After a well deserved break (well, my aunt thinks so ... she's awesome) I think I'm ready to prepare to start looking for full time work. By prepare I mean get all of my "portfolio" in order to make an impression on the people I'm applying to.

Once you apply, that's it. That's what people see: your file. And they don't see it often, maybe once or twice. I have a few things that I will link to on my resume, such as this blog and AudioMan. But the rest will be a bunch of static documents that will never change in Company X's files for a year. Then maybe I can re-apply again. So I have to get my stuff together and make it count.

The first job is fixing up my resume. Most of the work experience there is well detailed, but I think I'm going to focus it more on "things accomplished, goals achieved" kind of direction. This is what employers care about.

The experience matrix that I borrowed from Mark Pilgrim (I think I did anyway, he has since removed his resume from his web site and I can't find it, even with Google) is the most controversial part of my resume. How useful is it?

For someone without a lot of work experience it's useful to demonstrate experience with tools, and lists just aren't effective. There's no way to tell how good someone is with C if they just list it along with 4 other languages, even if they are ordered by proficiency. Skill is just as hard to tell given the amount of time you use a language, but it makes it much easier to ballpark.

On the other hand I'm leaning more towards software project management positions or being mentored for those positions, where tools aren't as important as soft skills, for example. It may be a little premature to plan for this career move at this point though. I admit I could use at least 5 more years of straight development experience before I start managing even small projects on my own. As well, I'm interested in development still and hope to continue developing even while I'm managing projects in the future. I'm on the fence and shouldn't be, really.

The additional information section is a good place to show some personality but at the same time I should do it briefly. People are only going to look at it if they like the work experience and just want to see if I'm a normal person. :)

Travis made a good point that resumes have to be in the format that HR departments want, otherwise they are automatically and unceremoniously chucked. For most places this is Microsoft Word DOC format. Even PDFs are no good sometimes. I need my resume in DOC, PDF and the present web site format, with links to all three.

So that's the resume. Then I have to clean up my web sites a bit and make sure they are consistent. I have enough experience making web sites that even the code behind them should look good, so I have to get on that. Most of the time I'm diligent about it anyway just out of personal preference.

This blog has turned from being just a regular tech fascination blog into a more software development oriented blog, talking about experience while working on projects and interesting new tools and methodologies. I realise that most of the places I apply to won't read this blog but if they do they'll get a good feel about my opinions on software development. This blog is for the interested people: the ones that know about blogs and want to use them to evaluate candidates pre or post-interview.

I hope that when I get a job I can continue to post to this blog, though some companies are understandably secretive. I don't talk about work on my blog anyway; I just write about software development in general. But if the right job comes along and I cannot continue blogging, then so be it. I'm willing to give it up and only blog about flowers or cocktails.

AudioMan will always be a work in progress, but it should be kept organized. If I'm going to try to display my project management skills while I'm learning I should put that right into the web site and project itself. Public image is part of running a good project and I don't have a marketing department to help out here.

The fun part will be making a list of companies I'd like to work for. I've already done a lot of thinking about this over the years, but it mainly comes down to the question "am I willing to relocate"? Otherwise, I limit my choices severely.

Yes I am willing to relocate and depending on the city I'm looking forward to relocating. Ottawa is a great city and I would love to work here but that may not be possible or the right career move at this point. If a great job is available in another great city I would move to take that job. I'm young and I'm in a position to take risks so I should take them.

I'll try to write a bit about my experiences using job web sites, especially corportate HR web sites. They are usually a losing battle when compared with a personal recommendation from someone that already works there but lets see how things go ... I'm estimating I won't have a job for at least three months, and I've planned my break accordingly.

I'll also be reading more of Gretchen and Zoe's interesting jobs blog to get a better feel for how HR and recruiting departments work at large companies. Then I can better plan a strategy for getting noticed at those larger companies -- the ones with people way smarter than I am that I want to work with and most importantly learn from.

Be the sponge.