Creating an open web is at the heart of the Mozilla project. And you’re a part of that. As one of thousands of people in the project, you have worked tirelessly to keep the Internet open, participatory and full of life.

The question is: why? Why do you participate? Why does the open web matter so much to you?

As we work to grow the Mozilla community, we want to explain what you’re feeling to everyone — your neighbours, your co-workers, your grandparents. We want them to understand the open web.

I just shared my definition of what an Open Web means to me. Why don’t you share yours?

http://mozilla.org/open
#mozopen

Click read more to see my response

I’m a software architect, specializing in business web apps. Years ago, when the web was young, I attended a technical seminar at which the speaker spoke excitedly about how the web would change the world through freedom of information. It has. Knowledge is indeed power. Never before in human history has so much knowledge been available to many at so little cost. An open web means freedom from those who would control access to information. An open web can literally change and even save lives.

Related posts:

1. Choosing Between Java and .Net
2. Why Just Enough Technology?
3. Craftsmanship and Software Development

PDC Video on Cloud Computing with Azure

J9SYRP3G9ZUC

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1. Windows Azure Now Available
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With a Just Enough Technology approach, a company evaluates technology against its core problem or objectives. I work with business and technology leaders within a company to define their true objectives and then weigh the technology decisions with their business objectives as the main criteria. Read through this article on choosing between the Java and Microsoft platforms. Both technologies have evolved quite a bit since this was first published, but some of the core arguments remain to this day.

The article:
A user asks Dave, “Assume that we have a new mission critical Web application that we need to develop over the next six months. How would you recommend we compare & contrast the pros/cons of J2EE vs. .NET as the platform (assuming we have the proper skills)?”

There are many, many factors that come into play when deciding between J2EE and .NET. As a foundational statement, let me state that I personally believe you can build (and I have built) mission critical Web applications on both platforms. Sun Microsystems commissioned a white paper (see links at the end of this post) that states the theoretical scalability of each platform is unlimited. I say this because your decision should not based on whether or not you *can* build a more robust application in one or the other. It can be done.

As far as developing Web services, either platform offers a great foundation. Of course there are intrinsic advantages to each platform which I’ll list later. Web services and .NET are tightly integrated. It is *very* easy to create a basic Web service in .NET. It is simply a matter of placing a directive on each method you want exposed as a Web method. The compiler does the rest for you. Deployment is also a breeze. For the most part, you simply copy your files to the server and you’re done. Visual Studio .NET is also a development environment that has no peers, in my opinion. I still believe Microsoft has the edge in getting a project out the door as fast as possible.

J2EE on the other hand also has some good tools for creating Web services. IBM’s WebSphere Studio Application Developer 4 offers some great work-saving features for creating Web services. Basically you choose a Java bean or other object to “WebServicefy” and step through the wizard. When you are done, WebSphere Studio has created a wrapper for your object and all the SOAP, WSDL, etc. code needed. It also has created a JSP application to test your new Web service. It works and it is straightforward. I was able to create a simple Web service within 30 minutes of opening the environment for the first time. Pretty impressive for a Java IDE.

If you have developers skilled in one or the other platforms, then lean strongly toward that platform. The cost of training is high. Leveraging existing skills should be a priority.

That said then, what are the decision points one would consider when choosing between J2EE and .NET? Here are a few considerations and who I think has the advantage in each:

Multi-Platform: J2EE
———————-
Currently if you need to create applications that run on more than one platform, Java is your only choice. This may change in future as .NET is ported to other platforms – we’ll see.

Legacy Integration: J2EE?
———————-
If you need to integrate legacy systems you may have an easier time in J2EE. IBM for example, provided the iron for many of these systems and has very workable solutions to connect to mainframes through WebSphere. On the other hand, you *could* create a Web service on the legacy platform, making this point moot.

Multi-Language: .NET
———————-
If you have developers in VB, C++, Java and want a unified environment for them to work in, .NET is your choice. All languages are created equal and work together, including cross-language inheritance.

Choice of Vendors: J2EE
———————-
Is a choice of vendors important to you? There are advantages to a multi-vendor solution – you can choose the best-of-breed for each component of your system. There are also advantages to a single vendor solution, which include better interoperability between components. For example, .NET and SQL Server 2000 working together are a powerful, easy to use (relatively) combination.

Vertical Scalability: J2EE
———————-
If scaling up by buying bigger iron is your organizations preferred method, than lean toward J2EE.

Horizontal Scalability: .NET
———————-
If your organization likes the idea of a greater number of cheaper servers than there is probably an edge with .NET.

Finally, after all is said and done, many decisions are in reality based on shall we say, non-scientific criteria such as:

Like Microsoft: .NET
Don’t: J2EE

I say this only partly tongue-in-cheek. Prejudice against Microsoft and the underlying technology goes deep with many technical folks and some business folks. It is a real factor in making this decision. There is also a prejudice in the Microsoft community against Java that is also based on less than scientific findings.

LINKS:

Original Article:
( http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid26_gci819020,00.html )

J2EE vs. Microsoft .NET: (Copyright2001 The Middleware Company Prepared for Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Transaction Processing Performance Council
Roger Sessions’ comparison of .NET to J2EE
Software Dev Magazine article
O’Reilly article comparing J2EE and .NET

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Here’s how to do it:

1. Create a new folder.
2. Rename the folder to GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}(note that you can change the “GodMode” text, but the following period and code number are essential).
3. The folder icon will change to  — double click it to show the GodMode window.
   

The image below shows what you see in the GodMode window. There a host of links to utilities and settings. Having them all in one place is extremely convenient. This secret trick appears to work in Windows 7 32 and 64 bit, Windows Server 2008 32 bit and Vista 32 bit. BUT, it seems to crash Vista 64 bit. You have been warned

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Hundreds of thousands of BlueCross customers are in for a scare. This week, the insurance company is sending out notifications to its customers fessing up to a significant data breach that saw a thief make off with 57 hard drives from a call center in Tennessee.

The hard drives contained encoded — but not encrypted – records of phone calls and video files containing sensitive patient information. eSecurity Planet has the details on the breach.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII) – it drives companies crazy. We need to obtain it to provide services, but if we mishandle it, we are in for big trouble. This latest case shows that security is an integrated problem. Often we concentrate on having strong passwords and software controls to limit access and guarantee that data only goes to the users who should have access. Yet we leave the front door open by not protecting physical access to servers and thereby the data that is on them. Think of the laptops that were misplaced a while ago. Had they been encrypted, the exposure would have been under control but the company’s reputation would still have been damaged. People don’t believe encrypted data is safe. If a thief can get the laptops or the drives in this case, the average person fears that the data is compromised.

In software and system design we need to pay attention to every aspect of loss prevention and that includes non-technical preventative security measures. I once had a client who spent a large sum of money on a hand reader for the data center main door, but left their database exposed to direct TCP access with the default system admin user name and password still set. Ouch. It is easy to get caught up finding technical solutions to problems like data security and forget to lock the front door at night. In this latest case encrypted drives would go a long way in preventing actual data loss, but once the data physically leaves the control of the company, the company cannot prove that the data was not compromised.

Lesson to be learned: Do not forget the real issues. Address the whole problem homogenously, taking all aspects into account.

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Starting today, customers and partners in countries across the globe will be able to launch their Windows Azure and SQL Azure production applications and services with the support of the full Service Level Agreements (SLAs). The Windows Azure platform AppFabric Service Bus and Access Control will continue to be free until April 2010 for those that sign up for a commercial subscription. Additionally Microsoft codename “Dallas” will continue to be in a free CTP.

Read more on the Azure team blog.

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Just Enough Technology means providing the right technology to solve the right problem at the right cost. Not too much, not too little. The objectives of the business must be prioritized and kept in mind from concept to design to implementation to maintenance. Every decision made along the way must map to a business objective. Every software requirement must map to a business objective. This is the foundation of Just Enough Technology – clear and concise business objectives. Those objectives drive the requirements, and the requirements drive the design and implementation.

This is how I ended a short article about Just Enough Technology a while back. I’ve reproduced here for your reading pleasure. Differing opinions are invited

I’ve worked with many Fortune 500 and 100 clients, as well as small and mid-size companies. While there are many differences between the big guys and the smaller guys, they share one thing in common: the bottom line is their bottom line. Any business is in business ultimately to do one thing: make a profit. True, there are other drivers that individual companies may have, whether it is being a market leader or providing a service for the betterment of humanity. No business can stay in business unless they achieve a positive bottom line. I’m sure everyone understands this basic truth and yet, when it comes to creating, purchasing and maintaining software and perhaps to a lesser extent, hardware, this principle is often left by the wayside. One case in point I’m reminded of was a project for a national company (a household name you would recognize). This company undertook an integration project several years ago and engaged a large consulting firm to create a design and to do the implementation. The project began and the company spent over $20M over a period of perhaps one year. During this time, the company’s major web site was having daily stability issues and was going down frequently. No code was yet written to address these pressing problems. After a year, the only artifact from the project was a mountain of documentation, which included an architectural design. I was brought in to analyze the technical issues with the web site and servers, which I did in about 1 week of effort. At the end of the week, I produced an 18 point recommendation which included a rewrite of the application. Shortly thereafter, I was retained to lead the rebuilding effort and was shown the design that had been produced by the previous $20M effort. Frankly I was shocked. First of all, it was extremely complicated and over-architected and used bleeding edge (for then) technologies that no one at the company knew how to use. Second, the effort the design  must have actually taken was minuscule compared to the mountain of paper it took to produce. I could not believe that they had spent such a large sum of money (lost profit) on what amounted to nothing. Had they implemented the design, it would have been a failure. It would likely have had serious performance issues.. We put a team together consisting of consultants from various firms and paired with employees, and produced our own design. We concentrated on solving the business problem in an efficient manner using technology the company could maintain once the development team was gone. The first thing we did was to shore up the current application so they could function properly. Only then did we begin work on the redesign. The project was completed – design and implementation – in much less than one year, with 1/4 of the price tag of the previous effort. The project was a great success and remained in production until it was upgraded to new technology. I can’t say who the client was, but if you are an IT professional, it is likely you have used the product at one time or another. That story illustrates the need for Just Enough Technology. Technology should drive business, it should enable business. Technology can provide savings or it can provide opportunities that would be difficult to take advantage of without it. That is, if it is used appropriately. When misused it can become an enormous profit-sink that consumes vast amounts of money with little to show for the cost and effort. Software can’t be seen or touched and it can be difficult to appraise a project’s real value or its real cost. Well-meaning tech-types convince business people that they need “the latest and greatest” or bad things will happen. To be fair, most of time I do think their intentions are good, but the truth is the average software architect or developer doesn’t know a thing about the bottom line. They know what is best in a pure sense, but they struggle with what is Good Enough. Since technology seems like witchcraft to many business people, they are hard-pressed to make decisions about how much is too much in regard to software and technology. The outcome many times is overspending and under-delivering. The wrong problem is solved and it is solved in a highly complex manner. Just Enough Technology means providing the right technology to solve the right problem at the right cost. Not too much, not too little. The objectives of the business must be prioritized and kept in mind from concept to design to implementation to maintenance. Every decision made along the way must map to a business objective. Every software requirement must map to a business objective. This is the foundation of Just Enough Technology – clear and concise business objectives. Those objectives drive the requirements, and the requirements drive the design and implementation. Too often this process is short-circuited and a company jumps right to design, resulting in an application that does not provide maximum benefit and probably is over-priced for the needs of the business.

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From the FAQ on the WebSiteSpark partner site:

The program helps Web Pros drive new business opportunities through increased visibility and connections with partners (including Web Hosters) and customers around the world; WebsiteSpark also provides Web Pros with Microsoft tools and hosting solutions, as well as support and training.

WebSiteSpark gives Enable access to emerging technologies from Microsoft and a network of complementary professional service companies in the web space. This program and our nomination for participation provides a strong foundation on Microsoft technologies for our clients.

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I like how they use the term “Craftsman” to describe what we do….[the craftsmen are] the ones who have taken the time to master the tools that have been made available to them to assist in their craft.

Craftsmanship in the manner used above,  refers to an attention to detail and a pride in one’s work product. A craftsman is more than a worker – he or she truly cares that they do things right and to the best of their ability. I agree with this thought in principle, but I want to expand on it a bit and speak to one difficulty with software craftsmanship as a methodology.

In today’s technological world we need craftsmen, but we also need more than craftsmen. As an allegory, look at home building. We care about the quality of construction in homes that we buy. We certainly want to make sure everything is up to code and if we live in an area subject hurricanes, we want to know the proper standards and materials have been used in construction. We want to be sure that the workers who raise the frame, do the plumbing and electrical work and do the interior finish work are adequately skilled in their craft. That said, we would not hire a cabinet maker to do the framing, an electrical engineer to run the wiring or a rocket scientist to handle the plumbing. We choose the right skills and tools for the job at hand.

Software development is still in large part a craft, an art. We are not yet at the stage where every aspect of software development is reduced to a kind of binary assembly line, where unskilled workers assemble programs from software “parts”. True, there are some benefits we can receive from using prebuilt libraries or components, saving development, testing and maintenance costs as we will discuss below. But we still need good, skilled developers to do the heavy lifting. Software is not like machinery. For the most part, you design and build a machine to do one thing. Software on the other hand is much more multi-faceted and when starting a software design, there really are almost unlimited options available. A problem can be solved in many, many ways. A craftsman is needed to help choose an appropriate solution.

But we are also beyond the time when every piece of software must be built from the ground up. There are many commercial and open source solutions available that can jumpstart projects or that can provide the backbone for common application functionality. These solutions include things like nHibernate, Spring, and other persistence libraries that handle common operations in a manner that has been well-tested and which meets the needs of many projects. The Java community has made very good use of open source projects and libraries, some of which are now included in core Java. Why then aren’t these types of libraries used more frequently in Line of Business (LOB) applications? I believe business is often missing out on long and short term cost savings by not leveraging these open source or 3rd party solutions. One reason these solutions are sometimes not adopted (certainly not the only reason) is the inherent craftsman mentality of developers and architects. I call it the “But we can do better” syndrome.

You are probably familiar with the Pareto principle, also know as the 80-20 rule. In  the cost-benefit analysis of software projects this rule can be stated as “80% of the benefit comes from 20% of the development effort”. What this means in practice: IT needs to concentrate on that 20% of the time and effort which provides the most benefit and spend a lot less time and effort on the remaining 80%. In reality, it is often difficult for technical people to do this. Why? The 20% tends to be more mundane from a technical perspective and there is a lot of interesting design and coding to be done in the 80%. There’s an old story programmers tell about the a programmer who said “I can write that function in 10 lines of code”. Another programmer said, “I can do it in 5 lines of code”. Finally, a third said “Well, I can do it only one line of code” and he proceeded to spend hours upon hours writing and rewriting the function until it worked with only one line of code. What is the problem with this story? The first programmer could have written the function in minutes, the second in an hour or two but it took the third programmer many hours to complete the task. On top of that, the third programmer’s code was so complicated and used so many programming “tricks’” that very few other programmers could understand how it worked.

The “We can do better” syndrome is difficult for business to fight. Better after all is well, better. If we can reduce the time it takes to execute a function by 500%, it should be worth the effort because of the performance savings. Right? What if it only took .5 milliseconds for the function to run before it was optimized? End users would see zero benefit from the added effort to increase performance.* But from the third programmer’s perspective, he did the right thing. He made the application more efficient according to his definition.

Programmers also tend to distrust code that came from an unknown source (or even from one of their colleagues). In the early days of distributed computing we had the grand notion of creating object libraries full of reusable code. The greatest obstacle we faced to reaching this goal was the unwillingness of developers to use another programmer’s code. They would rather create it themselves. There was always something that the library didn’t do or didn’t do “well enough” in their opinion.

The moral of the story is this: we must apply the same logic for selecting software solutions that we would in other areas of business. Good enough is good enough. If there is an open source library or 3rd party library available that meets the 80-20 rule and which will truly deliver on the project’s requirements, it should be strongly considered as an alternative to developing everything from scratch. In order to know when to use an existing library and when to build a new library, business and IT must work together, and IT must keep the business objectives as the first priority. On the other hand business must be clear about their objectives with IT. Those objectives are the measuring stick for evaluating software design alternatives.

* I am aware that in some instances such as recursive calls, .5 milliseconds can be a performance bottleneck. That isn’t the scenario I am using here.

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Because of what I see daily in resumes that I review, I thought it might be helpful to others if I wrote down my thoughts on what I look for in a resume and provided some hints on creating a more successful resume. Be sure to read this entire article and don’t miss the general remarks section for some specific hints that may be very helpful to you. I have written this article from my point of view as an Business Owner / Application Development Manager. Other managers may view things a bit differently from me. In any event, I believe if you apply what you read here and do a little research on the web into resume writing techniques, your success rate in winning interviews will be enhanced.

What is a resume?

A resume is a tool to win an interview, nothing more, nothing less. It is basically an advertising piece and should be thought of as an advertisement. As with any advertisement, communication is the primary goal. If an ad does not communicate the proper message, it will not be successful. The format of the message is important, but the content of the message is most important. In marketing, it is important to strive to keep the viewer focused on the core message and not overwhelm them with unimportant details that obscure the real message. The same goes for a resume.

A good resume, like a good ad, should showcase the benefits of the goods being offered (in this case you are the goods), not just the features. In sales, it is taught to emphasize the benefits of a product, not its features. A resume that merely includes a long list of acronyms will be lost against a resume that engages the reader and convinces him or her that they will benefit from hiring the candidate. When you list your projects / positions, be sure to explain benefits that you brought to the team. For example: “Because of the design changes I recommended, the project was completed 2 months ahead of schedule and came in 10% under budget”. Be sure you can back this statement up with how your design enabled these benefits during the interview.

A winning resume has 2 general sections: the Assertion section and the Evidence section. In the Assertion section, you have a chance to showcase your unique achievements and to convince the reader that you are someone that they should interview. The Evidence section backs up what you say in the Assertion section.

The Assertion section usually consists of topics such as:

• Objective
• Summary of Qualifications
• Skills and Accomplishments

The Evidence section may contain:

• Education
• Work History (or Project History)

Organization

I am less concerned with how a resume is organized than I am with how well it is organized. Can I find the information that is important to me? Do I have to dig into long paragraphs to ferret out a few tidbits of information? A good general structure is to divide your resume into sections such as: Objective, Summary, Skills, Education, Projects (or Work History). You should organize your resume to fit your profile – if you have less work history (you’ve been in the work force only a short time), you may want to emphasize your education. Conversely, if you don’t have formal education, but do have extensive job experience then organize it in a manner that showcases your work or project history. One word of caution – don’t try to cover up lack of experience, you will be asked how long you have been working in your field in the interview. It’s OK to “put your best foot forward”, but it is not OK to knowingly mislead the reader.

Contact Information

Your resume should include your contact information (even if it is an agency phone number) and the address of your website or blog. Note that if an applicant for a senior developer position does not have a blog or technology web site, I am more than a little disappointed. Maintaining a technology website or blog shows that you are serious about keeping up with your chosen profession. As an aside, a very good book to read is “After the Gold Rush: Creating a True Profession of Software Engineering (Best Practices)” by Steve C McConnell. In this book, Mr. McConnell stresses the importance of being a Software Professional, not just a developer. This truth is all the more important in this competitive economy.

Objective

Always include an objectives section. What are you looking for in your next position? What kind of organization are you looking to join? A well-thought out objectives section helps me see that the candidate is a good communicator and helps me to understand his or her career track. Your objective, of course, should intersect with the company’s needs. If a small software company is looking for a development team lead and they receive a resume with an objective of “OBJECTIVE – a position of responsibility in a forward thinking, fast-moving company where my technical and leadership skills can be challenged and expanded”, they will take notice. Just be sure they are a forward-thinking, fast-moving company or want to be one.

Summary (or Summary of Qualifications)

According to The Rockport Institute - “The “Summary” or “Summary of Qualifications” consists of several concise statements that focus the reader’s attention on the most important qualities, achievements and abilities you have to offer.” This is your opportunity to showcase your best attributes and is probably the “spiciest” section.  Be aware that this is often the first and sometimes the only portion of your resume that a manager may read, so spend some time getting it right. This is where you sell yourself to the reader. Just be sure that whatever is in the summary is backed up by experience later in the resume. Keep this section brief and to the point. Think of it as an executive summary.

Skills and Accomplishments

First, list your specific accomplishments. This should be a bulleted list or heading / detail list that describes significant accomplishments you have achieved. This is the latter part of the assertion half of the resume. Blow your own horn, but don’t brag. An example of one entry might be: “Was a featured speaker at the 1998 International Association of IT Professionals annual convention in Baltimore, MD. Topic: ‘Comparing J2EE and the .Net platform’”

Next, list your skills by category. Typical categories for a programmer might be: Operating Systems (e.g. Windows 2003, UNIX, AIX, etc.) Environments (ASP.Net, Web Development, WebLogic, etc.), Languages (C#, VB 6.0, C++. Java 1.4, etc.) , Tools (Visual Studio 2005, Borland JBuilder, etc.) and Databases (Oracle 9i, SQL Server 2005, etc.). List your skills left to right in order of strength. For example if your languages are listed thus: “COBOL, VB, VB.Net, Java, C#”, my assumption is that you are most skilled in COBOL and least skilled in C#. You can and should list the skills first that are required by the position as long as you are well-versed in those skills. Don’t list C# first unless you have significant skill in C#. This is your segue into the evidence section.

Education

If you have less experience, this probably should be the next section. If you are low on formal education, but have a lot of experience, than put your work experience first. Be sure to list any honors received, any certifications earned and any important training you have. If you are working towards a certification and have made significant progress (perhaps you are working towards PMI certification which can take some time), it’s OK to list that, too. However, don’t list things like “Plan to have MCSD later this year”. If you have one more test to take for the MCSD and are planning to take it next month, then yes, list it as a certification in progress.

Projects / Work History / Experience

Call this section what you like and organize it accordingly. Some reviewers may not like it if it is not chronologically organized, but I don’t care. I want to see the experience you have that matches the requirements for the position. In fact, if you have worked on many projects, I would encourage you to list the ones that most apply to the position. This section should be at most 2 pages, not 15 pages long. Include extra work history in an addendum, if you feel it is important. I suggest that each entry contain details similar to these:

• Company Name and a one sentence description e.g. The Hartford, a fortune 100, industry-leading insurance company based in Hartford, CT.
• Dates From / To
• Position e.g. Senior .Net Developer
• Responsibilities – keep it brief and to the point. Don’t mix technologies with responsibilities. For example, “Extensively worked with Shared Assemblies” is not a responsibility. “Was primary ASP.Net developer” is a responsibility.
• Project description (or general description of work done on multiple projects). Include what contributions you made to the project. Keep the general description of the project as brief as possible while still conveying the scope of the effort. If the project is a publicly accessible site, include a hyperlink. Never include a link to a non-public test or dev site.
• Skills / Technologies / Tools used

It is very important to accurately describe the responsibilities of your positions so that your experience is properly emphasized. If, for example, you performed team lead duties such as mentoring junior programmers, mention that.

General remarks

• A resume should not be 15 pages long. Keep it to 2 to 4 pages. Yes, I really mean an absolute maximum of 4 pages, 3 is better. If you have so much experience that you need more space, tailor your resume to the position you are applying for and offer a more complete work history as an addendum in a separate document.
• Be sure to showcase your skills and experience fully, but never exaggerate, even a little. The worst thing you can do is say that you are experienced in a technology and in the technical interview be forced to admit you’ve never really used it. If this happens, you have lost all trust with me and will probably not be hired.
• Never say you are an expert unless you can write a book on the subject and are recognized by others as an expert in your field. Expert means expert, not “pretty good”. If you are an expert in a subject, you should know as much or more than I do in the subject.
• Always spell check your resume and proofread it. If a candidate can’t take the time to proofread a resume, how well will they pay attention to detail in their work? Get someone else to proofread it for you as well. Spellcheckers don’t catch everything.
• If English is not your native language, have someone whose native language is English proofread your resume for English phrasing.
• Always write in the third person: “Designed a Java-based CMS for the US DOE” not “I designed a Java-based CMS for the US DOE”. It is OK to use third person pronouns as well (He, She did this or that). I know this feels awkward, but it is accepted practice and tends to assist in keeping the tone of the resume professional.
• Don’t use yellow highlighting or bold text in a Word document to emphasize what you think I’m interested in. It is very distracting and if you follow my guidelines, the information will be easy for me to find.
• Keep the layout and style simple and professional. It should be well-organized and look good, but be simple enough to be clear and easy to read. Remember that your goal is communicate your experience and skills. Too much information that is inappropriate or ancillary to the position only obscures what is important to the reviewer.
• Never include code samples or documents that may be proprietary to a previous client / employer
• Dress for success – if possible, learn something about the company’s culture before the interview and dress appropriately. If in doubt, women should wear a suit or other business attire and men should wear a suit and tie.
• Search engines in place on job boards parse your resume and pull out keywords like “Java” and ASP.Net”. Make sure keywords show up in every position in which you used the technology or tool.

Managing Your Resume

Keep your resume up to date. Don’t wait for the next time you need your resume to update it. Whenever you finish a project or reach an important milestone in your career, update your resume right away. This ensures you have a resume that will require relatively minor editing when you do need it. In addition, it enables you to see our accomplishments on paper. We sometimes forget just how far we’ve come through the years in our career. Writing it down can be an amazing morale booster.

Keep a Master Resume (that you update as just stated). This copy of your resume will contain all of your important history and will grow to many pages over time. When you need to submit a resume, open your master copy and and create a scaled-down version that is targeted at the position you are applying for.

Post a generic copy of your resume on your web log or website. Yes, I’ve mentioned the website / blog again. Are you getting the point? I value the effort a senior developer puts into his or her website.

Summing Up

Your resume is an important tool to help you land the best positions available. Having a well-written, well-organized resume that contains relevant information and presents that information in an interesting way gives you an advantage over the sea of other candidates. If you need help, there are resume writing companies on the web and if you do a web search, you will find numerous articles to assist you with your resume. Take the time to give it your best effort – it will be worth it.

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