Jeanne Petrangelo lands a contract positions at IBM. Read Her Insights That May Help You Land Your Job!

I gave my landing speech this morning at the Congregational church in Acton.

I'm a software engineer with an EE degree and a background in embedded
systems. In my career I've brought agile software development
practices to my workplaces, including automated unit testing and
automated system level testing. I've often received interest from
recruiters looking for an SQA position because testing shows up so
much on my resume. When this contract at IBM came knocking, instead of
turning them down immediately I took the time to explain what the
testing on my resume is about. It was the right thing to say. Next
Monday I'll be starting a 9-12 month contract at IBM in Littleton with
a small research team that is prototyping new technology, and helping
the team automate tests. They currently have no automated tests at
all, so this is a ground up effort, including devising a framework.

This landing is an Acton Networkers success story. Someone I met
through AN meetings, and maintained a dialog with, passed on my resume
to a boutique recruiter he knows through his family, and the boutique
recruiter has worked for a long time with the hiring manager at IBM.
Also, when I asked a friend of mine in IBM if he knew anything about
this manager and her group, it turns out he's worked with her for a
while before and sent her an email saying he knows me.

I've been out of paid employment for 13 months, after my former work
site closed. In that time, I've been selective about what I apply to.
If it's too far away from Shrewsbury, I didn't even consider it,
because I want to be able to do my best. That limited things a lot, as
most of the applicable jobs seemed to be in Burlington, Lexington, and
Waltham. However, I did get an offer in February (that was pulled due
to budget changes before we could finalize anything), and a fantastic
rejection in January (if/when they get their Round A funding I'm at
the top of their list).

What worked for me:
- Monster.com: the February offer I got was from a manager who plucked
my resume off Monster, shortly after I refreshed it.
- LinkedIn: I can't say enough about it! Having a full profile helped
me get calls, and being able to tap inside connections was invaluable.
I also printed out hard copies of my LinkedIn recommendations and
would leave them with interviewers at the close of our conversations.
- Refreshing my online resumes and LinkedIn profiles at least once a
month. After refreshing them, I'd get a surge of recruiter calls.
- Adding a Keywords section to the bottom of my resume. It's in 8
point font and the lightest gray; that's where I could put all the
different phrasings, acronyms, etc. so the rest of my resume could use
more natural language. Don't include it in hard copies.
- Volunteering in the form of the Whiteboard Programming group:
Practicing answering software interview questions and hearing others
do the same helped me speak clearly, concisely, and confidently on my
interviews, so I could convey my value effectively. I learned a lot by
getting other people's perspectives and hearing their experiences, and
it was *great* networking. Being able to say I started the group was
great, and now others can say they help run the group. Just being part
of a group like that demonstrates that I like this stuff enough to do
it even when nobody pays me, which is a powerful statement.
- Free business cards from
http://www.printsmadeeasy.com/free-business-cards.html. They're full
size and don't have their logo on the back.
- http://www.changedetection.com/ monitors websites for changes so you
don't have to spend time checking them.
- I put together a zippered binder with page protectors containing
information about work I've done in the past, and used it as a visual
during my interviews. I had things like marketing flyers fro the
commercial stuff, and simple thumbnail pictures for the government
contracting, and other visual things like relevant graphs, the flow of
a defect tracking system I'd defined, etc.
- Time management! At the start of each week decide what you want to
accomplish and exactly when you're going to work on it.
- Give yourself permission to take time off. Back in 2003 I heard a
study that said even the most successful job seekers spend an average
of three days a week on their job search. So go ahead and organize
that closet, take cooking classes, attack your reading list, and all
those little things that annoy you when you're working because you
don't have enough time for them. You'll feel better.
- Take charge of your own learning. Go ahead and spend money
judiciously. I took a couple of IEEE classes on embedded Linux, paid
for out of pocket, and they helped me get this job. It was a pretty
good ROI. If you're hesitating to commit yourself to a class or a
volunteer activity because you *might* get a job before you finish,
would you seriously consider the money wasted because you got a job?
If you take that class and don't get a job right away, you will still
appreciate being able to put it on your resume and talk about it on
interviews, so is getting a job really your worst case scenario? Think
about that for a minute!

I have to deal with a condition called Essential Tremors that makes my
hands shake, and people assume I'm super nervous. I found it was
better to just be up front about it. After scoring an interview,
before meeting in person, I'd send an email explaining why my hands
shake, and assuring them that it doesn't affect my work. Not having to
worry about being taken as nervous helped me relax, and just made it a
non-issue.

Jeanne

-- 
Jeanne Petrangelo
Software Engineer
(508) 925-0270
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannepetrangelo