Resume review for career change!

I put my resume up over a year ago for an opinion, this has some changes to it. What positions could I qualify for? What would you see this person doing based off of this resume. How about the formatting and placement of sections? I would like to use some of my background and education so I would not start in helpdesk. Ultimately looking at network security engineer, security analyst, cyber threat analyst positions.

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Comments

srabiee

I can try and help you with your resume.

The formatting and layout isn't bad. I don't like how the section titles are larger and bolder than your name at the top of the resume. Ideally I think your name should stand out more than the titles of each section. ("Technical Proficiencies" for example)

Also, I recommend against using justified alignment. It creates inconsistent spacing between words and can make the text body overly difficult to read. Left-justification is what I would recommend, even if the overall appearance isn't as tidy as justified font.

The professional summary is concise and reads well. I believe "mission driven" should be hyphenated. "Face paced" doesn't make sense. I think "junior level" should also be hyphenated, but I'm not 100% on that one.

Instead of listing a bunch of software, technologies, and protocols, and I would rather you explain to me HOW you are proficient in these skills, especially in a business/enterprise environment. Ideally I would recommend that you incorporate the info in the technical proficiencies section into your professional experience, and then drop the skills section altogether.

Left-justify your degrees and cert. Center-justify looks inconsistent with the formatting of the resume. The masters degree should go above the bachelors degree, as it is higher level. (even if you haven't graduated yet, doesn't matter) Higher level degrees and certs should always be listed first.

Within the job experience section, each job description should begin with a high-level overview of your daily duties and responsibilities, and then use bullets to highlight special achievements, projects, promotions, etc. Don't rely solely on bullets like this.

You did a good job using various action verbs at the beginning of each bullet point. Be sure that you are consistent in your use of past-tense action verbs ("Monitors" isn't past-tense, for example), and be sure that each bullet begins with an action verb. ("Tier 1" isn't an action verb) Consistency is key.

Because of the leftover white space at the bottom of the second page, feel free to elaborate on your technical accomplishments, and/or you could also increase the font to fill up more of the page.

I would also recommend moving the military training section underneath the education section. Since they are both education/training related, they should probably be grouped together in some manner. Try it and see what you think.

This is an excellent resume guide with example resumes, a huge list of action verbs, sample summaries, etc:

http://www.filedropper.com/resumeguide

This thread contains a fantastic example of a properly formatted and written resume (ptilsen's resume):

Resume time

srabiee

Regarding landing your desired position, the key is to elaborate on your professional experience as much as possible and tailor your resume to satisfy the requirements of a particular job description.

For example, if a job posting is looking for a tech with significant SCOM experience, and you indeed have some professional SCOM experience, then naturally you would want to elaborate and focus on this software throughout your resume. This will draw the necessary attention to your resume and ensure that it doesn't immediately get placed into the wastebasket.

Education is also key, a requirement which you have already satisfied.

Certs are also important, so I recommend possibly pursuing vendor-specific certs in whatever IT career path that you are interested in. (Cisco, Microsoft, VMware, etc)

Again, regarding experience, you just have to leverage the experience that you already have in order to land whatever position you are shooting for. The job market and opportunities in your particular area will also play a big role in this.

These three sites are fantastic resources to determine what your salary (market value) should be. They also double as job search sites I believe:

Salary.com
PayScale.com
Glassdoor.com

Job search sites:

Indeed.com
Dice.com
SimplyHired.com
Monster.com
Careerbuilder.com

This one supposedly posts your resume to 50+ job search sites at once. I don't know if that includes all of the aforementioned sites or not:

ZipRecruiter.com

Good luck, and let us know how your resume turns out.

ArabianKnight

Very good information. I will try some formatting suggestions and see what it looks like. I have always been unsure how/if I should separate my active time from my national guard time in the experience section. I had full time jobs when I was guard so the dates always look confusing. What are the rules for this in a chronological type resume? Does the order go based off the date you started or ended work?

I was guard from 2010-2014 but I had civilian jobs AND active duty training time. I feel that trying to put it all on there would look jumbled and confuse HR reps. I combined them into just one, but how do they know how much active and how much guard time you had?

I also plan on earning CCNA: Sec and CEH this year and maybe another if I can.

The only "real" IT job was the NOC tech and that was more of monitoring and reporting higher than hands on. The other 2 "engineering" roles were not IT gigs, but there were IT aspects of those jobs that I was trying to shine the light on.

Let me make some adjustments....

ArabianKnight

I updated the formatting and some other small things......I do have a question about the experience bullets though. I see what you mean by putting a quick summary then listing accomplishments, is that the new standard or just a preference? I am not sure if I should just delete the military section and expand on my job roles or put the mil training under the education. I feel if I put it in with the degrees it would look messy.

srabiee

I don't know anything about military credentials so I can't give you advice about your military training. If it's IT-related training, I say leave it on there. I would recommend moving that section under the Education & Certification section and see how that looks.

Or, you could save a lot of space on your resume by not listing all of the individual courses, and simply listing "National Cryptologic School, US Army, Texas" and "US Army Pacific Command, Hawaii" and include them in the Education section. Then you could delete the "military training" section.

Or you could leave them off altogether if you don't think they will help you to land the type of IT position that you are shooting for. I don't know anything about that type of training so I cannot give you advice in this department.

Ideally, you want to try to get this resume down to a single page. I think it might be possible if you were able to cut the technical proficiencies and military training sections.

Speaking of which, I still recommend incorporating some of the info in the Technical Proficiencies section into your actual work experience, and then cut this section out. It should be easy to do if you indeed used these technologies on the job.

The high-level overview in the experience section is something I often see the IT veterans and heavy-hitters using on their own resumes. It's a great format to use and reduces the reliance on bullet points. Bullets should be used sparingly to highlight key accomplishments, projects, promotions, etc. If everything uses a bullet, then what's the point of a bullet?

Let me see if I can come up with a template for you to use that can get this resume down to a single page.

EDIT: I tried using my own resume template but it still ended up being a page and a half due to your past job experience. Go ahead and make the resume two full pages and elaborate on your experience as much as possible. Definitely work on the high-level overview stuff and let us know what you come up with. Your resume is coming along nicely, just needs some more work.

ArabianKnight

Updated the experience section and deleted 2 other sections....

srabiee

Did you not like the idea of including a high-level overview of your daily duties and responsibilities, and then use bullets to highlight special achievements, projects, promotions, etc? I think your resume would greatly benefit from this approach.

Mission-driven needs to be hyphenated.

Junior-level needs to be hyphenated.

ArabianKnight

I was thinking about that. So a few sentences for each entry then bullets for achievements? I could just take the plain bullets off then merge the info in paragraph format, then leave the checkpoint bullet on?

srabiee

I would recommend taking another look at ptilsen's resume and use that as a reference. The way he wrote his high-level overviews and utilized his bullets is an excellent example of how to do that properly.

rajrajhans

hey now your resume is looking gr8

ArabianKnight

Took a look at ptilsens resume again and redid my experience section. I think I got it done right this time....

srabiee

The addition of the high-level overviews really gives your resume a professional and polished look.

What I would recommend focusing on now is grammar, sentence structure, wording, punctuation, etc. You want the resume to be flawless and sounding as academic as possible.Once your resume is as polished as possible, this will be considered your "stock" or "reference" resume, but you will still want to tailor your resume for each job position that you apply for. For example, if a job description requires significant Active Directory experience, you will want to emphasize and elaborate on any professional AD experience that you have throughout your resume.

The first job that you have listed at "ABC Solutions" lists an end date of 12/2014. Are you still at this job or did you resign this month? If you are still employed, you need to change this to read "9/2014 - Present."

Likewise for the last job you have listed that is 8/2002 - 12/2014, if you are still employed at this job it should read "8/2002 - Present." I would also recommend you move this position to the top of the list so that the two "Present" jobs are listed together. (if that is indeed the case)

srabiee

It's been a few days since we heard from you. How did your resume turn out?

ArabianKnight

I have been either active or guard status since 2002 and am still guard now. Because it was my first job after high school, it is listed first, at the bottom. I was wondering what determines the order of experience, the start or end dates?

srabiee

I don't think there's a clear-cut answer to that. I think it comes down to preference. I would personally list any active/current positions first, but that's up to you. Just make sure any active/current job lists "Present" as the end date so potential employers know that you are gainfully employed.

lawlaw

ArabianKnight wrote: »

I put my resume up over a year ago for an opinion, this has some changes to it. What positions could I qualify for? What would you see this person doing based off of this resume. How about the formatting and placement of sections? I would like to use some of my background and education so I would not start in helpdesk. Ultimately looking at network security engineer, security analyst, cyber threat analyst positions.

I know it is maybe a bit late but it could give some answers to new readers of this topic.
I think that the most important thing when writing a career change CV is to adapt it to the job and company you are targeting, by justifying why you want to change your career path.
Is it because you wanted to start a family? Or you wanted to travel for a few months? You just have to tell the reasons to your future employer.