriptions from leading career job boards and leading technology organizations’ career sites to identify critical keywords and skills on demand. After analysis, we work with our customers to incorporate and highlight these skills in their resumes and social media profiles. In this post, we share analysis results performed for IT Manager / DevOps Specialist role.
 
The table below includes the top 25 skills and keywords found in IT Manager / DevOps Specialists job descriptions, with percentage of job descriptions that had at least one instance of the keyword.

Do you already possess these skills and if so, are these critical keywords included in your resume and your social media profile(s)? Should you set goals to improve / acquire these skills this year? 

Contact IT Career Transformation to ensure your professional profiles (Resume and LinkedIn) are up-to-date and include the right keywords to improve your profile visibility and ranking in search results.
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​​Note: The results provided in this sample analysis are focused on technical keywords and skills only. There are other types of keywords, such as action verbs, soft skills and business keywords that should be analyzed for inclusion in your resume and your social media profile(s). The search criteria and job description sources used for the analysis can vary between two customers with the same IT role, and are dependent on career objectives, industry, technology domain and company size preferences.  

There is more than one good answer to this question. You should prepare your answer as this can be one of the questions that will come up in your next interview.  And yes, it depends on the type of position you are applying for.  A few considerations when preparing your answer: Is the position client facing? Is it part of a PMO or Delivery organization? What is the team size, structure and location? (e.g. global matrix structured team vs. co-located)

Here are IT Career Transformation recommendations for common top skills required for high performing IT project managers:
1) Ability to translate vision and business strategy into a successful project plan
2) Ability to remove blockers and impediments
3) Ability to connect and drive cross functional teams
 
1) Ability to translate vision and business strategy into a successful project plan -  successful IT project managers possess the ability to bridge between business and technology. They work to understand business strategy and goals, what are the business problems that the project will solve and what will be the project benefits (e.g. revenue increase, operational cost saving, improved quality and customer satisfaction).
A good project plan should deliver results that correspond to business objectives and projected project benefits. Consider including the following steps:
  a. Breakdown project scope into workstreams and develop level 1 plan that outlines project phases, work packages and key milestones.
  b. Review level 1 plan with impacted teams, identify deliverables and owners, develop detailed tasks and dependencies.
  c. Identify and solve resources conflicts and optimize project schedule.
  d. Get commitment from impacted teams and communicate plan to key stakeholders.  

2) Ability to remove blockers and impediments – a good project plan will help to minimize unexpected issues during the project lifecycle, yet, a big portion of an IT project manager's time is expected to be spent on issues identification, analysis and driving team to resolution. Project managers should be ready to provide examples of where the project went off track, and what they have done to bring it back on-track. For example, an unplanned task that impacts project schedule was identified during project execution, describe what actions were taken to minimize the impact (for example using a fast-tracking schedule technique, streamlining operational processes, or re-planning project activities to deliver incremental value faster to customers)

3) Ability to connect and drive cross functional teams – large scale IT projects can involve multiple technical teams, business stakeholders and vendors which can be located in different countries, bringing communication challenges and time constraints. Project managers should be prepared to describe situations where they used their leadership and interpersonal skills to effectively communicate projects tasks, deliverables and issues and to drive cross functional teams to deliver project results.  
 
Overall, the skills that you highlight in your resume or during an interview should resonate with your experience and your ability to provide tangible examples of success stories.   

No matter what role you are interviewing for, most likely these questions will be asked, and a good interviewer will follow up with more specific “why” type questions, to make sure your answer is sincere.
 
Tell me about yourself?
This is an open question, the interviewer is not really looking to hear your life story, rather he is interested to see how you communicate and learn more about you from a career perspective. 
Start with an overall statement about who you are professionally.
“I’m a technology program manager with a strong background in enterprise software development and process improvement”.
“I’m an IT professional with over 15 years of global support management. I built global support organizations that operate in very dynamic and high performing environments, supporting global customers with very strict service level agreements.”
Then continue to describe your professional experience in the last 3-4 years that is relevant to the role you are interviewing for.     
 
If you are currently employed, expect the interviewer to ask – why do you want to leave?
If you want to leave because you are looking for a higher compensation, that is fine, but probably not something the interviewer will appreciate much.
You don’t want to be negative or complain about your current employer.
You can start by saying something along the lines of: I have been with company A for 3 years, I gained good experience working with great people on a few challenging projects, but I’m now at a point to look for other opportunities where I can continue my professional growth. 
I’m looking to join a company that is dynamic, growing, invests in their employees and supports opportunities for change and growth.

This is when you want to switch to talk about the organization you are interviewing for and describe the reason that you are interested in this opportunity. It can be a professional area that you are passionate about, industry you want to specialize in, or the organization has values that you appreciate and that align with yours. You can also mention that you have been following this organization for quite some time, and are excited to hear about all the new initiatives, products and services that the company is developing.

Following the introduction questions, the interviewer will have a set of professional questions to evaluate your knowledge and specific experience for the role you are interviewing for.
 
Most likely, at the end of the interview, the last question will be - do you have any questions for me?
Asking questions at the end of the interview is highly important and can demonstrate your understanding of the role, your interest in  learning more, and moving forward in the recruiting process. If you are truly interested in this role you should have at least one question, but try to keep it under three, being respectful to interviewer’s time. 

Example of questions to consider:
What are the key challenges and opportunities the business is facing this year? 
How would you measure success for the team and for this role?
How quickly are you looking to fill this position?
I hope to be considered to move forward, if so, what is the next step?
 
There are different ways to answer these questions, most importantly, stay positive, energetic, and genuinely provide answers that reflect your values and goals. 

If you are in information technology (IT) industry, you already know the importance of keeping up with technology advancements, new methods and tools that you may need to use in your next challenging IT role or project. Moving from one project to another using totally different technologies and methods within less than a year is very common in IT. Keeping track periodically of your new learning and accomplishments is essential and should be reflected in your resume.

Following are 5 guidance points to keep your resume up-to-date:  

1. Review and update your introduction section – is it still presenting well “who you are”, your “professional brand” and what “you bring to the table”? Any new capabilities that should be added? Think about your differentiators and use the right keywords to update your introduction, make sure it is aligned with your current career objectives.
2. Keep track and update your resume’s professional experience section with your projects’ accomplishments. Where possible include impact and measurable results. For example: “Reduced annual operational costs by $250,000...”, “Reduced number of post production defects by 30%...” “Successfully launched an awesome product in less than 6 months from inception to production, generating revenue of $10+ million, exceeding projection by 20%”.
3. Ensure alignment between your introduction and your professional experience. Is your professional experience section includes responsibilities and accomplishments that support your introduction and your career objectives?
4. Condense work history that is over 5 year old. Consider removing listed responsibilities and accomplishments that are not value added, or not contributing to your current career objectives.
5. Make sure you are using the right phrases and keywords recruiters and ATS systems are looking for - add any new tools, software packages, methods with strong market demand that you have recently used and gained an in depth knowledge of to your resume's technical skills and professional experience/ expertise sections. In order to get a sense of market demand you can simply search on job boards for jobs associated with a name of a tool, skill or methodology. Here are three examples for project management related keywords searched on a job board and the number of jobs associated with these keywords nationwide:  
   “Portfolio Management” – 2500+ ; “Scrum” – 1690 ; “JIRA” – 795
   You can search for any other keyword relevant to your target position and location to get an idea of industry demand.