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Welcome to episode 4 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss company culture’s effect on career choices and resume writing.

Original recording date: 2017-12-21

Topics

1:49 How does company culture affect your career choices?

• Disclaimer:  Our goal in this segment is not to be an infomercial for VMware. It is merely to share from our experiences as it relates company culture.
• How do Nick and John define company culture?
  • Stated values vs. observed values
  • Relationship with immediate team
  • Overall office environment / mood, social activities outside of work, existence of a culture committee
  • Company culture as it relates to remote employees may include invitations back to corporate HQ, team building activities, etc.

 

• Joining
  • Some companies use culture to attract talent.
  • What is the purview of company culture through the eyes of an interviewer?
  • Current employees could give insight into culture.
  • Listen to John’s list of goals when joining a new company.
  • What aspects of company culture may exist that you haven’t considered?

 

• Staying
  • What if an aspect of company culture you want is missing from your employer?
  • Are you willing to accept the shortcoming in spite of other corporate strengths?
• Advancing
  • Company culture can change as the company grows / shrinks.
  • Make suggestions to leadership for changes to culture.  Are they receptive?
  • Is promoting from within encouraged by management?
  • Do managers make career advancement of employees a focus?
  • Are lateral moves / exposure to other roles at the company encouraged?
• Leaving
  • Joining a larger organization may be the only way to get exposure to some of the offerings we have discussed.
  • Sometimes leaving is not a bad thing.  Maybe you have outgrown the company and can only advance elsewhere.
  • Nick’s podcast for this situation – Datanauts Episode 101 – The Transformational CIO

27:30 Resume writing tips

• The Framing…
  • Listen to John’s inspiration for this segment.
  • Writing / editing your resume can be difficult without help from others.
  • Check out the Career Tools / Manager Tools Podcast.
  • The hiring manager is trying to solve a problem, has budget approved for additional head count, goes to recruiter / HR rep, and must put together a job description.
• Looking to address…
  • What’s the point of resumes?
  • Solving the problem
  • Answering recruiter / hiring manager questions

 

• The goal of a resume is to answer the questions of whether you can do the things required and whether you have relevant experience.
• What skills are critical, learnable, and relatable?
• Requirements in the job description may be listed in order of importance; do you need all of these?
  • See A Recruiter’s Advice to the IT Pro from DFW SpiceCorps
• Who is the resume serving?
  • First, the recruiter uses it to get qualified candidates.
  • The applicant needs it to answer the questions asked by the job description in the first 15 seconds.  This might be a human screening but could be an applicant tracking system.
  • Editing a resume for brevity is an art we do not always practice.
  • Every listing on the resume may require additional color when talking with a stakeholder
  • It shows you can solve the problems for the company stakeholders.
• We welcome your questions and feedback.