Oh Noes! - Another Resume Critique

tuleeoh

Hello guys, I just returned from a 2-month long vacation down in Brasil to celebrate my graduation in May and passing my CCNA in September. I am now 100% ready to start looking for a job and need you guys' feedback on any improvements I should make to my Resume to land that first IT job out of college. I'm thinking about applying for Junior Administrator/Engineer, NOC Tech, or even a Network Support position. Please review my Resume and let me know what you think. Thanks in advance!

srabiee

The formatting is great, resume is clean and appealing to the eye, and flows well.

With your limited experience, I highly recommend that you trim this resume down to a single page. My advice is to incorporate the information that's in the Technical Skills section into your Experience and Summary sections. Then delete the Technical Skills section. That should get you down to one page.

Furthermore, as far as your technical skills section goes, I would rather you incorporate these skills and technologies into your work experience and show me HOW you are proficient in these technologies, particularly in a business/enterprise environment.

The content of your professional summary needs some work. There's some grammatical issues, and some sentences sound a little wonky. I made some changes for you, see what you think.

"Accomplished IT professional with extensive technical experience spanning help desk support, desktop administration, and IT infrastructure management. Proven abilities in configuring, administering, and maintaining computer systems in an enterprise environment. Possesses strong analytical skills and ability to multitask under pressure."

Including your GPA is a certainly a good idea. However, if you graduated Cum Laude or Magna Cum Laude for example, it would be a better idea to say "Graduated Magna Cum Laude." I think that draws more attention and holds more weight than simple including some numbers.

I don't like the dots ....................... that you used to link your titles with the dates. I would recommend removing those.

Your job descriptions begin with a high-level overview, and then you used bullets to highlight special achievements. This is excellent work.

The past tense for troubleshoot is "troubleshot." However, I would recommend avoiding the use of this word and use something else instead. Analyzed, resolved, repaired, rectified, administered, serviced, improved, corrected, etc. Lots of action verbs that you can use. The thesaurus is a great tool.

Instead of "Wrote knowledge base articles..." I would say "Created knowledge base articles..." or "Devised knowledge base articles..."

"Performed successful spyware..."

"Transitioned from being an Online Marketer to also being the only IT Administrator onsite." This sentence doesn't really serve a purpose. I would delete this.

"Independently supported..."

"Designed an exhaustive diagram of the company's network infrastructure."

I'm anxious to see how this resume turns out after you make some edits.

tuleeoh

Wow thank you so much srabiee!!! That was a very thorough critique with great information. I followed about 90% of your suggestions. The only thing I didn't do was remove the Technical Expertise section entirely. I did however connected it with my Professional Summary and I personally don't think it looks too bad. I'm including the revised copy here and would really really appreciate if you can take a look at it one more time and see if anything needs to be changed. Again, thank you for your awesome critique!!!! Best wishes

srabiee

The resume looks much better at a single page.

If you are going to keep the technical skills, you should make it its own section. Don't group it with the summary like that, it doesn't look right.

Did you graduate with honors for either of your degrees? (Cum Laude, for example) If so, you should definitely designate that in the education section. If not, you should add the GPA info back in.

Here's why I suggested and still recommend that you incorporate the skills section into your experience section. If I were a hiring manager, your list of skills doesn't tell me anything substantive about your experience or proficiencies in these technologies. I would read "Windows Server 2012 R2" and would immediately want to know what sort of professional experience you have with this product. Is the extent of your knowledge simply creating user accounts and resetting passwords in ADUC? Or do you also know domain-based Group Policy? Have you upgraded AD DS-based domains and domain controllers? The same questions go for the Cisco routers and switches you have listed. Same with DHCP and DNS. What have you done with it? What is the extent of your knowledge?

I would much rather see you incorporate these skills and technologies into your work experience and show me HOW you are proficient in these technologies, particularly in a business/enterprise environment.

Here's another thing about listing skills, technologies, hardware, and software: Because they are on your resume, you are more than likely going to be asked about your professional experience and proficiency with these programs in an interview. You also open yourself up to the possibility of an interviewing IT manager or supervisor asking you technical questions about these technologies. If you cannot answer even moderately simple questions, you reveal yourself as embellishing or even lying on your resume, which makes you look bad and doesn't bode well for your chances of being hired. That's why many of us will recommend that you only list technologies that you are fairly proficient in, particularly with experience in a business/enterprise environment.

Regarding the experience section, I would like to see you focus more and expand upon the actual technologies that you worked with and what you did with them. Again, this is the perfect opportunity to move some of those technical skills items into the experience section and explain to me exactly what you did with them.

My resume is linked in the thread below, if you want to take a look at it and see how I focused on the technical aspects of my job position from a sysadmin/system engineer perspective. It really just depends on your chosen career path and what sort of job you want to land. If you want a sysadmin, netadmin, or engineering position, I highly recommend focusing on and expanding upon the technical side of your experience. You should also tailor your resume to each job position that you apply for. But first things first, you want to polish off your "stock" resume as best as possible.

Here's my resume:

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/104429-resume-critique-advice-final-draft.html

srabiee

Also, check out this resume guide. It has a huge list of action verbs, sample professional summaries, the best vs worst terms to use, etc. Pay careful attention to page 3, especially the section "Be Accomplishment-Orientated." That one is extremely important, especially for a technical resume. The Action Verbs section and Clear/Succinct sections are also really good info.

http://www.filedropper.com/resumeguide

tuleeoh

Thanks once again srabiee! I get what you're saying about incorporating my technical skills in my work experience, but some of there skills I haven't had a chance to apply in the real-world. The items in "Systems" (Windows XP/Vista/7/8 and Mac OS X Workstations and Android/iOS mobile operating systems) and "Software" (ServiceNow, Outlook 2007/2010, Microsoft Office, Visio, and Adobe CS6) section I definitely have real-world experience, but the skills in "Hardware" and "Networking" I either acquired the skills from my home lab (3 routers, 3 switches, and 1 access server) or from studying for certs such as the first exam for MCSA 2012. What can be an alternate way to list these skills if some of them don't necessarily apply to my Professional Experience since I didn't have experience with them on any of my two previous jobs? Should I completely remove them?

srabiee

It's up to you, but be prepared to answer extensive technical questions during an interview. If you can't do that, I would remove them. Ideally, you want to list as much as possible in your Experience section. A lab is fine and all, but hands-on experience in a business/enterprise environment is want potential employers want to see.

tuleeoh

srabiee, I edited my resume once again, this time following your suggestions. I added some skills to my Professional Summary and added as many skills I could to my Work Experience. Please let me know what you think.

srabiee

I would tailor the list of skills in your professional summary to whatever job position you are applying for. And again, be prepared to answer extensive technical questions during an interview on whatever technologies you list there.

You should list your GPA's without the /4 at the end. "GPA - 3.44" is fine.

Everything else looks fine. Let us know how this resume does in your job search.

Are you bilingual? I presume you speak Portuguese. If so, definitely put that on your resume. Being bilingual is a great skill to possess.

tuleeoh

Sounds good. I've removed the "/4" and I will definitely tailor once I start applying. Yea, I'm trilingual - Portuguese, Spanish, and off course English. Hmmm where do you think I should list it? Maybe add a "Languages" section at the bottom? I'll def. keep you updated. You've been very helpful!!

srabiee

I'm not exactly sure how to include that, but it definitely needs to be on there. Maybe add it below the professional summary? Or make a section at the bottom called "Other Skills" and add them there.