Resume Advice Need Please.

Resume Advice Needed Please*

I've been trying to land a help desk job and have been submitting my application/resume out to tons of companies with no callbacks. I've worked as a help desk intern at the community college that I went to for almost a year, but it doesn't seem like that is helping when applying for these jobs. I think it's mostly because my resume sucks and isn't displaying my skills, experience, and knowledge well. I would greatly appreciate it if you guys could take a look at my resume and offer me some advice.

Bob Smith(555) 555 * 5555email@email.com

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
A team*oriented, hard worker who learns quickly and is able to adapt to new environments and situations. Enthusiastic about learningand gaining hands on experience with new technology. Analytical mind with great troubleshooting skills. Team oriented with someexperience in leading a team. Has experience in troubleshooting computer problems and providing excellent customer service whileworking with clients.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Kmart Pricing Specialist(July 2015 * Current)
● Help to ensure pricing accuracy for the entire store.
● Work as part of a team to accomplish weekly pricing tasks.
● Provide exceptional customer service to Kmart customers on a day to day basis.
● Experience providing customer service over the phone.

Clover Park Technical College Helpdesk(August 2014 * May 2015)
● Worked as part of a team to provide IT services to the whole college campus.
● Responsible for troubleshooting computer problems and networking problems.
● Performed proper escalation procedures when when necessary.
● Used customer service skills when assisting teachers and students with computer problems.
● Helped maintain accurate inventory records for campus computers.
● Responsible for tearing down, moving, and setting up computers in multiple classrooms.
● Team leader for various projects including computer moves, troubleshooting, updates and software installs.
● Basic networking experience including setting up wireless access points across campus, resolving networkcongestion issues and resolving network connectivity issues.
● Experience with imaging machines and deploying images to classroom computers.

Workforce Central(Summer 2010)
● Performed general maintenance at multiple sites.
● Used customer service skills while going door to door to promote events.
● Responsible for making sites look presentable to the public.

CERTIFICATIONS
● CompTIA Security+ | CE

EDUCATION
Hidden College
● Computer Networking and Information Systems Security Associates Degree
● Phi Theta Kappa Member
● Presidential Award Recipient 2014
● Graduated with Honors
● GPA: 3.89

Hidden High School
● Class of 2012

REFERENCES
●Reference #1
●Reference #2
●Reference #3

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Comments

dustervoice

If you need more peeps looking at the resume, post it as plain text. i'm paranoid and wont open a pdf from an untrusted source even though i have javascript turned off in adobe.

OctalDump

Your resume seems short. Don't be afraid to cram in experience. I assume you are looking for IT jobs, but it is light on details for why you would make a good IT person, what your IT experience is etc. Flesh out the details about your studies. Do you have other certifications? What are you currently reading (this is controversial, but I think shows ongoing learning)?

Think about what skills/knowledge/experience you have, and how that would relate to the jobs you are looking for. For example, if you are looking at helpdesk roles, you would talk about experience in customer service, dealing with difficult people, problem solving, customer satisfaction, along with your technical skills troubleshooting common computer issues (printing, network, MS Office etc). If you are looking at network roles, analytical problem solving, planning, working within structure, as part of a team etc. If you are after security roles, then it is breadth of experience, things that you have actually done whether for fun or profit.

One way to get the wording right, is to look at job listings and use their language and buzzwords.

Also, the language is a little indirect. There's nothing wrong with saying "I provided excellent customer service". It's even better if you can make concrete statements "My exceptional customer service skills were recognised by management, awarding me the customer service medal 3 months running" or "I improved efficiency in my role by simple process changes, leading to a 30% increase in productivity".

At the end of the day, your resume needs to be convincing them why you are a great person to employ. The person at the other end is sometimes an idiot and needs you to lead them, step by step, explaining how everything you list makes you good for the job.

CertifiedMonkey

dustervoice wrote: »

If you need more peeps looking at the resume, post it as plain text. i'm paranoid and wont open a pdf from an untrusted source even though i have javascript turned off in adobe.

Understood

. Copied and pasted it into the thread.

Thanks for your advice Octal ****. Do you think that a professional summary is necessary? I've heard mixed things about it. Also, should I leave out experience that isn't relevant to the position like the Workforce Central job?

bpenn

Credit to user Srabiee, this post should be all you need to perfect your resume.

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/113891-resume-writing-resources.html

OctalDump

The one big thing about resumes is that there is no magic bullet, sure fire, guaranteed resume. However you write the resume, there will be someone who is turned off by it. People will make (poor) judgements based on silly things like font size, or the order you put things in, or a single typo. But let's face it, it's a pretty crude way to hire people.

One way around it, is to reflect the language of the job listing back to the company. If you want to dive deeper, you can read resources on their website and figure out how they talk about themselves.

For the professional summary, specifics sell better than generalities. I think you've done reasonably well. Drop the "some experience" and just say "experience". Maybe write it a bit more naturally, or use bullet points. Also, tailor it to the job.

In your Professional experience, you want to tie the bits in the professional summary to the jobs. Again, it's about emphasising the bits that are relevant to the role.

You can expand out to two pages (if you can) and not need to worry too much about it being too long. That should give you scope to throw in some more details of skills and knowledge. I'd especially expand on your Associates Degree - what specifically did you learn? What do you have hands on with? There's a lot of variety between degrees, and employers won't know what exactly you studied or how it is relevant to them. You need to spoon feed a bit.

totallyjaded

I go through lots of resumes. Hopefully this is helpful.

It might look harsh, but please don't take it personally. I'm just trying to convey what I'd be thinking if I was considering you for a position on my team:

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
A team*oriented so what?, hard worker as opposed to "slacker"? who learns quickly and is able to adapt to new environments and situations. Enthusiastic about learningand gaining hands on experience with new technology.nice Analytical mind with great troubleshooting skills quantify this. Team oriented again? with someexperience in leading a team drop "some" and make it more prominent in your experience. Has experience in troubleshooting computer problems and providing excellent customer service whileworking with clients. vague and meaningless

If you're going to have a professional summary in your resume, it needs to be relevant. What did you do that will help me and my team? How did you do it?

Compare:
Has experience in troubleshooting computer problems...
Provided Windows 7 and MacOS 10.x desktop support for over three years...

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Kmart Pricing Specialist(July 2015 * Current)
● Help to ensure pricing accuracy for the entire store.
● Work as part of a team to accomplish weekly pricing tasks.
● Provide exceptional customer service to Kmart customers on a day to day basis.
● Experience providing customer service over the phone.

That should be closer to the top. For a helpdesk position, that's the most relevant skill from your last job.

You've added teamwork again, which is making me think that you've been reprimanded for not getting along with others.

There should be a "how" that tells me what you did that was so exceptional, unless you're backing it with an award.
(By the way, the chances of anyone calling your employer to verify your Exceptional Customer Service Award are nil.)

Clover Park Technical College Helpdesk(August 2014 * May 2015)
● Worked as part of a team to provide IT services to the whole college campus.
● Responsible for troubleshooting computer problems and networking problems.
● Performed proper escalation procedures when when necessary.
● Used customer service skills when assisting teachers and students with computer problems.
● Helped maintain accurate inventory records for campus computers.
● Responsible for tearing down, moving, and setting up computers in multiple classrooms.
● Team leader for various projects including computer moves, troubleshooting, updates and software installs.
● Basic networking experience including setting up wireless access points across campus, resolving networkcongestion issues and resolving network connectivity issues.
● Experience with imaging machines and deploying images to classroom computers.

Just noticed... company and title should be broken up somehow. Company - Title works if you don't want to go two lines.

More "team". Really, it's having the opposite effect you're going for.

Describe the problems. Windows problems? Printer problems? Ethernet cable unplugged, or rebuilding a router?

Escalating properly is not an accomplishment.

What skills? Did you diffuse hostile situations? Were the teachers particularly non-technical?

This list is almost backwards. Team leader should be top, Networking experience (remove "basic") should be next, then imaging systems, etc.

Workforce Central(Summer 2010)
● Performed general maintenance at multiple sites.
● Used customer service skills while going door to door to promote events.
● Responsible for making sites look presentable to the public.

I genuinely have no idea what this is supposed to convey. For all I know, you went door-to-door inviting people to a church revival, and you had to make sure the tents weren't dirty. Or, you were landscaping. Or, you were doing door-to-door sales.

You can probably delete this.

CERTIFICATIONS
● CompTIA Security+ | CE

EDUCATION
Hidden College
● Computer Networking and Information Systems Security Associates Degree
● Phi Theta Kappa Member
● Presidential Award Recipient 2014
● Graduated with Honors
● GPA: 3.89

Degree first, then major.

Hidden High School
● Class of 2012

No.

You have a relevant degree. There's no need to include your high school, and putting the date on it invites employers to make some negative assumptions (e.g. you're still living with your parents and will accept a very low wage).

REFERENCES
●Reference #1
●Reference #2
●Reference #3

Typically, I wouldn't list references. If an employer wants them, they'll ask. And when they ask, you know how far you are in the process. But, on a resume where you may need to fill some space, it doesn't hurt.