Tailoring your CV for the New Zealand IT industry
- How should I structure my CV?
- How do I show my technical qualifications?
- What should I highlight relating to the type of IT experience I have?
- Top tips
If you want to work in New Zealand’s IT industry, it pays to know what is expected of you when it comes to your CV. Working in New Zealand contacted Mike Baker, a 25 year veteran of NZ’s IT recruitment industry, to better establish what you’ll need to provide when it comes to preparing your IT-focused CV.
How should I structure my CV?
Your name and full contact details should appear in a header at the top of each page. Alternatively, you can provide only your name in the header, and include all contact details in a footer.
You want a potential employer to understand a great deal about your recent IT work experience; it’s the way you will convince an employer that you are a strong candidate for the role they are seeking to fill. Include employment dates, the name of the employing organisation, your position, the position of the person to whom you reported, and a list of your responsibilities. You will want to provide highly relevant information on your skills and experience in an easy to digest and review format.
The STAR format – situation/task, action, result – is widely accepted as an excellent method to achieve this. The STAR approach will also assist you when you are confronted with a behavioural interview situation.
What is the STAR format exactly?
- Situation/task – Sets the scene and provides context for your example
- Action – Where you tell the steps you took in the example you have chosen to give
- Result – What happened at the end of your example
How do I show my technical qualifications?
If you are an IT specialist in development or infrastructure, you will need to provide a technical summary (also known as a skills matrix). This can be provided in table/graph format on the first page of your CV, allowing the person hiring to quickly ascertain if you meet the level of skill required for the IT job position.
Group your technical skills together in relevant sets. For instance, list your programming language skills in one set, your database skills in another, and your operating systems skills in yet another set.
List only technologies that are currently supported, unless older technologies are specifically asked for in a job advertisement.
Technical summary example:
| Skill | Skill rating* (1-10, 10 being highest) | Years of experience | Last used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft .NET | 7 | 2 | 2009 |
| Java | 6 | 3 | 2008 |
| SQL Server v7 | 8 | 8 | 2007 |
| Oracle | 5 | 3 | 2006 |
| Sybase | 3 | 2 | 2007 |
| Windows 2003 | 7 | 7 | 2009 |
| Windows XP | 5 | 3 | 2009 |
| Windows Vista | 5 | 1 | 2009 |
| Novell Netware | 4 | 2 | 2007 |
| SQL | 7 | 5 | 2007 |
| WinRun | 2 | 0.5 | 2008 |
| Rational Unified Product | 8 | 4 | 2009 |
| Automated testing tools | 5 | 2 | 2009 |
| Crystal Reports | 5 | 1 | 2006 |
*Provide a guide to your rating system. For instance:
1 = open and install product
2 - 4 = understand configuration and breadth of product
5 - 6 = have installed in commercial environments; product depth growing
7- 8 = full understanding, can architect the solution
9 - 10 = Two+ years’ commercial experience/implementation and support
What should I highlight relating to the type of IT experience I have?
The specific information you provide will depend on the type of skills and experience you have and your area of expertise. Be specific about your experience. List the technologies you used in each position/job, noting the ones you used most often first. Briefly note any successful projects to which you contributed, or any ideas you offered or implemented that had positive outcomes.
Infrastructure specialists
Give an outline of the technical environment in which you worked, for instance, Windows 2003 operating system, UNIX, etc. How many users were you supporting? What was your role in the environment? If you carried out network or systems administration, for example, what did you cover?
Note your involvement in areas such as Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange, firewalls, security, group policy, etc. Give a description of any network or systems projects you worked on. What was your role, how long did the projects last, and how many people were on the project team?
Development
If you have been actively involved in development, identify your role in the development process, including application and programming details. Describe the language used, for instance VB.NET, Java, etc.
If you developed in an n-Tier environment, be sure to cover the layers in which you developed. Make a note of the size and complexity of the programs.
Testing
Describe the type of testing you have done; for example, regression, UAT, etc. If you have used automated test tools, make sure you describe your experience and the tools used in this area.
Business analysis / Project management
Be explicit about the size, duration, scope and budgets involved in projects completed. Be specific about what you actually did in the project and don’t limit your description to what the project itself was about.
Include details of any major projects, methodologies used, how many people were involved in the team, the duration of the project, and other areas if the organisation with which you worked. Put emphasis on your most recent project and your most notable. If you have any project management qualifications or strong methodology knowledge, note them here.
Note the use of any modeling tools where appropriate.
Don’t miss: top three tips
- Top tip 1: Review the competencies required for the job; consider the bullet points and think of specific times when you have exhibited those actions or traits. If a job profile is not available, then you need to provide this information based on the job advert to which you have applied.
- Top tip 2: The greatest detail in your CV should be on the work you have done in the last one to three years. This is because it is the work you have done recently that you are usually leveraging to secure your next position. However, if you have been in your current role for less than two years, put an equal amount of detail into describing the prior job you held.
- Top tip 3: The thing to avoid, at all costs, is an unexplained gap in your résumé. If you took time off due to a redundancy or to travel, make a note of that fact.
-content provided by Mike Baker, Helium Work Search
Mike Baker is a Director of Helium Work Search and has over 25 years' experience within the IT industry, primarily in application development. Since the early 1990s he has specialised in providing recruitment services across all sectors of IT and electronics in New Zealand, including advising off shore applicants on their NZ job searches.