Collect this information about your work & a bit about working with recruiters, head hunters, and "What I Learned In School Today"

• Budgetary Responsibility - We've worked with $50M projects and more.  This value is "unbelievable" out here in the wilds.  I've modified my resumes, cover letters, etc. to > $10M
• The number of lines / characters you've coded / are responsible for
• The amount of data stored in your database.
• Ingestion rates & file quantities
• # of nodes of responsibility
• # of people who report to you, team size
• Frequency of repetitive tasks (i.e., how often you had to deliver a deliverable & how many of what type) 

In one blog, I saw this idea summarized as:

1. Show How Many
2. Show How Often
3. Show How Much

Whatever can be quantified, quantify it and track it over time.  We get sloppy about doing that without having to update our resume all the time.

Add to the list and I'll update this blog post.

Other items to consider:

• Limit your work experience to no more than 15 years on the official resume
• Use the phrase, 10+ years for extensive work experience
• Staying with a single company for a long period of time is apparently being considered as "stagnation" these days, so plan on creating a "new job" for each time your company was acquired. 
• Show the last grade level you exited a job with, not what you went into that position with.

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Also, I'm continued to be informed that people from you know where with > 25 years are still being denied the you know what benefits.  Check your retirement medical status.

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That said, I had another epiphany today after receiving another polite "No thank you."  If I don't get a job, I can just "sell it" on Etsy.  Yeah, I'm ready to begin thinking about opening an Etsy store.  What have I got to lose?  Add to that, maybe I'll finish writing that novel (those novels?) I have in my drawer.  I'm definitely going out to lunch with friends today.

The "No thank you" came from a consulting firm looking to use me as a contractor (not consultant).  A head hunting firm (HHF) sent them my resume.  The HHF contact did make me aware that there were contractual discussions going on and they weren't going well.  I sniffed "doom" then.



What I've subsequently learned - and which made me pull my resume down from Indeed and Cybercoders (I'd already removed it from Monster after the Insurance Salesman emails) - was that if a recruiting firm has a contract with a company, you can't independently go submit for another job with said company without the possibility that the HHF would get involved (i.e., go for their fee).  Some of these fees can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

I cannot help but feel this "discussion between the HHF and the Co. impacted my decision.

Do NOT sign any contract nothing that comes through your email.  Yes, I have had people send me various forms of a contract, "letters of representation," etc.  It was very confusing at first.  I receive an email or three a day from various individuals wanting to know:

Hello Andrea,
Hope you are doing well!
We have an opportunity for Sr. Performance Tester with one of our clients in Bellevue, WA
Please see the job details below and let me know if you would be interested in this role. 
If interested, please send me a copy of your resume, your contact details, your availability and a good time to connect with you.

Many of these jobs can be found through Indeed, LinkedIn, or even the company website.  Go that route first.  The last thing you want to do is get tied up between a "third party recruiter" and a company you're truly interested in, especially as many companies specifically do not have contracts with "third party recruiters."

Other firms have contracts with companies like Microsoft, Expedia for temporary, contracted work.  They will always ask you how much you want for your hourly rate.  I'll get into that in another blog post, but for the context of this one - this company will do the background search, the reference checks, the initial phone screen and a face-to-face before they send you to the client.

These contracting companies are not like the pseudo-head-hunting firms which seem to be crawling over my body like maggots on a corpse.  Other friends of mine, in other industries, have maybe received one contact in eight months and she was able to find the job online.

The HHF will ask you if you've interviewed with a company before.  Make sure you're clear if you have because you do not want to jeopardize anything you might have in the hopper.  If you do have previous contact with the company, the HHF will drop you like you have an STD.