What Is a Technical Resume Portfolio...And Why You Need One

From the Tech Market Zoo to the Corporate Goo...
Let’s Protect What You’ve Built.
Move Over Resume, Hello
Portfolio
The emerging role of portfolios in
today’s tech job market
866.755.9800 stephen@ittechexec.com 1

The Resume Only Tells
Part of the Story
In today's job market, employers are
slower to pull the trigger. They want
to make sure they have a fuller
picture of the type of talent they are
getting.
They want to see how you problem
solve, how you lead, how you apply
your tech skills to business solutions,
and the types of soft skills you excel
at.
Back in the day, you put a basic
resume together, worked a few
connections or answered a few job
ads, and felt pretty certain the right
opportunity would come along. Then if
you worked hard and didn't burn too
many bridges, you most likely had a
pretty secure career path ahead of you
perhaps even with the same company.

The Resume Isn’t Dead,
But It’s Ailing.
There are so many more tools at your
disposal today, from project highlights
options to innovation pages to LinkedIn
profiles to online bios.

There isn't much that is
conventional about the
tech job market at the
moment.
Although traditional approaches do
still have merit, they are convoluted
in the tech job market zoo.
You will find that even with the
credentials and the good peer
referral, you still need a differentiator
to back it all up. Otherwise, you end
up with lots of nice interviews and
discussions but no offer...even though
you are qualified.
Although jobs are opening up,
promotions are on the rise, and
contract/consulting opportunities are
exploding, the fierce competition, the
demand for more than just degrees
and certifications, and the question of
relevancy all make it uncertain...a bit
of a "zoo," if you will.
From Tech Job Market Zoo to Corporate Goo...
How to Protect What You’ve Built So Far.

The Traditional Chronological
Resume Is Still Needed, But…
It’s no longer the whole picture.

A Portfolio Can Complete
the Story With professionals changing jobs every 3 to 4
years, consulting on the rise, and fierce
competition for promotions, portfolios can help
build in flexibility and prepare you to face
different hiring scenarios.
You still need a solid chronological resume (no
matter what you may hear) geared toward a
very specific audience, but when done
properly, having addenda to go along with the
resume can be much more effective, not to
mention the significance of the LinkedIn profile,
which will continue to grow over the next few
years.
But you need to know which tools are
best for your situation. Although there is
a lot out there you can do (or buy), you
don't need to do everything (that's the
good news).
So whether you are an external job
seeker looking for a new full-time role, a
consultant going for the next contract, or
an internal leader seeking promotion or
just retention (such as during an
acquisition), because we are following
the tech job market closely, we can guide
you to the right tools for you. No one can
predict for certain what the market will
do, but we can make sure that you are
properly prepared for whatever comes.

A Portfolio Provides
Versatility
Most often, candidates will still submit their resume to recruiters and
employers, and then they will use the addenda pages throughout the
hiring process. Most hiring pros don’t like to be inundated with
information, but they tend to be receptive to receiving additional info at
different stages.
The addenda pages that make up your portfolio can be a great way to
keep the discussion going and to enhance your time in front of the
decision maker. By having the portfolio ready, and by providing the
addenda at different times during the process, you can be versatile
enough to read the situation and use just what’s needed for it.
Some addenda options include:
• Marketing Briefs
• Project Highlights
• Bio
• Innovation page
• Problem-Solutions-Results (PSR) page
When we talk “portfolio” here at
ITtechExec, what we mean is a
traditional resume with addenda along
with an optimized LinkedIn profile.
These addenda can come in various
forms, tailored for your specific
situation. For example, a Problem-
Solutions-Results page is a great
opportunity to highlight key projects
and the business improvements that
resulted from your efforts.

Let's avoid the #1 pitfall pros make in the tech job market zoo...
They don't adapt with the current times and lose relevancy.
They think their experience and certifications will be enough to keep them progressing. They remain stuck
in how the job search process used to be or in expecting the next promotion to come simply because
they've worked hard for it. It can be a rude awakening to find out that what used to work is now not as
effective. That's why ITtechExec is here...to get you prepared for where the tech job market is today.

Maybe you can relate….
A lot of times we know what we “should” do, but
either we don’t do it or we just wait until we have to
because:
• We no longer have the ambition we once did
• We have kids to raise and focus on
• We believe the obstacles we will face in the
market are too overwhelming or exhausting to
face
• Work no longer matters much
• We’re too busy
• We always figure something out when we need
to
• We’re not really sure what we want to do next
• We have external concerns that weigh on us
• We have other unfulfilled goals and dreams

Portfolios are effective for all types of tech career moves:
external job search, internal promotion, or consulting bids.
It just makes more sense in today’s market to be prepared for different types of hiring demands. It makes
you more prepared and relevant to the market.
It gets you out of the “back in the day” job search mode and puts you in touch with where employer’s
demands are now.
To help you get a better feel for where you currently stand in preparing for tomorrow’s career move, I’ve
developed a simple self-assessment survey you can take that is quick to do, free, and helps get you
thinking about where you are and where you need to be:
Career Move Preparation Self-Assessment

And while we’re at it, let’s not forget about the soft skills.
Today’ tech industry is asking more from its tech leaders than just tech knowledge and certifications. It wants to
see strong soft skills as well.
*For more on this, check out our article “The Softer Side of Tech” (http://ow.ly/uNgUE).]
Believe it or not, a customized portfolio can help in this area as well. Here are just a few great options:
• Testimonials page (either from clients, peers, leadership, or some combination of them)
• Blog/social media posts (here’s where social media can be really useful to candidates)
• Audio/Video presentations (LinkedIn allows you to embed these into your profile, but
you have to know how to do them right…or they can backfire on you)

Then once you have the messaging right...
It's one thing to have your new resume and messaging portfolio. Now what do you plan to do with it? Send
it to a few contacts and apply to a few job boards? OK, but that's what everyone else is doing too. Why not
build in a strategic vision for your search that looks at the obstacles you need to overcome in the market
and sets a plan for how to do that? Today's job market offers a diversity of approaches that allow you to
create what we call "pipelines.“
At ITtechExec, we've even brought in a personal job search agent to help move our members past the
messaging into the "launch" phase of their job search.
It starts with setting the vision for how best to use the tools we've built and then it works on building these
pipelines for future career moves. And whether you like recruiters or not (everyone seems to have an
opinion about them), they can play a vital first step in the building of these pipelines.
Nevertheless, not all recruiters are right for you. It's important to know where to spend your time.

Think online dating
with a different set of
benefits!
You might not like the idea of “online dating,” but
studies show it is actually quite effective at least at
the “matching” part. So applying a similar concept to
finding recruiters that are the best fit is a good idea.
As part of my career advisory work with CIO.com,
TechRepublic, and Dice, I have come across a few
different places that do recruiter matching.
I formed a partnership with one in particular as I
think it does the best job all around.
It provides you with the recruiters best suited to you
that you can then reach out and build a strong
pipeline with.
Recruiter matching starts out by
conducting research based on certain
parameters, such as type of recruiter,
location, specialty areas, etc., and then
compiles a list of those that match up
with those parameters.
It then launches a campaign for you to
introduce you to those recruiters.
Recruiter Matching Campaigns

And now we have Sue, our Job Search Agent.
If ever there were an answer to prayer, music to our ears, or a sight for sore eyes (you get the drift), Sue is it. Blending a unique background
in managing both IT and telecom day-to-day operations with extensive hiring and recruitment experience for small/mid-sized organizations as
well as for a prominent Fortune 1000 company, Sue has been up close and personal with HR, and has had to wade through layoffs,
acquisitions, and corporate restructuring. (That means she's a veteran of the job market zoo and has been so deep in corporate goo that
nothing surprises her anymore!)
Together, we’ve devised a three-phase “NoNonsense” employer profiling solution that gives members another alternative to the job board
“rat race” and, the best part of all, provides personal job search support, so that each member has their very own job search “agent” helping
them to zero in on and find contacts at prime employers best suited for them. I know this is something truly unique!
Sue also helps conduct our 45-minute introductory strategic visioning consult calls that get our members moving from the messaging stage
into the execution stage. She helps get you moving toward a strategy for your search and provides advice on how to enhance on the standby
methods you typically use.
But of course, there’s more…

Once your portfolio is complete, and your job search is launched,
now you need to think about the bigger picture.
With a career move, be it an external or internal one, happening every 3 to 4 years, and with market demands
changing rapidly, it’s important not to let your portfolio…age.
Keeping it maintained keeps you ready and relevant. But we get it: No one likes to be in job search mode forever.
That’s why ITtechExec has put together an innovative solution called the
“Career Maintenance & Protection Solution”.
Offered in two forms, basic and premium, it provides tech professionals with the opportunity to keep their resume
and addenda updated, unlimited LinkedIn profile updates and optimization, regular career coaching, and annual
reviews/assessments. You’ll never have to start a job search from scratch again.

Having the right messaging is good;
having the right messaging with the
right strategic vision is better.
Call it holistic. Call it different. We like to think of it in terms of
allowing us to track results and ROI.

Silly me. I thought an MBA mixed with hard work was my ticket…
(A Note from Stephen Van Vreede, Co-Founder of ITtechExec/NoddlePlace)
When I first started my career, generally I didn’t know anyone who actually paid to have their
resume (or résumé, for the purists among us) written, much less for “career services.”
Let's be real. It used to be pretty cut-and-dry. You put a basic 1-page (or maybe 2-page) resume
(or résumé) together, worked a few connections or answered a few "classifieds," and felt pretty
certain the right opportunity would come along. Then if you worked hard (got the right certs) and
didn't burn too many bridges, you most likely had a pretty secure career path ahead of you
perhaps even with the same company.
And at first, throughout most of the early part of my corporate life, that was generally how things
went. I moved from internal position to internal position without the need to invest in resume or
other career services, eventually landing a director-level role with a large GE Capital, multi-site
inbound call center serving the logistics industry.

But then the job market began to change, my priorities shifted, and job
security was, well, less secure.
So I decided to go back for my MBA and obtain some other credentials (sound
familiar?), which cost me thousands and thousands (and thousands) of dollars
(just ask my lovely bride who helped pay for them!). I even clawed my way
through the Six Sigma process to become a Black Belt.
It was a great experience, but after two years of working full time and taking
night classes, when I graduated, the job market wasn’t much better, competition
for internal promotions was greater, and I wasn’t the only one with an MBA, a
Black Belt, etc.

That’s when I was introduced to resume design and career services.
I came to recognize that the time and resources I had already spent on my
career were worth protecting. The market was too uncertain and
changing too rapidly for me to continue to go it alone.
At this point, I had already invested in someone to handle my retirement,
another someone to do my taxes, and another someone to find me the
right home. It wasn’t such a stretch to think that my career mattered as
much, if not more, than these other things. After all, without it, then I
couldn’t afford the retirement or the house (and yes even the taxes).

I began to see where resume/career services could
play an integral part…
in not only helping people to secure jobs but also in building in
protections to the careers we’ve all worked so hard to achieve.
Eventually, my wife, Sheree, and I began our own firm in 2001
called “No Stone Unturned” in 2001. Initially, we had a small
office where we hosted seminars and workshops, wrote
resumes, and served a cross section of professionals and
backgrounds.
And although writing resumes and teaching some seminars
was fine, we wanted to do better. And we knew we could.

ITtechExec was launched…
Thanks to my background in IT/telecom management for the supply chain/logistics industry and
to Sheree’s experience serving as an editor to the scientific/engineering community in the
publishing world, we soon realized that we were best suited to serve the technical professional
trying to maneuver through what by that point (2008) had become a complex and exhausting job
market. (Let’s face it…it’s a bit of a zoo out there!)
Not only that, we noticed that other resume writers were avoiding technical clients, unsure of
how best to position their specialized skills.
Therefore, it wasn’t long before we began to work exclusively with IT and technical or “STEM”
clientele, professionals who have devoted themselves to some of the most innovative and
rewarding fields in today’s industries, from engineering to healthcare IT to scientific exploration
to big data and cloud services to project/program management.
That’s when ITtechExec was born…

Silly me. I thought we could just write resumes…
Then, before we knew it, unemployment skyrocketed and the tech market
began waging its war for sophisticated tech talent.
And on top of all that, social media recruiting burst onto the scene, and the
landscape became pretty messy, pretty fast. Soon, hiring folks were claiming
they were no longer reading resumes (even though they continued to ask for
them), and the job market became such a zoo that candidates found
themselves focused on a document that everyone says they won't look at for
more than 6 seconds but it better not have any typos in it!
That’s when we realized that we could no longer just write a resume and send
our clients on their way. They needed better preparation and lasting
protections. They needed strategies and tools that, well, worked.
We knew then that we had to become a full-service career advancement and
protection firm, not just another resume-writing firm.

95% of technical leaders obsess over the resume even though they don't
believe it has much value.
So we asked ourselves, if you know the market is a zoo, that resumes aren't likely to be read, and
that obstacles like age or experience are more pronounced than ever, why would you (a) keep
approaching it from the same angle over and over or (b) sit back and do nothing? Why wouldn't
you instead focus on where the real value lies?
With tech professionals changing jobs every 3 to 4 years, consulting/contracting on the rise, and
fierce competition for promotions, it's time to try something that is based on how the market is
actually working now, not 10, 15, even 5 years ago.
It's why we've made a radical shift to a more portfolio-driven approach instead of just a
resume-based one.

Yes, the resume is part of it, but let’s get more from your investment.
You still need a solid chronological resume (no matter what you may hear) geared toward a very specific
audience, but when done properly, having addenda to go along with the resume can be much more
effective (and much more likely to be read!), not to mention the significance of the LinkedIn profile, which
will continue to grow over the next few years.
Portfolios can help build in flexibility and prepare you to face different hiring scenarios. But you need to
know which tools are best for your situation. Although there is a lot out there you can do (or buy), you
don't need to do everything (that's the good news!).
So whether you are an external job seeker looking for a new full-time role, a consultant going for the next
contract, or an internal leader seeking promotion or just retention (such as during an acquisition),
because we are following the tech job market closely, the real investment is in knowing which tools are
right for you and how to properly use them. (To learn more about why we recommend a portfolio-driven
approach, check out our presentations: http://ow.ly/viT6C and http://ow.ly/vM9UH.)
No one can predict for certain what the market will do, but we can make sure that you are prepared for
whatever comes.

Building the messaging AND the strategic vision for your job search
that lead to solutions.
The portfolio is great, the branding is wonderful, but now what are you
going to do with it? Is it going to give you experience you don't have, turn
you into something you're not, take away the gray in your hair? Of course
not. But when done right, it can do something that the 95% of technical
professionals keep missing: It can speak to the needs of your target
audience ONCE you get it into their hands.
And that is ultimately why we do what we do. We equip you to face
obstacles in the market, and we position you for the best chances of
success.
We began developing this approach in late 2011 when we started to
realize that our client “members” needed more than just a resume and
basic messaging; they needed a strategic vision.

That’s how NoddlePlace came to be…
To best provide this strategic visioning, we needed to differentiate our solutions even further!
This meant tailoring some to meet the needs of the more experienced tech pro, the leader with
15+ years of experience who was now wondering how to face this market that seemed to
penalize them often for things they can’t control, like age, experience, and high salaries. For
them, it isn’t so much about climbing ladders as it is about protecting what they’ve built so far
and staying relevant to the marketplace.
So we customized ITtechExec to meet the needs of this type of client.
Then we introduced NoddlePlace in 2013. Here we focus on the “emerging” technical
professional with 5 to 15 years of experience who knows another 25 years or more in the tech
job market means 8+ more career moves, statistically speaking, and wants to keep advancing in
the market but now has a lot of other demands on his or her time.
In either case, though, they are both looking for real solutions…

BUT protecting careers protects families.
Too many times we think of our careers in terms of climbing the ladder of ambition and in having it all
“figured out.”
And although there’s nothing wrong with having ambition, there’s much more to our livelihoods than that.
There are people depending on us, and no matter where we stand on the corporate ladder, we all have
something to protect.
And that protection requires preparation. (If you want to toss in ambition, great!) It doesn’t necessarily
mean you have your whole life mapped out or that the obstacles you face aren’t real. It does mean,
though, that you aren’t going to keep letting corporate whims and job market trends toss you around with
no regard for you and your family.
What is the cost of doing nothing?

So we’ve developed our solutions, not to be so much an investment in a
“resume” as an investment in proper positioning and solutions to the market.
Call it holistic. Call it different. We like to think of it in terms of allowing us to track results and
ROI.
There are good resume writers out there. But they can’t/don’t/won’t do anything more than
write the resume and send you on your way. And the resume alone isn’t really addressing the
main issue: your age, lack of experience (too much experience), family or geographic restrictions,
job hopping, you name it.
Having the right messaging is good; having the right messaging with the right strategic vision
is better.
But the story doesn’t end there…or it shouldn’t…

To learn more about ITtechExec or our other solutions:
Check Us Out
Or call Stephen toll-free at 1-866-755-9800; email at stephen@ittechexec.com.

What Is a Technical Resume Portfolio...And Why You Need One

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