Resume Review Guys :)

izzyiz426

Let me know this is a work in progress

Reibe

Couple of suggestions.

Summary:
- Don't call your yourself a "Technical Support Engineer", it is inappropriate in your case where your only IT work is as an intern.

Education:
- Use the same naming between your degree to keep consistency (i.e. Drop "Degree" off of Associate). Also I think you can specify a bit more. Is this an A.S., A.A., A.A.S. ? Same with Bachelor's, I'm assuming a B.S..
- Did you have a date you wanted to put with your A+, or CE?

Professional experience:
- Most people understand that a Technical Department Intern is Technical Support and Resident Assistant is an "RA", this is redundant. I typically have my title as one line and the employer/location as another. In your case, line 1 is "Technical Department Intern", and line 2 is "Alfred State College".
- I'm not sure why you have both a paragraph and a list under your internship, especially since the paragraph is just 3 unrelated statements. I would drop the paragraph and just merge it into your list.
- I would personally add some punctuation at the end of your statements.
- You have an extra space in "Marketed/Developed/ Led".

Edit: Grammar and Spelling

H3||scr3am

unable to open in Open Office, says the file is corrupt and has a read error :S could you save/export to PDF and upload it again?

izzyiz426

Thanks guys keep it coming

srabiee

Right off the bat, the margins and spacing looks off to me. Look at the amount of space between the border and text on the left side of the page, and then compare that to the right side. This needs to be corrected.

I would recommend choosing a different font. I know this is subjective, but I would choose something a little easier on the eye. Consider using Arial.

The text in the Education section doesn't align with the other sections. Again, formatting issues.

Is your current title Technical Support Engineer, or have you ever held this title professionally? If not, I don't know how I feel about you labeling yourself as an engineer in your professional summary. You will certainly have some explaining to do in an interview.

The first sentence of the professional summary uses redundant vocabulary. "...with experience with..."
I would modify this to something like "...with experience in..."

The second sentence uses the word "experience" again. You need to vary your language and refrain from using the same word repeatedly. The thesaurus will help immensely.

"Proven abilities in documenting, leading, analyzing, and delivering IT solutions..." These four words don't seem to have much flow or synergy, IMO. For example, what does documenting have to do with leading or delivering? I would modify this to something like "Proven abilities in planning, delivering, and supporting IT solutions..."

Within the education section, I wouldn't include both the start and end dates for each degree. Just list the end month and year for each degree. "May 2014" is plenty.

You A+ cert should be listed under a category called "Certifications."

The "January 2014 - May 2014" margin isn't aligned properly.

This is just my personal preference, but recommend refraining from using the word "troubleshot." It may be correct English, but it's one of those quirky words that would be best avoided IMO. Use a different action verb with the same meaning. Again, thesaurus.

"Wrote knowledge base articles to improve technical support efficiency by 20%"
How did you calculate this figure?

"RA" don't abbreviate like this. I don't know what this means.

"Created/Developed" Choose one action verb. Combining words like this is unnecessary and sloppy. Same with "Marketed/Developed/Led"

"Collaborated with orientation staff on freshmen opening week activates" ???

izzyiz426

Ok, made some changes tell me what you think. I took away the paragraph and made them bullets? Also made a table for certifications and education. Really appreciate all the help it feels like the revisions never stop

dou2ble

The Education and Certification columns look funky to me. Can they follow each other instead of being side by side? It looks like you still have room to keep it to one page. If that's what you're shooting for.

izzyiz426

I thought the same thing i was thinking of putting the Comptia logo in the open space. Do you think that would make a difference?

H3||scr3am

I would avoid the logo, keyword scanners won't detect it, and it won't make the resume pop out or anything if it's all B&W with a single colour/greyscale logo.

I would place the certification section underneath the education section, and I would include the month on the first year to match the way you listed your education.

again troubleshot just doesn't sound great, consider this:

Responsible for the maintenance and troubleshooting of XX (number or range) department workstations and servers for students and
professors to assure up time

srabiee

There's too much white space between the border and the inside text.

I would recommend that you left-justify the section titles instead of centering them like this.

The Professional Summary title looks to be a different font size compared to the other titles.

I agree that the split Education and Certification sections looks bad. You have plenty of space on your resume to format these like the other sections are formatted.

The job date ranges should be aligned to the right side of the page.

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.

izzyiz426

Thanks H3 would you place that in the overview section of the description or would you replace the bullet point?

srabiee thanks for all your help ... your recommendations are getting smaller and smaller which hopefully are a good thing for me ! Hopefully im on the right track !

anhtran35

Alfred State College. You can put the department underneath it. Then the job title.
No need to list your associate since you already achieve your BS.
Need a Certification section to stick your A+.

izzyiz426

OK all the changes have been made to this one what do you think?

srabiee

Found a formatting inconsistency. There's a space between some of your section titles and the text body, but not others. Education doesn't have a space, for example.

I wouldn't recommend using the term "Information technician." Use something else that conveys the same basic meaning, like "information technology professional," "IT professional," or "IT technician."

I mentioned this before, but the first sentence of the professional summary uses redundant vocabulary. "...with experience with..." I would modify this to something like "...with experience in..."

Windows Server is capitalized.

OS X has a space between it.

So how bout something like this: "Dynamic IT professional with technical experience spanning Mac OS X, Windows Server, and Windows desktop technologies." Modify and tailor as you see fit.

"Proven abilities in documenting, leading, analyzing and delivering IT solutions catered to organizational needs. Highly effective at driving IT projects to completion with a focus on time and scope management."

Given your limited work experience, I hope you can back up this statement in an interview.

The formatting of your Education section looks a little confusing. I would format like this:

Alfred State College - Alfred, NY May – 2014
BT – Network Administration

Alfred State College - Alfred, NY May – 2012
AAS – Computer Information Systems

There's an unnecessary space before "Alfred State College" underneath "Technical Department Intern"

This is just my personal preference, but recommend refraining from using the word "troubleshot." It may be correct English, but it's one of those quirky words that would be best avoided IMO. Use a different action verb with the same meaning. Again, thesaurus.

If you don't want to use periods at the end of your bulleted sentences, then there's an unnecessary period at the end of "Deployed Type 1 hypervisor for virtual environment, enabled students and professors to work from home or office"

"Deployed Type 1 hypervisor for virtual environment, enabling students and professors to work from home or office." Also, you should mentioned which hypervisor/product you worked with.

"Created/Developed" Choose one action verb. Combining words like this is unnecessary and sloppy. Same with "Marketed/Developed/Led"

"Collaborated with orientation staff on freshmen opening week activates" ???

izzyiz426

Updated what do you think?

srabiee

Right-align your degree dates (the same way you aligned the dates in the experience section). Same goes for the A+ dates.

The BT degree and AAS degree don't need periods. Just list them as "BT" and "AAS" without the periods in between. Or better yet, write out the entire degree name without abbreviating. Example: "Bachelor of Science in Information Technology"

The date range listed on the A+ cert is confusing. Just list the month and year that you earned the cert and leave it at that.

Some of the language in your professional experience section is present tense mixed with past tense. Make sure everything is written in past tense to be consistent. This definitely needs to be corrected.

Within the RA position, I don't recommend explaining what an RA is (in the manner that you did in the first sentence). Just list your duties and responsibilities. For example: "Responsible for fostering a cooperative and considerate educational community environment. Contributed to the academic success and personal growth of each resident."

izzyiz426

Corrections made

srabiee

In the professional summary, it should be "Proven abilities in documenting, leading..."

"Proven abilities in documenting, leading, analyzing, and delivering IT solutions..." These four words don't seem to have much flow or synergy, IMO. For example, what does documenting have to do with leading or delivering? I would modify this to something like "Proven abilities in planning, delivering, and supporting IT solutions..."

The date for the A+ cert should be "January 2015" without the dash

I'm not sure about this one, but is there a product called "Oracle Virtual"? I noticed that you capitalized "Virtual." Make sure you use the actual name of the product, software, or technology. Was it Oracle VM VirtualBox?


You should mention which type 1 hypervisor you worked with in the 4th bullet of your first job listed.

Your resume is coming along nicely.

izzyiz426

Srabiee I would like to thank you for all of your assistance in fixing up my resume. I think it looks amazing, I really appreciate all the time that you put into reviewing it. I changed the wording to abilities, moved the date and included the product which was oracle Vm server. The hypervisor is also through oracle. Within the proven abilities paragraph, I really like your sentence, but i really want to incorporate the word leadership because i had to manage some workstudies in certain projects. How would I incorporate that within the sentence that you have provided. Again thank you so much!!

srabiee

np, glad I could help.

How about substituting the word managing for leading? It basically means the same thing (more or less), and I think managing sounds better anyway. So you could say this:

"Proven abilities in planning, delivering, and managing IT solutions..."

izzyiz426

Thank you, for the type 1 hypervisor it was oracle vm Server. I feel that if i list it again within the bullet point it would sound redundant?

srabiee

Not redundant IMO. Much better than saying "Type 1 hypervisor." Make that change and I think your resume is good to go.

izzyiz426

Great!! I'm soooo excited thank you again!! What type of jobs would you apply to with this resume. Im currently studying for my MCSA 2012 Certification. I personally have been applying for Desktop support jobs, I didn't apply for helpdesk because i don't want to be sitting behind a desk. Would you continue studying for the MCSA or would you do the CCNA?

srabiee

Because of your limited professional experience, you may need to accept a helpdesk position to get your foot in the door. I'm not talking about $11 an hour call center tech support, but rather an actual helpdesk role in which you get to work with AD DS, some networking, Exchange, etc.

MCSA vs CCNA, that's up to you. Do you want to pursue a career as a sysadmin/systems engineer, or are you more interested in networking / network engineering? If you can decide on this, that will answer your question regarding which path to concentrate on. If you don't know, first land a helpdesk role and get some additional experience, and then decide that way.

izzyiz426

ok, im really not sure to be honest. Many people state that its good to have both MCSA and CCNA .. the problem im having with the mcsa is that its hard to imitate a production environment and some of the concepts are tricky to learn. What certs would give me the best opportunity to start out at desktop support?

Also what is your opinion on head hunters or recruiters. Im currently located in New York. Ive been apply to jobs with my previous resume and no interviews! Im pretty sure this one will give me better luck but what is your opinion on them and would you recommend them?

srabiee

I personally started with MCSA: Windows 7 and went from there (not counting CompTIA, which I recommend avoiding unless you have a specific reason). MCSA: Windows 8 would work as well, and the concepts should integrate with MCSA: Server 2012 nicely.

I don't know anything about recruiters one way or another. Never used one.

210mike

izzyiz426 wrote: »

Thank you, for the type 1 hypervisor it was oracle vm Server. I feel that if i list it again within the bullet point it would sound redundant?

Looking at this draft of your resume the following pops out at me

1: What have you been doing since May 2014? Maybe nothing, but expect this to be asked in an interview and be prepared with a better answer than UMMM or "leading my WoW guild on awesome raids".

2: I would not interview you based on this resume. You have no paid work experience at all but call yourself a "Dynamic IT professional" state you have "Proven abilities" and are "Highly effective at driving IT projects to completion". When I look at your resume this just seems so full of B.S. I don't even want to waste my time talking to you. Your resume shows you have none of those things. You have 4 bullet points under an internship at the college you went to, 3 of those being basic entry level computer tasks. Maybe you are all of those things, but you're not showing me on this resume that you are.

I know that comes off as harsh, and I'm not trying to be mean, but I'm letting you know as someone who makes hiring decisions that this resume would be the reason you do not get an interview, and that is useful information for you to have, so you can make improvements.

I don't really have the time to get you started on a complete re-write. You should be targeting entry level IT jobs like Help Desk or Desktop Support positions.

My suggestions, take them for what you will:

- re-write your summary statement and get rid of the BS in there. I personally want to see something that tells me you're an eager, quick learner with good customer service skills. That would get you an interview with me. Customer service experience is always something I look for in front line support candidates. I can teach tech, I can't teach you to not be mean to the lady in HR. If you can handle Retail or Fast Food, you can handle front line support

- Expand your education. What you've put on your resume for work experience is not enough, since you lack work experience tell me what you learned in school. I don't expect anyone to hit the job running on day 1, but I need to know you have a good fundamental background of IT. Highlight any key courses that would be applicable to the job posting.

- If you want to post this online add a Skills section that is full of keywords. You'll get more search results by including as many key words as possible. Don't make it look spammy, or throw things on there for the sake of throwing them on there, but more keywords help people find your resume.

- Look into an IT staffing firm or recruiting firm to get your first real world job. Yes it will probably be a crappy 6 month contract job, but you will get your foot in the door and can move forward with your career after that. One of the hardest parts of IT is getting your foot in the door.

Good Luck!