Switching from IT management role (Resume Critique)

IT-Fella

Hi all!I'm looking for a change in my IT career as I'm not sure if IT management is the right role for me at this moment. I feel that I'm relatively inexperienced and should get more skills and exposure to various projects and IT procedures before becoming a full blown IT manager. This might not sound like a good idea for some because it's probably harder to get into management than back into technical side of things. At the same time I don't think that being a manager for a small department and couple locations with server rooms can be compared to having a same title in a much larger organization. For that purpose I added a system engineer to my original title in my resume.With all that being said I would appreciate if you guys can give me an advice on what to do next. Also, I wouldn't mind if someone can take a look at my resume IT-Fella.pdf.

pinkydapimp

Why not look into positions that allow you to interface with many different companies and technologies. Like Field engineering, pre or post sales engineering, systems engineering, solutions architect, consultant, etc. At least then you dont have to go backwards and you get exposure to lots of environments where you leverage your skillset.

Also your resume needs ALOT of work(alignments are off, empty bullets, bad abbreviations, its hard to read....) you may want to start a separate thread for it.

IT-Fella

Pinkydapimp, thanks for your feedback! I'm looking into positions you have mentioned. Most, if not all of them don't require any managerial experience and most likely will not involve any supervision tasks. Thus they all would be considered technical roles rather than management ones. And I'm ok with that as long as I will grow professionally and will be able to apply the skills that I got while trying to get into the senior management positions.

Since I took all the personal info out of my resume I must have broken some paragraphs and alignment. My original resume don't have those things.
Would you be able to point out other issues with my resume? Like bad abbreviations etc.?

Thanks!

IT-Fella

I know that my resume may be on a boring side, and I would appreciate greatly if someone could give me any suggestions on how to make it look more exciting and attractive to potential employers. I'm getting emails and calls from recruiters every week or two but I would really like to see more traction.
Should I make it shorter? Should I remove jobs that are not relevant to IT? Is it even a good idea to put on resume that I finished the classes but never tried to pass the actual exams?

ratbuddy

Good god, way way WAY too long. Remove non-IT stuff. Limit yourself to.. I dunno, four or so bullet points per position. If not that, at least make them shorter. Stuff like "Managed to plan and coordinate the migration of 24/7 call center production site to a new ISP, cutting company’s voice and data bill by 40%." just looks way too wordy. "Managed to plan?" What does that even mean? You barely managed to plan it? You managed the person who was doing the planning?

Showing numbers is good, but showing that you know when to shut up is even better. The resume is there to get you calls, not give them your life story.

I say cut it down by at least half, then repost for further advice.

Hope this helps

IT-Fella

Thanks for your comments, ratbuddy! Cut it down by 1/3. If I take out non-IT positions it'll create a huge gap between jobs - should I still do it?

Would anyone mind saying couple words about version 2?
IT-Fellav2.pdf

srabiee

There are many sentences that are missing periods. You need to go over your punctuation thoroughly and make sure that everything is consistent. You also have alignment problems for your job titles. The margins are off on the left side and aren't aligned properly with the rest of the resume.

You have a section called Education/Certifications, and yet you have zero certifications. Just name this section Education and list your degrees. Once you earn some certifications, you can add them to their own section under Education. I wouldn't mention that you have completed classes related to certifications, because you don't have the corresponding certs. IMO if you aren't certified then I don't need to know about it.

For your work experience, I recommend that you begin with a high-level overview of each job description (your daily duties and responsibilities, regularly used technologies, etc), and then use bullet points to highlight special accomplishments, projects, etc. No one wants to read through a bunch of bullet points, it's tedious and unnecessary. If you choose to use complete sentences (I recommend that you do), make sure that you keep everything consistent. For example, "On call 24/7/365" is not a complete sentence.

ptilsen's resume is often considered the golden standard on these forums. I recommend that you review the newest version of his resume listed in the following thread (scroll down a bit to find it), and use that as an example of a near-flawless resume.

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/91333-resume-time.html

ratbuddy

I put on the capslock and made some horrible slash and burn comments in big red letters.. Just my opinion of course

IT-Fellav2.pdf

edit: Yeesh, just took a second look, do you really have DOS and Windows 3.11 on your resume? Get with the times!

IT-Fella

Thank you, srabbie and ratbuddy for your comments! I really appreciate your help on this matter.
I made some changes based on your feedback and compiled yet another version of my resume.
Would love to see more remarks if anything else needs attention.

PS My target role is System Engineer/Network Administrator/IT Manager based on employer's wording of the offered position.

IT-Fellav3.pdf

ratbuddy

I still say get rid of the old 01-05 job and reduce by half the number of bullet points on the most recent job. Gaps definitely make recruiters nervous. Maybe add back in the warehouse jobs but only as a single line item to show you were working? I'd also avoid calling helpdesk reps 'helpdesks'

Looking much better, keep at it.

srabiee

For your work experience, I still recommend that you begin with a high-level overview of each job description (your daily duties and responsibilities, regularly used technologies, etc), and then use bullet points to highlight special accomplishments, projects, etc. Like ptilsen did.

I recommend that you move your education above your experience section. It seems pretty lonely down there at the bottom on the second page, and could easily get missed below the wall of text aka skills section...

Which leads me to the technical expertise section. I'm really not a fan of this. It's simply a meaningless wall of text IMO. I would much rather see you incorporate some of these skills into your work experience and show me HOW you used these skills in a professional setting and therefore how you became proficient in them. Anyone can simply list out a bunch of technologies in alphabetical order, it means nothing. It would also save a lot of precious space on your resume, and may even allow you to get this down to 1 page if you work on reducing some of the bullet points. (Again, high-level overview, THEN bullet points)

IT-Fella

I may agree with you on listing the skills, but as far I know those resumes are being scanned for certain keywords. If they're not there, then there is a chance that the resume wouldn't even be pulled from the pile. I don't see how I would be able to list the tasks, projects and accomplishments as well as the technical skills and still get it down to 1 page. Should I decrease the font size, since ptilsen's resume is 11 and mine's 14?

srabiee

11 is standard I believe. 12 would be the largest I would consider. I used 11 on mine for the text body.

Most people still recommend that you tailor your resume to each job opportunity. In other words, each potential employer receives a slightly different version of your resume. This isn't a bad idea at all. You could still include some key skills/words in your resume body, without having to include a default wall of text.

pinkydapimp

srabiee wrote: »

For your work experience, I still recommend that you begin with a high-level overview of each job description (your daily duties and responsibilities, regularly used technologies, etc), and then use bullet points to highlight special accomplishments, projects, etc. Like ptilsen did.

This.

ALso, see this resume. it was posted in an article recently on making a great resume. This format is what i would recommend.