Job classification Database... Resume questions.

[Albion]

I've been a Systems Administrator at the same company for almost 10 years now. I am preparing to leave my current position for a new position (You know more money, etc...) But my resume is a little out of date.

I've been updating my resume for a few days but after reading some sample resumes on the Internet I am not sure I am using the right wording. My current title is Senior IS Manager/Systems Administrator, but I never see that in current resumes. I see stuff like Systems Analyst, Senior Programmer Analyst, etc... So I thought either someone could point me to a database of neo-trendy Computer job titles or let me know what my job title should be.

I design and install anything dealing with information systems. I have upgraded and installed Operating systems from UNIX to Windows 2003 with Active Directory. I install Workstations, and prepare software for end users. I do user support and training. I design and program SQL, and their corresponding RDBMS. I've designed web pages and their corresponding SQL backends. I've even done some work connecting manufacturing machine tools to existing 2003 networks, and installed phone systems.

A friend of mine told me 'Systems Administrator' isn't a good title to use anymore, so I am at a loss as to what I should be putting on my resume.

Thanks for any help (And no this isn't meant to be an advertisement)

-Al

 

[RiverGuy]

Why would you put a different title than you have? I don't think one should fib on their resume.

 

[chiph]

Just use your existing title, as the interviewer will know what it is. If they don't, they'll ask (probably will anyway, just to see how what you've been doing will fit into what they'll ask you to do).

Plus, if they verify employment info after you're hired, they'll check with your old company to make sure that was what your title was. Wouldn't want a discrepancy!

Chip H.


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[Albion]

I was talking more about the title under "Position seeking" not under previous employment.

-Al

 

[sedj]

If you search jobserve.com for "systems administrator" there are 33 pages of jobs that contain the title required as "systems administrator".

Stick with it if I were you !

http://www.jobserve.com/it/jobserve...ms+administrator"&order=Rank&WebSite=*&page=2

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[DoubleD]

What do you want to be when you grow up?
It's a valid question your whole life. If you're sending a resume to a company with a position open, then the title of the open position is the position you're seeking. If you're sending your resume to companies at large, put the position you would like to fill. If you like working with Unix, Unix Administrator might be the position you want. If you like the work you're doing now, but think you can make more money at it, put Systems Administrator as the position you're seeking. It all depends on where you want to go with your career.

Pain is stress leaving the body.

DoubleD

 

[screwloose]

I didn't see anything regarding management in your list of responsibilities for your current job.

A lot of people think that including the word or title “manager” in their job title will increase their prospects for employment. In the days since the dot.com bust, IT management positions (as well as all mid-level management positions) are fewer. Companies may be hesitant to hire someone who was or has “manager” on their resume, because they will think the applicant will want more money or they won’t be happy unless they can be or become a manager.

“… at a loss as what to put on my resume…”

The truth has always worked well.

 

[Albion]

Yeah, but the problem is that there are 30,000 titles in the IT industry today, all of which mean the same as two different things; Administrator, or Software Programmer. Or at least they did when I was last in the market. Administrators delt with the hardware aspect and software installation and maintenance, and Programmers dealth with designing software. That's all there was. But now it's so diversified that there really isn't a title for someone who can do just about anything from network design to software programming.

I guess I am trying to find a title I can use in my Objectives that tells an HR department in a professional manner that I am seeking "Any" IT Position.

 

[DoubleD]

The large corporations I've dealt with will actually discourage this:

I guess I am trying to find a title I can use in my Objectives that tells an HR department in a professional manner that I am seeking "Any" IT Position.

It suggests you have no direction, or don't know where you want your career to go. Or maybe you're just trying to get out of the situation you're in, no matter what it takes.
You seem capable and aware, let companies know that.

Pain is stress leaving the body.

DoubleD

 

[screwloose]

I would agree that you need to be specific with HR about the position you want because it shows direction. You may want ANY position, but think about the company you apply to for a second. They have a position open for a LAN administrator and a position open for a System administrator. What are you going to put? “Will accept any position available.” That sounds desperate, not confident.

I worked for a Fortune 500 company and they hire specialists. You need to have a few years experience; working in the capacity of the position you are applying for. For example, if you want to become a Firewall Administrator for them, you would have to have no less than 3 years (preferably 4+ years) as a Firewall Administrator.

The responsibilities you listed above that you do in your current position are exactly what I did starting out 10 years ago; and what a lot of others start out doing too. It is an IT Specialist (for lack of a better term).

Can you list what duties you performed as a manager? Do you know the difference between managing and leading? Is there a difference? What functions does a manager perform? You have to answer these if you want to be a manager, and if you are/was a manager then you better know when applying for a management job.

What are your long-term goals? What are your objectives? You need to know these to get where you want to be.

 

[sedj]

<apply flame-retardant jacket>

Albion :
From what you say you know in your first post, your skill seems this to me :

"Primarily Sys Admin with some skills in web page scripting and SQL scripting".

I would not consider JSP/HTML/JavaScript/PHP/CSS as "programming" skills - these are scripting skills.
Similarly with SQL.

So from your classification of the IT job market - sys admin or programmer - then I would say yours is sys admin.

Which brings me back to the point that there are plenty of jobs that have "Sys Admin" as the required job title.

If you went for a job and said "I know programming and sys admin", and they said, fine, sit down, you have 30 minutes to write a pure TCP/IP socket server & client in either C, C++, Java or C# - could you do it ? Probably not. So you need to ask yourself, are you a sys admin that has other scripting skills (web pages/SQL) or are you a scripter that knows sys admin. Or are you someone who knows both these things that wants to learn how to program ?

Apologies if anyone found this offensive - its not meant to be !

</apply flame-retardant jacket>

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[DoubleD]

Uh-oh, I left my flame-retardant jacket at home. Now I'm all burned up about your commentary. Don't think I can make it through the rest of the day, I'll have to go home and recover.

Pain is stress leaving the body.

DoubleD

 

[sedj]

DoubleD :
Are your British ? Your sarcasm level seems to be set to "high" !

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[Albion]

Do you know the difference between managing and leading?

See this is what I am talking about, to one company lead means what to another company manager means. If I am going to send out 500 resumes how can I generalize the term to fit them all so I don't have to send out 500 unique resumes?

It's not that I don't have direction, I just really love working with all aspects of computers. To me it's my life, not just a job. So, I don't want to dedicate myself to working with one aspect while losing ground in another; especially after seeing friends of mine lose not only their jobs to generalists but their homes in the 2k downturn. But what I am starting to get out of this is that if I don't specialize I'm not going to get a new job... which really sucks to be quite honest.

-Al

 

[DoubleD]

to sedj, No I'm not British, but yes I'm in a mood today.

To Albion,
If you're applying to large companies, don't expect a generalized position, they're rare if not extinct.
If you're looking at smaller companies who can't afford specialists, then you've got a different scenario.
With small companies it will be as important for you to get to know them as it is for them to get to know you. A resume is only a general view of who you are. The real discussion should happen during the interview process. This is where the discussion regarding the companies views and whether your beliefs are in line with those. There is no magic answer to help you write the perfect resume that will strike every company as the ideal candidate. Represent yourself as honestly as possible and let employers decide whether you might fit their organization.

Pain is stress leaving the body.

DoubleD

 

[screwloose]

Think of your resume as a marketing tool. Because that is exactly what it is; it is no different than a car ad or an ad for clothing, etc. Those ads are to entice you into their product. Sure, the ultimate goal would be to have someone see the advertisement and immediately say, “I am buying that!” Realistically, it is generating interest in the product. Somebody needs a new car and they saw an advertisement that sparked an interest. So you go to the car dealer and Slick Sammy – car dealer of the year – comes out and you tell him you want to see vehicle X. Slick Sammy, knows how to sell. He doesn’t tell you it has feature x, he sells you benefits. Other cars have air bags, but Slick Sammy doesn’t just say we have air bags; no, he sells you the benefit. “In crash tests, this vehicle let the crash test dummies survive because of the location of the air bags and a new improved system. Here is a short video from the Safety Institute.” Or if it is clothes, everyone sells jeans, but it is the benefit that sells them.

This applies to you, too. You don’t lie, ever, on a resume or in an interview. The resume generated the interest, and now you become a “closer.” There may have been 20 other interviews. What sets you apart from the others? They can all do what you do. What are your benefits? Anyone can install Unix, but you could state that your installs are not cookie-cutters. What is it being used for? Then you tailor the install for maximum performance. You can tell them why a file is limited to 2GB and why a filesystem/file can go larger (32-bit offset pointer to the disk device driver and the filesystem address is in 512-byte sectors), and how this will help them. Everyone says they train end-users. Show how you are a benefit in training them. You understand instructional design and can apply it individually; you listen to customers. ETC!!

Be honest; be confident; become an asset for the company.

 

[Tarwn]

<commentary>
I am hesitant to agree with sedj on the programming or non-programming classfication for scripting languages. I'm going to use his example because I see a lot of people make comments bout web development languages not being programming.
HTML and CSS I would agree are not programming languages and I would never consider someone to be a programmer because they could build a webpage, but the others are all code-based (instead of documents like HTML and CSS). I think by default if your writing code you are programming to some degree.
From the example and comments I have heard, "programming" seem to be defined by the amount of complexity inherent in the system the program will run on. I don't think this is an accurate measurement simply because it is like saying a fruit can only be a fruit if it grows on a tree (grapes?).
I wrote 1500 lines of VBScript over the past couple days, including file management, configuration scripts, a mini-parser, and various other tools. I like to think that I was programming (especially while I was writing the parser).
</commentary>

As has been mentioned by several others, your selling yourself with a resume. If you don't know what your selling (ie, what type of position you want) it is much harder to convince someone to buy. Sometimes our companies give us great big titles to make themselves feel good (I have a Director title that is actually in my way to get a programming position), but I have always believed that you need two things on your resume: honesty ad relevancy.

Figure out what you want to do, what your goal or perfect job type would be. Rebuild your resume with that in mind. You may even have several copis of your resume thsat each reflect a differant goal out of a group (I once had 3). The reason I say this is because when building your resume if you keep a couple goals in mind, your job descriptions, etc will generally lean towards those that most fulfilled the given title/goal. So you might have a job that required equal amounts of web development and systems admin, but for a systems admin job you will write more about the systems admin side with the web development as an extra bullet, vice versa if it was a web developers position you would write most about web development in your current/past position then add systems admin as a single item.

Here's a quick breakdown:
Past Job Desc: Mostly systems admin with one web development bullet - This makes it look like you do a systems admin job but you have extra skills for web development, so it's a bonus skill you picked up

Past Job Desc: Mostly web development bullets with one systems admin bullet - you were a web developer that also learned how to troubleshoot and maintain your own systems, again it's seen as a bonus skill

Past Job Desc: Mix of systems admin and web development - makes it look like you were doing two differant jobs, kudos for effort and all, but we want a full time systems admin


Anyways, I don't have much more advice, my own resume is currently in a shambles

-T

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