Would you like to learn about common solution architect resume mistakes or cloud architect
resume mistakes, so you can have the perfect cloud architect resume or solution architect resume
and get your first cloud architect job? If so, this video is for you.
Hi. My name is Michael Gibbs. I'm the founder and CEO of GoCloud Architects. We're
an organization dedicated towards building high performance cloud computing careers.
I've been working in tech for over 25 years now, and I've been coaching or mentoring
others to get their first tech job or get promoted in tech for over two decades. Today,
we're going to talk about solution architect resume mistakes. Why are we so concerned about
solution architect resume mistakes or cloud architect resume mistakes? Because they can keep
you from getting hired. I'm going to let you know what these are because we see them every single
day on cloud architect resumes or solution architect resumes. We want you to get hired,
so we're going to let you know what these common mistakes are so you can avoid them.
The first and probably one of the most common mistakes I see is what I call a made up job title.
When you're trying to get your first tech job, we all desire to put down some tech
experience whether we have it or not. When I see this... Okay. I expect a little of this,
but it shouldn't be there. Where things get really broken is when you start using made up job titles.
For example, I see a tremendous number of people that work as an AWS cloud practitioner
or an AWS solutions architect. Let's face it. There is no job title AWS cloud practitioner.
When someone puts it down, it's because they're not aware of the industry, they want to put some
experience down. It signals to us that the person putting it down does not know anything about cloud
computing, so that immediately removes them. Plus, it signals dishonesty and deception.
That's another reason. Now, this person could actually be working on cloud computing, but that's
not going to be their job title. We know that as hiring managers, so that gets people kicked out.
If you're working at AWS and you're a solutions architect there, yes, you may be an AWS solutions
architect, but you're not working as an AWS cloud practitioner. You could be a cloud engineer,
you could be a junior cloud engineer, you could be a cloud dev ops person, a cloud SIS ops person
or cloud architect, but there's no such job as that AWS cloud practitioners, so don't use a
certification as a job title. The next thing is avoid using a lot of acronyms in your resume.
Why? Acronyms can mean a lot of different things to different people.
As a rule, never use an acronym or a shortened version of anything until you at least define it.
In writing and communication, lots of things could mean a lot of things. For example, PVC or
permanent virtual circuit or premature ventricular contraction is just an example of a few of them.
Even in tech, we can have the same abbreviation mean 20 or 30 things, so spell it out. One of
the things hiring managers care about is not only attention to detail, but we don't want laziness,
and when people don't spell out words, we question if they're too lazy to spell out the word, so
don't use a lot of acronyms. The next thing that I would say, is do not put your resume in some fancy
graphic format. I see this happens a lot of time. Someone's going to a resume person and they laid
out the resume in Adobe InDesign and it looks beautiful. It's this elegant, gorgeous thing.
Problem is, a lot of organizations use keyword scanners and they can't scan these beautiful
designs, so even though it looks beautiful, it's not going to be seen by the people that need it.
Basically, that makes your resume a bad sales document for you, so that's why we do this.
Now, the next thing that we're going to talk about, and this is something that we all struggle
with... Well, I should say I struggle with, so I use a spell check and I use a proofreader and
a grammar checker. Spelling and grammar errors. Let's face it. If you have spelling and grammar
errors in your resume, some hiring managers are going to be turned off by it and just toss
the resume out. Not everyone, but some will be. As a cloud architect, writing and presentation
skills are so critical. Make sure your cloud architect resume is really brilliantly written,
clean, organized, and easy to follow. Some other things are much more minor, but we see it a lot.
Try not to use an unprofessional email address. Let's say you were in school and you developed an
email address that said Mikekingfootballteam3976 because you thought it was cool.
Well, when it comes to applying for positions, what do people perceive you as?
Do you really want that or do you want something like mike.gibbsgmail.com or whatever it is?
That's not my email address. What I'm saying is, make your email address professional. You're a
cloud architect. You're applying for a business executive/technical role. Make sure you convey
that in everything you do. The last thing that I'll say is don't just stuff buzzwords together.
I've seen people do this. They make a sentence of, "We decreased operational expenditures by 37%
by reducing capital expenditures by doing this, this, this, this, and this." My God,
that doesn't belong in a sentence. Make it simple, make it obvious, make it easy to read.
Even executives prefer to read it in the sixth or seventh grade level. All of the major newspapers
are written below an eighth grade level for a reason: readability. Make your resume readable.
Why are we so focused on solution architect resume mistakes and cloud architect resume mistakes?
We want you to get your first cloud architect job. What is a resume?
It is an advertisement that says somebody should bring you in for an interview to interview you.
It's an [inaudible 00:05:29] advertisement of why you could be a good fit to solve an organization's
problem, it's an advertisement about why you're the solution to the employee or personnel needs
of your organization, so make sure that resume area shines. Make sure that it says, "Read me."
Make sure that it says, "Interview me." Because that's the goal of your resume. Let me tell you
some things we do at GoCloud Architects to help the cloud architect community. Every Monday and
every Thursday we have a completely free How to Get Your First cloud architect Job webinar.
On these webinars, we will tell you everything you need to do to get hired.
We will tell you what needs to be on the resume, what the hiring manager cares about,
the kind of experience that will get you hired and how to get it. We will tell you
everything you need to get hired, and we do this completely free on Monday and Thursday.
Now, every Tuesday, we have a cloud architect experience webinar. We have
lots of fun on these technical webinars. We will either tell you what you need to learn or we will
have an architecture challenge, which we do half of the time, maybe three quarters of the time.
You'll come to this call, you will interview an executive and the executive will give you
business, technical, and legal requirements. On the call with the remaining people on the call,
you will design a cloud architecture to solve the customer's problems.
It's a lot of fun. I get emails from people thanking me every week, telling me how much
they learned. I absolutely love doing it. We do this every Tuesday completely for free.
Most Wednesdays, but not all, we have a YouTube live where we do cloud architect or
cloud computing career question and answer session where you can come on this webinar
and ask us any cloud computing questions you have about building your career and we
answer them real time on these cloud architect career webinars. We do the most Wednesdays.
Those of you who are working on certifications, we've got a lot of free options to get you
covered. We have a completely free AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate ebook
and [inaudible 00:07:11] I'll leave the link in the description below.
We have a completely free Certified Solution Architect Professional Program. Again, that's free
on the link below. On the week of July 13th, 2021, we are going to be doing a completely free live
AWS Advanced Networking Bootcamp. I will be teaching this. I love networking. I'm one of
the original Cisco Certified Internet Experts. In fact, my number is 7417.
I've been involved in networking for a very long time. Teaching networking is something
I love to do, so that's going to be lots of fun and we're going to be doing it soon.
Again, the link for that is in the description below. Thank you so much for allowing us to
be part of your lives. We know you have lots of places where you can spend your
time and it's an honor and a privilege to be part of this cloud computing community
and we want to do everything we can to assist you in your cloud computing careers.
If there's anything else you think we can do for you or YOU've got any questions,
you'd like us to make a video, email Ask cloud Mike. I'll leave the link in the
description below and we'll do anything we can to help you in your cloud computing careers.
Thank you so much for watching this video. I look forward to seeing you very soon.