IT Job Hunting Tips:

Almost everyone has gone through job hunting frustration more or less before he or she gets the first interview then first job offer. The point here is that how you should learn from others and shorten your job hunting time.

Based on my observations and my personal job search experiences, our Chinese should think about these:

1. if you have not received any responses after you've sent your cover letter/resume, 60% of the reasons could be that your cover letter and resume are not professionally written so that your docs have never been brought to attention of a key person (Executive or manager) of the company you wrote to;30% of the reasons could be the fact that you have never followed up of your job applications, and 10% of the reasons is that many companies normally don't respond with non-short-listed applicants. Many job ads say like 'if you are short-listed for an interview, we will contact you, or no reply'. So, in this sense, many people not receiving responses (not an automatic email reply) is a normal case and that means you have not been short-listed majorly because of your unattractive or unprofessional cover letter and resume.

Solutions: reword you cover letter and resume, and better attend a free training course on job hunting skills. There are many tips on how to write a cover letter that grabs a manager's interest in reading your resume which in turn should increase his interest to interview you.

I noticed that many people sent their resumes without customization and without a cover letter. Most cover letter did not address properly or with incorrect formats. Most resumes did not follow a standard format or didn't address the points. In particular, our resumes did not well describe our past accomplishments or achievements which should be the key part of a resume. Be concrete and more specific rather than simply general statements that may apply to everyone.

2. if you did have many or some interviews, but unfortunately never been given an offer, this basically means that you succeeded in your cover letter and resume writing, but failed in your interviews. Chinese IT professionals' failure in interviews in many cases (maybe 70%) is due to the weakness in listening and oral English communication skills, and some (maybe 30%) is due to our unprofessional altitudes or unattractive personality (impression). If the English skills can not be easily improved by a day, or it's a difficult controllable factor, you should start earlier to gradually improve your English by any possible means.

The critical and controllable factors for a successful interview include:

confidence, a sense of professionalism, a sense of well-organised _expression, a sense of cooperative and self-independent altitude, etc. Remember you must well prepare for answers of your potential interview questions beforehand.

Last point: keep in mind, job hunting is a full time job!!! You need a plan and strategy and more importantly you need the required skills for the 'JOB' (job hunting skills). So, talk to your friends over phone or post your questions here to look 'higher from others' shoulders'. 

Some major points in writing a good cover letter and resume:

1. A Good Cover Letter

A good covering letter is used to introduce you and your background to an employer and make him/her interested in reading your resume and potentially screening you in for an interview.

Key points:

-use a standard letter format in terms of sender's address, date, company name, etc.
-make every effort to address your letter to the responsible individual by name (if not possible to get the name, you may use Dear Sir/Madam, or to whom it may concern)
-refer to a specific job opening by citing the job title or/and number.
-use the first paragraph to briefly introduce you and tell how you get known of the job news and why you are applying (impressing them that you've taken the time to learn about the job and company
-use the second paragraph to describe your background and key achievements in relation to the job duties and qualifications. your accomplishments can be: work projects, courses taken, certificates received, volunteer project experience, etc.
-relate your specific qualifications and accomplishments to the job opening. For doing this, you MUST
carefully analyze the job description and/or web contents bout the company from its web site. Check the
duties and requirements of the job and tailor your cover letter to match these as much as possible. For
job listings that are not clear, draw from your personal research of similar employers to infer what skills
and abilities might be required.
-well express by selling yourself and making your letter unique or impressive.
-you should always tailor and change your cover letter to match a specific job opening. Never use
an identical letter for all job openings.

2. Resume

the objective of a resume is to get an interview, not the job.

An effective resume could include these sections:

Personal Details
Objective
Highlights of Qualifications
Work History and Accomplishments
Technical Skills (languages, DBs, OS, Internet, etc)
Education
Hobbies
References

Helpful tips:

-make your resume contents closely reflecting the specific knowledge and experience required for the job. For this, you MUST analyse carefully the job description and company's web pages
-use active verbs such as lead, manage, design, develop, etc, to match your past work accomplishments to the job, a standard example would be: ¡°as a chief programmer, designed, developed, and documented a xxxx system for yyyy using zzzz languages/tools on databases of aaaa.¡±
-make your accomplishments more concrete and detailed by using adverbs or words such as successfully, independently, 3 years, 50 PCs, 1000 troubleshootings, 1 million city's database, etc.
-expand most relevant work accomplishments while compressing or ignoring irrelevant ones.
-exhibit a co-operative attitude by including your active participation in activities, clubs and sports.
-demonstrate an orderly and organised mind by producing a resume with professional appearance and neat format.
-type correctly, use correct grammer,use font consistently, avoid a lengthy paragraph,but provide sufficient details
-carefully proof-read your resume, and ask your friends to proof read again before sending it
-limit you resume to a max of two pages, or three pages if you have a longer relevant work experience. But don¡¯t think that one page is better if your relevant work experience takes two or three pages.
-well prepare for your work references, after your interview, the company will definitely check your references
to make a final decision. Cite a reference from your working colleagues or IT club friends who know you well.