Mike C. Baker
Profile: An IT expert, Mike needs to tailor his resume to each opportunity and target specific companies.
The problem: Mike's approach has been reactive and passive, going after already-posted jobs with the same resume.
The plan: Mike should consider
getting additional certification or training to
adapt to changes in his field.
Experience
Mike Baker has been working in information technology, or IT, for more than 26 years.
Career goals
Mike is a professional-level job seeker with a specialty in project management. With a strong professional career, Mike describes himself as a "COBOL wizard in a Java world."
Mike has spent the past eight years consulting on various projects, but his real desire is to land a stable, interesting, permanent position with opportunities for analysis, coding and customer interface.
Obstacles
Mike's resume reads like a technical manual, yet he has used it as an introduction of him and his skills.
Recruiters and human resources professionals spend about 10 seconds reading a resume -- that is, if a human reads it. If your resume doesn't introduce you well within the first half of the first page, you are out of the running.
The gap is between Mike's experience, education and skills, and the job requirements. As he stated in his self-description, he's a COBOL guy in a Java world -- and this, along with an increasing requirement for project management certification, seems to keep him out of the running.
Because he gladly accepts consulting gigs and his resume is static, recruiters may not understand the true value of his brand.
Mike's approach has been reactive and passive, going after already-posted jobs with the same resume. And the ambivalence, or unstated conflict, between the two goals seems to telegraph as uncertainty or disinterest.
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