Critique My Resume. E4 25B

mistabrumley89

The time is closing in for me to ETS out of the military and get a job. It would be greatly appreciated if you fine ladies and gentlemen could help me out with my resume. I have never written one, and this is a first for me. I'll be 25 years old tomorrow and I have a wife and two kids, so I'm really nervous about the whole ordeal. I will be applying for Government Network Engineer positions, and expand my options as my time to get out comes closer. I got the basic outline from aftereffector. He was one of my Signal officers in Korea. His resume really helped to sculpt mine. Just giving credit where it is due. Thanks for all of your help and support.

pinkydapimp

So i just quickly eyeballed your resume and because of the huge blocks of text nothing really jumped out at me.

Change your objective to summary. do something like this. See the 4th summary down, with the areas of expertise and bullets below. do that. Between those 2 sections you need to get across why you should be hired.

For each job, you need a short paragraph(like half of what you have) and then 3 bullets for each job of significant accomplishments.

I would also move the certs to above the experience section. Im a fan of a technical skills section where you can list all of the hardware and software your familiar with. This is good because it gets those keywords in there.

Otherwise, it looks like a strong resume and you should be able to find a network engineer position with your skills. Just need to get that resume right. Good luck!

Paul6

Just curious, where are you ETS'ing to? I am also a 25B (Reserves).

mistabrumley89

pinkydapimp- Thanks for the review. I will make changes and post them when I get a chance.

Paul6- Trying for Hawaii/Florida/South Korea. No real preference though. I will go anywhere that I can find a decent paying job with benefits.

loxleynew

Like mentioned above **** the objective section. In fact almost no one uses summary anymore unless in bullet point fashion. Also **** the wall of text and format it in likewise bullet points per item you have done/completed.

Put a generalized bullet point summary at the top of your resume and then a short brief paragraph per job you have had that summarizes that job. Really 15 seconds is all it takes when someone is looking at your resume.

pinkydapimp

loxleynew wrote: »

Like mentioned above **** the objective section. In fact almost no one uses summary anymore unless in bullet point fashion. Also **** the wall of text and format it in likewise bullet points per item you have done/completed.

Put a generalized bullet point summary at the top of your resume and then a short brief paragraph per job you have had that summarizes that job. Really 15 seconds is all it takes when someone is looking at your resume.

This is the key point. People reviewing resumes are looking at so many resumes. So they really may only see the top 1/3rd of your resume, or scan it for 15 to 30 secs. Which means you need to capture their attention quickly.

So if in that 15 secs they see, ok he is cisco certified, has increased security and network performance, the processes he developed lead to IT cost savings of 25k last year, that may be enough to have them read further.

Grafixx01

Can you PM me? I'll give you some hints.

jeremywatts2005

Dude bullet point that bad boy. A resume needs to be quick and easy to scan through. Plus you have to remember that some resumes are dumped into systems to scan keywords. Your resume most likely is not readable by those system. Sort your resume for instance Work experience, Clearance, Certifications, Education. You want to highlite you great work experience first then a quick note on your clearance and finally your certs and last would be education. A qualifications chart is really not necessary since your work experience will highlite the qualifications you have.

mistabrumley89

So here is part 2
Scrubbed Resume2.doc

mistabrumley89

Thanks to everyone here for your suggestions. Special thanks to aftereffector for personally assisting me this time.

pinkydapimp

mistabrumley89 wrote: »

Thanks to everyone here for your suggestions. Special thanks to aftereffector for personally assisting me this time.

Looks much better and easier to read. Good job. I would still move certs to below summary but thats a matter of preference. I also personally like to have a technical skills section as well. I like to give them the ability to see my entire skillset and what i bring to the table at the top of my resume. then one i rope them in, my experience section will confirm what they just read. But your best bet is to try it both ways and see which returns results. Its funny how quickly your responses can come in once your resume is strong. Good luck!

CCNTrainee

You and I have a lot of similarities in general OP. I will be getting out next year and trying to settle in the same places as well. Granted I am already in Korea, I am from Hawaii, and have been stationed near Florida, though I prefer to be on the West Coast for personal reasons. Best of luck to you and the family.

SephStorm

Seriously consider listing your certs on page one.

Do you have your CCNP? I don't remember it being on the draft, and its not on your cert list on the forum.

What do you guys think about removing the CCNA since he has the CCNP? He might get skipped by a filter without CCNA but if someone reads the resume, having CCENT and CCNA on there would seem unnecessary right?

pinkydapimp

SephStorm wrote: »

Seriously consider listing your certs on page one.

Do you have your CCNP? I don't remember it being on the draft, and its not on your cert list on the forum.

What do you guys think about removing the CCNA since he has the CCNP? He might get skipped by a filter without CCNA but if someone reads the resume, having CCENT and CCNA on there would seem unnecessary right?

i wouldn't remove CCNA. A+ Net+ i could see removing. But not CCNA.

mistabrumley89

I'm going to move my certifications up. I don't have my CCNP yet. Take my TSHOOT on October 22. Not going to send out my resume for a few months anyways, though. Going to try and get my CCDA and CCDP before I send out my resume and post it.

pinkydapimp

mistabrumley89 wrote: »

I'm going to move my certifications up. I don't have my CCNP yet. Take my TSHOOT on October 22. Not going to send out my resume for a few months anyways, though. Going to try and get my CCDA and CCDP before I send out my resume and post it.

TBH i dont think there is any harm sending out the resume early to a few places. Sometimes it can be a good test to see how many "hits" you get.