Resume Makeover: How an Information Security Professional Can Target CSO Jobs

CIO — Cole Hanson's career goal is to become an information security executive. Currently, he serves as a high-level information security professional with the U.S. Army. In February, Hanson, who is also a reservist with a rank of Lieutenant, will start a new job with the Marine Corps as the technology integration officer and deputy for its Communications Directorate. In this new position he will act as a project manager and oversee a major network infrastructure replacement.

Hanson accepted this job with the Marines because he possesses years of project management expertise and because it will give him some supervisory and staff management experience which he hopes will eventually position him for a CSO-type job.

Hanson says he applied for management-level information security jobs at the same time that he applied for the technology integration officer position with the Marines, but he was overlooked for all of them. He blames his résumé for not effectively selling himself.

At a whopping seven pages and 3,100 words, Hanson is probably right to fault his résumé, which he says he plastered "with anything and everything I've ever done." Hanson thinks it worked despite its length to help him get his new job with the Marines because it highlighted some specific technology acquisition skills that the Marine Corps was seeking.

Hanson says he knew his résumé was too long, but like many job seekers, he didn't know how to pare it down. As a reservist, Hanson possesses both military work experience and civilian work experience. That essentially gives him double the work experience of the average, non-military job seeker.

How to organize his military and civilian work experience was another significant challenge for Hanson. He says he had always heard that his résumé should be chronological, with his most recent work experience at the top. His concern with following a chronological format was that employers would see how his military deployments as a reservist frequently interrupted his civilian work, and thus, would be reluctant to hire someone who could be sent to Korea or Kuwait at any time. (In fact, discriminating against members of the Armed Services is illegal.)

Hanson needed a résumé makeover.

CIO — Cole Hanson's career goal is to become an information security executive. Currently, he serves as a high-level information security professional with the U.S. Army. In February, Hanson, who is also a reservist with a rank of Lieutenant Colonel*, will start a new job with the Marine Corps as the technology integration officer and deputy for its Communications Directorate. In this new position he will act as a project manager and oversee a major network infrastructure replacement.

Hanson accepted this job with the Marines because he possesses years of project management expertise and because it will give him some supervisory and staff management experience which he hopes will eventually position him for a CSO-type job.

Hanson says he applied for management-level information security jobs at the same time that he applied for the technology integration officer position with the Marines, but he was overlooked for all of them. He blames his résumé for not effectively selling himself.

At a whopping seven pages and 3,100 words, Hanson is probably right to fault his résumé, which he says he plastered "with anything and everything I've ever done." Hanson thinks it worked despite its length to help him get his new job with the Marines because it highlighted some specific technology acquisition skills that the Marine Corps was seeking.

Hanson says he knew his résumé was too long, but like many job seekers, he didn't know how to pare it down. As a reservist, Hanson possesses both military work experience and civilian work experience. That essentially gives him double the work experience of the average, non-military job seeker.

How to organize his military and civilian work experience was another significant challenge for Hanson. He says he had always heard that his résumé should be chronological, with his most recent work experience at the top. His concern with following a chronological format was that employers would see how his military deployments as a reservist frequently interrupted his civilian work, and thus, would be reluctant to hire someone who could be sent to Korea or Kuwait at any time. (In fact, discriminating against members of the Armed Services is illegal.)

Hanson needed a résumé makeover.

Editor's Note: In a previous version of this story, CIO.com inaccurately reported Hanson's rank in the U.S. Army. We regret the error, which we've corrected.

Enter Professional Résumé Writer Donald Burns

CIO.com tapped executive career coach and award-winning résumé writer Donald Burns to help Hanson. Burns was a good match for Hanson because Burns served in the Army during Vietnam and because he was originally trained as an electrical engineer, which gave him a tech background. During the five years in which Burns has served as an executive coach, he estimates he's rewritten 1,000 résumés, at least one-third of which he says have their origins in tech.

CIO.com selected Hanson's résumé because it represented common challenges for military and civilian job seekers.

The Problems with Hanson's Résumé

In addition to the length of Hanson's résumé and its failure to position him for the management-level information security jobs he's seeking, Burns identified three other problems: